IT Association
of Slovakia (ITAS)

The largest professional association of ICT companies in Slovakia

Our mission & visionOur mission & vision Our activitiesOur activities People in ITASPeople in ITAS MembersMembers Contact usContact us

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Our mission

Our vision

We want to make the business easier for ICT companies and move the industry towards a dynamic growth.

We are a cooperating platform of Slovak ICT leaders striving to create an innovative business environment.

Our Activities

Legislation & Member Protection

Law & Regulation

We form, communicate and assert professional standpoints on relevant regulations and legislative standards which affect ICT industry.
Primary motivation of our legislative activities is taking into the account the business goals and objectives of ICT companies.
We organize special meetings of ITAS legal experts and thematic meetings on particularly important laws, regulations or guidelines concerning the ICT sector.
We regularly inform our members about our legislative activities.

Activities in European legislation

We monitor activities in European ICT legislation, addressing topics such as ePrivacy, GDPR, but also increasingly important environmental issues and their impact on the functioning of the ICT sector.

Protection against bureaucracy and political wilfulness

We are a respected organization; our comments are taken with the utmost seriousness by the relevant state authorities. Therefore, we can achieve our goals in creating a transparent, non-discriminatory and nonbureaucratic market environment for our members‘ business activities.
Thanks to our legislative initiative and in cooperation with our subsidiary Slovak Electronic Waste Agency (SEWA), we managed to reduce fees in the Recycling Fund from € 1.8 per kg of imported goods to € 0.15 per kg. These fees are currently the lowest in Central Europe. We have stopped regular inspections, bullying and the risk of huge fines of up to € 100,000, which were threatening the importers and distributors.
We have managed to reduce royalties for specific imported goods, as well as the number of items for which royalties are to be paid (from the previous 50 items to around 25).
We have fought successfully to reduce the amount of royalties from the price of imported goods (from 3 % to 0.7 % on average). If not for us, electronics distributors and importers would still be heavily challenged by collecting authorities and threatened by fines of up to € 250,000.

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Public Sector Digitization

Communication with the state

We represent ICT companies in negotiations with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Investment and Informatization, Office for Public Procurement, the Value for Money Unit, National Security Authority, the Implementation Unit at the Government Office, the Operational Programme Integrated Infrastructure (OPII) Managing Authority in the Ministry of Economy, Association of Towns and Communities of Slovakia, Union of Towns and Cities of Slovakia and all ministries and their subordinate organizations.
We represent ICT companies in negotiations with nonprofit organizations (Slovensko.Digital, Slovak Information Society, Partnerships for Prosperity and others), as well as in all relevant commissions.

eGovernment events monitoring

We regularly inform our members about upcoming or ongoing public hearings, feasibility studies of public IT projects and public procurements.
We provide regular information on the work of the committees, working groups and monitoring committees in which our experts are involved.

eGovernment strategy co–creation

We have been involved in the preparation, commenting and finalization of important strategic government documents: National Concept of Public Administration Informatics, Human Resources Management Concept, Ethical, Transparent and Responsible IT, Government Procurement Concept, Government Cloud, Reference Architecture and many others.
We have introduced our own strategic document: Vision of eGovernment – Better Digital Slovakia 2021 – 2030.
We are preparing for the 2021 – 2027 EU Programme Period.

Public procurement professionalization

We are active in the field of public procurement and development of important strategies; our experts have prepared several methodological documents in this area.
We promote best–practice solutions to improve public procurement of IT projects; we have gained political and expert support for procurement based on design competition or procurement of operating contracts.
We deal professionally and constructively with issues related to vendor lock–in status or copyright; we participate in the preparation of model contracts in order to improve the quality of procurement in Slovakia.
We are increasing the transparency of public procurement from the perspective of suppliers; we advocate adherence to ethical standards in the business of the IT companies with the state.
We bring expertise to eGovernment.
We discuss feasibility studies and important projects directly with specific public authorities.
We support the system of professional management of IT through participation in commissions and working groups to improve the coordination of the eGovernment programme.
We support progressive concepts like Hybrid Government Cloud, Mobile eID, etc.
We develop activities related to speeding up and streamlining the drawdown of European Structural Funds (from launching a project call to its approval; promoting demand–oriented projects as a new tool in the field of informatization).

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Private Sector Digitization

We connect industrial companies with the IT sector

We organize professional meetings, hackathons, conferences and workshops with industrial and manufacturing companies and associations.
We are actively looking for new business opportunities for the IT sector in industry, manufacturing or banking.
We promote ICT solutions in manufacturing industry.

Support of the digital transformation of the Slovak industry

We organize and moderate a professional platform bringing together experienced IT professionals and industry leaders.
We are developing activities on the collaborative production portal Spolupracuj.me, based on neural network technology designed to match supply and demand.
We are the initiator and one of the founding subjects of Slovak.AI – Slovak Centre for Artificial Intelligence.
We are preparing the foundation of the Digital Innovation Hub in Slovakia.
We support research and development activities of ICT companies.
Together with other business associations, we are developing initiatives to improve the environment for research, development and innovation.

Disruptive technologies support

We support FinTech ecosystems, start-ups and a shared economy.
We promote innovation with the aim of developing the digital economy, especially in new spheres such as Internet-of-Things, modern mobile IT services, Big Data, Cloud, Smarthomes, Smartbuildings, SmartCities.
Through operational programmes and state aid, we promote support and investment in applied research in the ICT sector.

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We represent the Slovak IT sector abroad

We strengthen the international cooperation of the Slovak ICT sector within the EU but also in third countries.
We are a member of Europe‘s largest association of IT companies and associations – Digital.Europe. We cooperate with Business.Europe and also with Business at OECD.
We facilitate contacts with international research consortia.

Education & Labour Market

Pushing for a comprehensive reform of the education system

We ensure the continuous and active work of the ITAS Education Commission, in which representatives of educational institutions and the IT&T Sectoral Council are represented.
We are actively putting pressure on state institutions to ensure the sustainability of the Alliance of Sectoral Councils as an essential factor in the development of employment and education policies in Slovakia. We are actively involved in the management of the IT&T Sectoral Board.

Digital Coalition

We have 83 entities in the Digital Coalition - the National Coalition for Digital Skills and Occupations of the Slovak republic. Members include representatives from business, academic, state and non-profit sectors.
We support partnerships between schools and companies, linking the activities of the state and the private sector.
We motivate girls to study IT

Getting the Slovak workforce ready for digital transformation

We are putting pressure on political structures to address the serious problem of the lack of ICT specialists in the labour market.
We meet the needs of ICT employers and communicate information on labour market needs to relevant government and public entities.

Development of the secondary vocational education

We develop fields of study in secondary vocational education.
We cooperate with all IT secondary schools and monitor the quality of IT education.
We create new computer science programs for the needs of digital transformation and new professions.
We prepare a dual education system for IT study fields.
We support activities to improve the quality of mathematics education and push to reintroduce the compulsory math graduation at grammar schools and technical vocational schools.

Cooperation with universities

We increase the attractiveness of ICT education in order to improve the professional perspectives of graduates.
We communicate with IT faculties of universities.
We motivate foreign students, especially Ukrainian students, to study IT fields in Slovakia.
We develop IT retraining programs and projects for graduates.
We introduced unique, professionally oriented bachelor‘s degree programs with a full or interdisciplinary focus on computer science, information and communication technologies.
We fight the brain drain abroad through attractive job offers and employee benefits.

We test the digital skills of students and employees

We have launched IT Fitness Test, the largest testing of skills of students in Slovakia. We have already passed 8 years of testing, involving more than 200,000 people, mostly primary and secondary school students.
In testing, we identify the greatest shortcomings and provide results to teachers and schools to improve the teaching process.
We educate public in cyber security.
We co–organize digital skills surveys of employees in small and medium-sized businesses.

National project “IT Akadémia” partnership

We are improving the quality of informatics and mathematics education at primary and secondary schools and also universities.
We educate teachers to increase their digital skills and teach them how to use modern digital technologies.

Cooperation with all relevant employer associations in Slovakia

We are one of the largest and strongest members of the National Union of Employers, we are also active in the Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia.
We intensively communicate and cooperate with industry associations. Our partners include the Automotive Industry Association of the Slovak Republic (ZAP SR), the Association of Electrical Engineering Industry (ZEP SR) and the Union of Engineering Industry of Slovakia (ZSP SR).

We acquire foreign students and IT specialists for study and work in Slovakia

We have started and coordinated a successful project of joint master‘s study programs of Slovak and Ukrainian universities with the support of our members and other companies.
We founded the non-profit organization Slovak-Ukraine Centre, which helps in the acquisition of IT students in Ukraine.
Thanks to the program Work in Slovakia – Good Idea we help with the return of Slovak IT professionals home from abroad.

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Marketing communication and PR

Our priority is business–to–business communication

ITAS‘ marketing activities are mainly aimed at employers, professional associations, government & state agencies and business partners.
We organize professional events with the possibility of networking between companies.
We develop partnerships and work together with major publishers and established partners to organize conferences, discussion panels or workshops.
We regularly inform our members about activities within ITAS (newsletter, direct mailing, social media).
We can provide our members with special offers for marketing partnerships, invitations to conferences, professional events or external media and marketing cooperation.
We have introduced a new website ITAS.sk with information about our members and news from ICT sector, we provide our members the opportunity to promote their activities and interesting projects.

External communication strengthening

We have numerous contacts in the Slovak media, we communicate proactively and professionally.
We address important media topics related to the Slovak ICT sector.
We organize media events (press conferences, briefings, public discussion panels, etc.).
We prepare media, marketing and social media campaigns on specific topics and projects.
If necessary, we provide our members with crisis communication services and communication support.

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