The BID Program in Ukraine has additional plans to expand the incubator concept to Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa. Internationally recognized local organizations with experienced staff have agreed to assist creating the incubators and in sustaining their operations after the initial funding ends. BID personnel have met with city and oblast officials as well as research institutions in both cities that have expressed an interest in the development of an incubator facility patterned after the ones in Kyiv and Kharkiv. The BID Program is participating in seminars and workshops in both cities to help prepare them to identify qualified enterpreneurs.

The BID Program has prepared and submitted to USAID a draft proposal to retrain engineers, managers and scientists in Kharkiv's impacted industrial organizations due to Ukraine's decision to not participate in providing Iran industrial turbines for use in nuclear power stations. The BID Program is proposing to re-program $300,000 to provide industrial retraining in Kharkiv. While business training is envisioned, the exact courses can be adjusted to the needs of individual workers, small businesses, and larger ones that have been impacted. We are now conducting a survey in Kharkiv to help with those choices. The BID Program will focus on the following tasks:

1. Work with the training directors of the affected companies, conduct on-site training programs to update their employees to design and produce more competitive products -and assist them in spinning off small and medium-sized enterprises (SME).

2. Expand the KharkivSBI to start-ups in addition to firms that have been in operation for a year.