Valery Tsepkalo

On May 8, 2020, Tsepkalo announced his candidacy for Belarus presidency.

In 2020, soon after his candidacy announcement, Tsepkalo was interviewed by Dev.by. Later he called back his words and sent a cut and edited version, adding the written prohibition to publish the original interview.

In 2018 Tsepkalo introduced his new project ‘Prabook.com’, a biographical database, designed to ensure ‘digital immortality’. It claimed to create personal profiles, accumulating images and texts from open sources, chosen by the developers. In fact, the profiles tend to disclose personal data from sealed sources and violate copyrights. For copying data from Wikipedia, Prabook was included in Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks list. After the Prabook’s launch, it was revealed that Tsepkalo was employing the HTP personnel to work on his private project.

As the director of the HTP, Tsepkalo used his position to influence on Belarusian media and threatened to expel resident companies from the HTP for collaboration with dev.by. Several times he promised ‘certain troubles’ to Yuri Zisser and TUT.by authors.

On March 2, 2017, Tsepkalo was released by presidential decree from the director’s post at the HTP. Since 2005 the HTP rose to 237 companies with total annual export over $1 bln. However, market players noted the lack of product IT companies and the prevalence of outsource developers. Tsepkalo was also criticized for his counterproductive selectivity of the HTP residents. After his resignation, only in 2018 the Park accepted more than 200 new residents.

To finance the campaign he sold his 418.3 m² house on leaseback terms, actually never stopping to use it. The property has already been given media attention — first the land was exclusively rented for 231 roubles per year, then the developer turned out to be one of the HTP contractors, disclosing the conflict of interests.

Upon leaving the diplomatic career, from 2004 Tsepkalo engaged in the creation of the Belarusian Silicon Valley. As a result of the active lobby on September 22, 2005, the presidential order №12 ‘On Technology Park’ was released, securing benefits for IT-companies. The extraterrestrial High Technologies Park (HTP) was launched in 2005 under Tsepkalo’s lead.

After finishing the diplomatic career, he was appointed Assistant to the President of Belarus (on science and technologies). In 2004 he initiated the establishment of the Hi-Tech Park.

The idea to establish the Belarusian Silicon Valley was first offered by the president Alexander Lukashenko in 2003 and was further developed in 2004 by Valery Tsepkalo and Mikhail Myasnikovich.

From 1997 to 2002 he served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the United States of America and the United Mexican States (concurrently).

In 1994 he was appointed First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus.

He started his diplomatic career in 1991 in the USSR Embassy in Finland. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union he decided to return to Minsk, and in 1992 he took a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus. In 1993—1994 he served as foreign policy adviser to the Chairman of the Parliament of Belarus. Later he became an adviser to the Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Valery Tsepkalo (Russian: Валерий Цепкало; born 22 February 1965) is a Belarusian diplomat and executive, one of the initiators and lead creator of Belarus Hi-Tech Park. From 1997 to 2002 he served as Ambassador to the United States of America and to the United Mexican States, and from 2005 to 2017 he headed Belarus Hi-Tech Park which became the largest IT cluster in Central and Eastern Europe over that period. He also served as a governmental expert to the UN Secretary General in the field of information and communication technologies. Valery Tsepkalo has a Doctor degree in International Law, as well as a rank of Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary.

Valery Tsepkalo was born in Grodno on 22 February 1965 to a family of chemical engineers. He graduated from Grodno secondary school No.14 with advanced program in English. In 1982 he entered the Belarusian Technological Institute (currently the Belarusian National Technical University) in Minsk where he studied till 1984. In 1984—1986 he underwent compulsory military training in the USSR Strategic Missile Forces. After that, he studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and graduated with honors in 1991. He pursued a postgraduate program there, graduated with honors as well, lectured, and got his PhD degree in International Law.