Yura Lazebnikov is an investor and co-founder of WePlay Studios, a content-driven production company. He is also a co-founder of the NGO “Techiia Foundation,” which since 2018 has invested over UAH 20 million in social projects focused on the Ukrainian army, healthcare, and the development of STEM education. LinkedIn of Yura Lazebnikov: https://www…

Ivan Kaunov – co-founder of fintech company Finmap.Online, nowadays serving in the Ukrainian Army. On this podcast, he presents defense tech startup BUNTAR. Pitch deck of BUNTAR: https://docsend.com/view/wutan9rimdtvcd6k Ivan Kaunov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaunov-ivan/ On this podcast, Dominique Piotet, co-founder of the Ukrainian …

Arnaud Lumet plays a pivotal role as a Founding Board Member of the Luxembourg Ukraine Chamber of Commerce and the Tech & Innovation Lead. Arnaud's journey into the tech ecosystem began with a strong belief that Europe holds vast opportunities for Ukrainian startups. Luxembourg, despite its small size, boasts a thriving tech ecosystem with over 500…

Michael Chobanyan is the founder of the first Bitcoin agency in Eastern Europe and the CIS countries. Has more than 7 years of experience in managing Telecommunications / Internet Providers. Professionally studies Blockchain ecosystems since 2011. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chobanian/ • In March, 2014 Mr. Chobanyan founded KUNA Bitcoin Agency and …

Zoya Lytvyn is Founder of Osvitoria NGO promoting the development and education reform in Ukraine. Zoya introduced to Ukraine Global Teacher Prize Award to enhance the prestige of the teaching profession. On this podcast, Dominique Piotet, co-founder of the Ukrainian Phoenix Fund, discussed with Zoya Lytvyn resistance of the educational front in Uk…

In this episode Dominique Piotet, co-founder at Ukrainian Phoenix Fund, discussed information security in the war time in Ukraine with Dmytro Bilash, co-founder & CBDO Osavul, AI company which raised $1 million in 2023. Osavul is a Ukrainian AI company focusing on information security, countering disinformation, and information environment assessme…

Ilia Kenigshtein, Founder of Creative States, shared with Dominique Piotet history of the foundation of the workspaces extremely popular among entrepreneurs of Ukraine's capital, and golden rules for creating a vibrant ecosystem, especially in a war time. https://creativestates.net/en Creative States - the fastest-growing network of premium flexibl…

Svitlana Malovana, CEO and co-founder at Teampulse, relocated to New York City to promote the healthcare startup created from bomb shelters in Ukraine. Teampulse increases employee engagement and productivity in a hybrid work environment via gamification and wellness challenges. Launched in January 2023, the startup achieved significant milestones:…

Andrii Dligach is Doctor of Economics, Strategist, Futurologist, and Visionary. Also he is: Founder of the Board business community (1.500 Ukrainian businessmen globally) Co-founder of the Center for Economic Recovery Co-founder at Singularity University Kyiv Investor and ideologist of ecosystems and technology startups. In this conversation with D…

Andrew Pryma came back to Ukraine in 2021 after a decade of life in the USA and a successful career on Wall Street. In this frank dialogue with Dominique Piotet investor Andrew Pryma is sharing the story of foundation of a digital media UBN.news covering news about business opportunities in Ukraine in 7 languages and specific arguments for investin…

Valerii Iakovenko is Founder at Drone.UA. A medical doctor by background and a serial entrepreneur in 2013 together with a partner he established Drone.UA. Today, the Drone.UA group of companies is TOP-3 the most innovative enterprise in the agricultural sector of Ukraine according to the FORBES. And is included in the list of the TOP-20 most innov…

In February 2022, the Swiss magazine L'Illustré published an article about pre-war Ukraine and included a story about the innovation park UNIT.City Dominique Piotet was running at that moment as an example of a developing and blooming Ukraine. On the podcast Swiss photojournalist Niels Ackermann and French journalist Sébastien Gobert, both speciali…

Viroslava Novosylna, CEO & Founder PR agency SLOVA Tech PR, co-founder of the international non-profit community of women in tech Wtech, Board member at Advisory board PRCA, VC/PR Partner at TA Ventures and PR Army co-founder, TechStars Paris mentor. It's the conversation about the unstoppable Ukrainian entrepreneurial spirit, tech companies in a w…

Fedir Serdiuk (born in 1995, in Odesa, Ukraine) is an entrepreneur and co-founder of FAST / PULSE & Beta-Victory technologies. Also, he is an advisor to the Minister of Finance of Ukraine and a Board Member of the Ukrainian Startup Fund. During his career, most of the projects initiated by Fedir Serdiuk were focused on solving safety issues. Serdiu…

Alex Bornyakov is the Deputy Minister of the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation and Head of the Diia City project. The last time Dominique Piotet and Alex Bornyakov spoke on this podcast was in October 2020 https://mayak-innovatsiy.simplecast.com/episodes/mayak-innovatsiy-season3-episode2-alex-bornyakov-diia-city In this episode, Alex sha…

Alex Solovei and Ivan Kaunov are co-founders of the cash flow management platform Finmap. War time episode oh the podcast was recorded on April, 26, 2023, while Ivan Kaunov is still fighting in the war in Ukraine. Finmap was founded in 2019. At the beginning of 2021, the team was joined by Dmytro Dubilet, who is also a co-founder of monobank. In 20…

Roman Torgovitsky, Ph.D. is a Harvard-trained biomedical scientist (biostatistics/epidemiology/sleep medicine), author, TEDx speaker, medical and health disruptive innovator, philanthropist, and founder of Healing War Scars, a non-profit dedicated to helping veterans and civilians to overcome war-induced mental and physical health problems. Roman's…

This week Dominique Piotet is attending TED Conference in Vancouver, Canada. It's a global event bringing together a group of industry leaders and impactful people for unique, multi-day experiences dedicated to TED’s global mission of sharing meaningful new ideas. Today's episode is just a small and warm hello from Dominique to the friends of the p…

Maryna Pavliuk, General Manager in Ukraine & Sacha Michaud, Co-Founder at Glovo, shared with Dominique Piotet news about the company in general and amazing news on behalf of Glovo's people in Ukraine in wartime 2022-2023. Listen to the previous conversation between Dominique Piotet and Sacha Michaud recorded in March 2022: https://mayak-innovatsiy.…

Kostiantyn Tupikov is a Creative Lead at ITKey.Media, a Warsaw-based English-speaking media established in 2015 and one of not many covering stories about startups, investments, and tech innovation in Ukraine and Eastern Europe overall. Dominique Piotet discussed with Kostiantyn Tupikov the situation on the market during a full-scale invasion of ru…

Vitalii Lopushanskyi is the Founder of UADAMAGE, AI Partner, and Advisor of Team4UA by HIT. Host - Dominique Piotet, board member at UNIT.City, co-founder at Ukrainian Phoenix Fund (based in USA), co-founder at NGO Team4UA by Humanitarian Innovative Technologies (based in Lviv) & US representative of Beetroot. This episode is recorded in wartime on…

Vlad Savchenko – Ukrainian IT businessman, President of the European association of software engineering, founder of Powercode — International IT company and Foodex24 delivery service. Dominique Piotet discussed with Vlad the situation in IT market of Ukraine during wartime. https://it-ease.com/en/ MAYAK INNOVATSIY: Ukrainian Pitch is produced and …

Lesha Shaldenko, CEO at Wantent, spent 32 days in a bomb shelter in Kyiv and kept working for his company and cooperating with video production companies, OTT platforms, TV channels, and advertising agencies across the world. Wantent is a unique AI-based platform that identifies consumer reactions to the content and provides an analysis of the emot…

TechUkraine is a non-governmental organization and media platform that represents the voices of the Ukrainian tech ecosystem. In this episode, editor-in-chief of TechUkraine.org Iryna Supruniuk shared numbers of relocated Ukrainian IT specialists, news on behalf of companies helping Ukraine and its people, and a vision of how to rebuild Ukraine and…

Elon Musk, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Miley Cyrus, and many other celebrities use the Ukrainian app Reface. The Reface app is a leader in AI/ML technologies for personalized content creation and hit #1 in the App Store soon after release. Also, Reface is famous for receiving a $5.5 million investment from the Andreessen Horowitz Foundation of Ameri…

Last week Spanish online delivery platform Glovo has partially resumed operations across 20 Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, to provide essential services and give humanitarian support. Having suspended all operations on Feb. 24 after Russia invaded, Glovo restarted in a limited capacity due to an increased demand for vital services to…

Yegor Aushev, co-founder of Kyiv-based cybersecurity company Cyber Unit Technologies, together with more than 1,000 hackers is defending Ukraine from DoS attacks and helping organize a makeshift Ukrainian coalition of hackers that has carried out cyberattacks targeting Russia. You can join the cyber army of Ukraine messaging to Yegor Aushev on Link…

Bill Reichert is a venture capitalist and Partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures from Silicon Valley. He works with startups and entrepreneurs helping them to get to wow and to grow into legendary companies. Among Bill’s cases are SpaceX and Airbnb, for instance. This episode is not a regular interview. It’s a mantra for those who dare to dream big and m…

Nik Gowing is the Founder of Thinking the Unthinkable. The independent project helps leaders embrace threats and opportunities in the new era of radical uncertainty and disruption. https://www.thinkunthink.org/ Also, you may know Nik as the main presenter for the BBC’s international 24-hour news channel BBC World News 1996-2014. He presented 'The H…

Chris Burry is Co-CEO of USMAC which is helping the founders of non-US technology to build great companies that can succeed not only in their local market but in global markets as well. In the past 5 years, USMAC has worked with the founders of more than 2,000 startups from more than 40 countries, including founders in Ukraine. What is USMAC’s miss…

This time Dominique Piotet, CEO at UNIT.City, is a hero of “Інше інтерв’ю” (Different Interview), the podcast #1 in Ukraine by Volodymyr Anfimov. It’s a frank conversation about Ukraine’s image in the world, about challenges the world is facing today, and about the mindset of a rebel. The episode is available in Ukrainian: Apple Podcasts: https://a…

The world of work is changing. Artificial intelligence and automation replace a lot of jobs and create new ones. The COVID-19 crisis accelerated existing trends and caused organizations to reevaluate many aspects of work. In this episode Dominique Piotet, CEO at UNIT.City, Vadim Rogovsky, Founder at 3DLOOK, Yaroslav Azhnyuk, Founder at Petcube, Jan…

Episode # 2 (36) Season 5. Nicolas Brusson is CEO and co-founder of BlaBlaCar. BlaBlaCar is the world’s leading community-based travel network enabling over 100 million members to share a ride across 22 markets. BlaBlaCar’s environmentally and human-friendly mobility network saves 1.6M tons of CO2 and enables 120M human encounters every year. Nicol…

Episode # 1 (35) Season 5 FINMAP is a cash flow management for modern business. It's a young but already global company. On MAYAK INNOVATSIY: Ukrainian Pitch we've been talking about a way of an entrepreneur, about smart acceleration with 500 Startups and Startup Wise Guys, and about the art of dealing with money. From Ukraine to the world. https:/…

Vadim Rogovsky is CEO & Co-Founder at 3DLOOK which is transforming fashion retail and manufacturing industries by providing contactless real-time body measurements and size recommendations to end consumers. Raised money from some of the most prominent investors - 500 Startups, Boost VC, Natalia Vodianova, and received the LVMH Innovation Award. We …

Andriy Fedoriv is Founder and CEO of creative investment company FEDORIV GROUP, which include: FEDORIV AGENCY (international marketing agency), FEDORIV HUB (the next-level event platform & public multimedia space), FEDORIV VLOG (YouTube channel with 100 000+ subscribers). We were discussing what it means to be a Brand Father and creative capitalist…

Oleg Kurchenko is Founder & CEO of Binaryx Exchange, Buying, Selling, and Trading Cryptocurrencies. We were talking about trends in the crypto world, mining, hackers, tokenization of everything, NFT, and the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement. Thanks for the sound engineering of the podcast to Masterskaya.Space and especially to P…

Andreas Flodström is an entrepreneur & CEO. 9 years ago he moved from Sweden to Ukraine and co-founded the Swedish-Ukrainian IT companies Beetroot & Beetroot Academy, now totaling 500+ team members. Beetroot helps VC-funded startups and large enterprises to scale their R&D capacity, in a sustainable way. Beetroot Academy teaches intensive IT course…

This episode aims to bridge the gap between large corporations and startups and show how they collaborate. On behalf of the corporation is Mark Sawchuk, Country Manager at L'Oreal Ukraine. Startups are represented by Adam Golovenko, Founder of Supplio, a platform that integrates suppliers and beauty salons into a single system. We were talking abou…

Dasha Kichuk is CEO and Co-Founder of Effa which is creating sustainable products, aiming to replace disposable plastics around the World. Together with her husband Dasha launched Effa company to create toothbrushes made of paper. Among clients of Effa are famous hotel chains, airlines, and even Netflix. https://effabrush.com/ This episode was reco…

Mark Patchett is e-commerce Entrepreneur and Founder of Growth Shop, an international marketing agency and one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in the world. In less than 2 years, GS has grown by more than $ 1 billion. The company’s offices are based in the UK, Ukraine and Vietnam. We’ve been talking about e-commerce. How does it work? W…

Max Gurvits is a US/European entrepreneur, Chief Host at Summit Summit & Partner at Vitosha Venture Partners. Active in Europe and the Middle East as startup advisor and investor, Max is particularly focused on Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Also, Max runs TRACTION Camp, a series of three-day workshops with Silicon Valley operators, for top founde…

Daniel Szemerey co-founded and spearheads the growth of Health Venture Lab, a pan-European Healthtech accelerator with offices in Hungary, Spain and Poland. HVL covers the full pipeline, from need-based research, through early-stage product-market fit iteration, to growth-stage companies. If you want to apply, pls go: https://hvlab.eu/ We were talk…

Ivan Dorn is a singer, DJ and producer, MTV European Music Awards winner. His music combines elements of house, disco, pop, jazz, funk, UK garage, hip-hop and soul. He is a champion in ballroom dancing and sailing. He is also good in chess, tennis and football. In 2016, Ivan started Masterskaya, a music hub and an independent music label focused on…

Andrii Degeler is a journalist and podcast host based in the Netherlands. He is covering tech news since 2007 for Tech.EU, Engadget, TNW, Ars Technica UK, the Kyiv Post, and more. We’ve been talking about recent tech news, and about the perception of the Ukrainian IT-ecosystem in Europe. Thanks for the sound engineering of the podcast to Masterskay…

Yura Lazebnikov is a managing partner of esports media holding company WePlay Esports which is developing esports studios and arenas from Kyiv to Los Angeles. We discussed trends in esports, spectacular tournaments, earnings of top-ranking players, and Ukraine's advantages in terms of esports. Thanks for the sound engineering of the podcast to Mast…

Giorgi Iukuridze — co-founder of SHABO, the biggest and the most innovative winery in Ukraine. We’ve been talking about technologies in agriculture and in winemaking. What is so special about Ukrainian wine? Which technologies do help winemakers? Can we trust a robot sommelier? How did COVID change the consumption of wine? Is that true that a glass…

Alexander "ZeroGravity" Kokhanovskyy has more than 20 years of experience in the esports and the gaming industry. He is the CEO & Co-Owner of DreamTeam - the first esports and gaming recruitment and management network. He built the 2nd most popular and one of the most successful teams in the history of esports - Natus Vincere (Na`Vi) and is the Co-…

Jan Peter de Jong has over 20 years of sales and management experience in digital transformation. As a Country Manager of Microsoft in Ukraine, Jan Peter is focusing on digitization, philanthropy, education, and the overall progress of Ukraine. Jan Peter graduated with a master's in Astronomy at Leiden University in The Netherlands. Thanks to scien…

Vitaly Sych — Editor-in-Chief of the magazine “Novoye Vremya”, one of the leading media in Ukraine. We were talking about the standards of genuine journalistic, about media as a business, about fake news and social media as a massive phenomenon, about technologies such as AI behind the modern media, and its chances to compete with a human being in …