U.S. business magazine Forbes has recognized nine Ukrainians as the most successful people under the age of 30 in Europe.
The Ukrainians featured in Forbes’s 10th annual list of the 30 most successful people in Europe under 30 in categories like Social Impact, Art, Technology and Finance.
In 2020, the list featured five Ukrainians. To get into the list, young stars from 34 European countries answered nearly 100 questions that were then verified by independent experts.
“The world has changed dramatically, but one thing has not: our history of spotting young innovators on the verge of making it big,” Forbes said.
Technology
Cofounders of tech startup Reface Yaroslav Boiko, Roman Mogylnyi, and Denis Dmitrenko — all 29 years old.
Ukraine-founded startup Reface has become a real success story. Reface developed an app that allows users to try on the faces of celebrities in videos and make them look like their own.
The technology has gone viral worldwide and, for a few weeks, Reface even outperformed popular online platforms TikTok and Instagram in the U.S. App Store, getting more downloads than these tech giants.
Celebrities like Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Elon Musk have used the app and posted funny pictures and videos on their social media.
In December, Reface attracted $5.5 million from Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz and is now valued at $20-60 million, according to Forbes.
“For us, this award is about the team and four other founders, who weren’t listed due to age limitation but who are real rock stars and change-makers in their 30s,” Roman Mogylnyi, cofounder and the former chief executive of Reface, told the Kyiv Post.
“I still got this feeling — it’s just the beginning. More awards for Reface is yet to come.”
Cofounders of Ukraine’s startup Flawless App Ahmed Suleiman, 25, and Lisa Dziuba, 29.
These techies have designed software that is used by Uber, Disney, eBay, Nike and Spotify. Called Flawless App, it allows designers and developers to track how the design of a mobile app changes while they develop it.
Nearly 17,000 programmers from big-name companies have already used Flawless App. With its tech, they can spot visual bugs and polish designs more quickly.
Now the startup belongs to U.S. company Abstract, a platform for product designers. It acquired the Ukrainian startup in February 2020 but didn’t disclose the value of the acquisition.
Dziuba told the Kyiv Post that she became the first woman entrepreneur ever to sell her tech startup in Ukraine. “Forbes 30-under-30 success list is a great achievement and a social recognition, backed by a substantial amount of work over the last five years,” she said.
Founder of tech startup A-LabInsider Inna Zaimenko, 29.
Now based in Berlin, Zaimenko has created an app that makes finding scientific information in European laboratories easier.
When Zaimenko studied for her Master’s degree at Heidelberg University and German Cancer Research Center, it was difficult for her to go through the literature to find the lab she would like to learn from.
That is why she created A-LabInsider that now works with nearly 50,000 labs in 33 countries.
When Zaimenko started her startup, she didn’t have much experience in operating the business. “There’s something in being young and having no such project before, believing you can do everything you want,” she wrote in the company’s blog.
Art
Cofounder of art startup Musemio Olga Kravchenko, 26.
Entrepreneur Olga Kravchenko and her British colleague Kaitlin Fritz have created a mobile app that helps children learn history and art.
With the help of a virtual reality headset, Musemio allows children to visit museums and explore ancient worlds from the comfort of their homes.
Kravchenko came up with the idea to create an ed-tech startup when she visited her favorite museum exhibition with a younger brother. He didn’t seem to be interested and just played games on his phone.
Acknowledging that children’s learning styles are changing, Kravchenko created an app that allows them to study and play at the same time.
Social impact
Founder of first aid training program Fast Fedir Serdiuk, 25.
With Serdiuk’s program, businesses can learn how to give first aid, what to do during fires and how to protect their workers from infectious diseases.
Ukraine’s big-name businesses like Metinvest, Kyivstar, Kernel, Lenovo and Pepsico are among his “students.”
In 2014, Serdiuk quit university to join the Red Cross Rescue Team during the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych.
“The European ’30’ is a big honor for me,” Serdiuk said on Facebook. “Everything I did in the past seven years was devoted to one thing — to save lives.”
The fact that Forbes chose him among hundreds of candidates means that “safety has never been as important as today,” Serdiuk said.
Finance
Founder of tech company EZ Blockchain LLC Sergey Gerasymovych, 29.
Gerasymovych helps oil and gas producers turn gaseous waste products like methane into energy to mine cryptocurrency.
His company manufactures transportable data centers that can convert waste gas, which would otherwise be flared off, into energy. The data centers are used by energy companies, primarily in North America.
The company also aims to help the environment by finding another usage for waste gas that is responsible for nearly 1% of global carbon emissions.
Today, Gerasymovych has three offices: in Chicago, Los Angeles and Estonia.
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