The Kyiv Post on Dec. 10 announced the winners of the 2019 Top 30 Under 30 award, an annual prize that celebrates young Ukrainian leaders. The award ceremony took place at the newspaper’s annual Tiger Conference on Dec. 10 at Unit City in Kyiv.
Top 30 Under 30 is awarded to young Ukrainians achieving outstanding results in different fields. The award was established in 2016. Since then, 30 young Ukrainians have received it every year. The list of 2019 winners, picked by the Kyiv Post staff and past winners, includes teachers, scientists, human rights activists, politicians, startup founders, show business stars and high-achievers in other fields.
MEET THE 2019 WINNERS:
Nariman Aliyev, 26
Film director
At 26, Nariman Aliyev has accomplished great things as a filmmaker. His directorial debut “Homeward,” which follows a Crimean Tatar family in modern Ukraine whose oldest son is killed in war, has received numerous awards since premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May and was selected by the Ukrainian Oscar Committee as its submission for Best International Feature Film for the 92nd Academy Awards. It is a deeply personal movie for Aliyev that reflects the experiences of his family on the Crimean peninsula since Russia’s invasion in 2014.
Maria Artemenko, 28
Communications expert
Maria Artemenko was a junior partner at Gres Todorchuk PR, one of Kyiv’s top PR agencies. Since 2018, she shifted her focus to charity. She is involved in three non-profits: Dobrodiy (Benefactor) Club, which provides career consulting for children in orphanages and Charity Center Ukraine which she found, while also initiated Giving Tuesday, an annual program encouraging Ukrainians to donate and volunteer on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Artemenko defines the projects as ‘effective charity’ that she hopes will popularize the culture of charitable giving in Ukraine.
Roman Bagayev, 29
Military officer
Roman Bagayev graduated from a military college and later enrolled at the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute with plans to pursue a civilian career. But when the war in Donbas broke out, he was commissioned as a deputy company leader with the 51st Mechanized Infantry Brigade and proved to be an exceptionally talented commander. In 2016 and 2017, Bagayev and his men were recognized as the best performing tank platoon of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Bagayev’s combat unit is now deployed in the war zone of Donbas.
Daria Bilodid, 19
Judoka
Daria Bilodid established herself as a household name in Ukraine in 2017, when at the age of 16 she unexpectedly won the European Judo Championship. A year later, just a month shy of her 18th birthday, Bilodid became the youngest judo world champion. Today, Bilodid trains for five hours a day, six days a week, with all her attention on the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, where she hopes to take home the last professional accolade she has yet to achieve — Olympic gold.
Sofia Cheliak, 22
Cultural manager
Even though Sofia Cheliak has been a bookworm since childhood, she decided to quit her studies at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv in 2016. Driven by her passion for reading, she became the director of program management at the Lviv Book Fair, one of the largest literature festivals in Eastern Europe. Now Cheliak has represented Ukraine at book fairs across Europe, though her goal remains to ignite a love of literature among Ukrainians, with an eye toward policymaking once she eventually completes her university degree.
Oleksandr Cherkas, 26
Teacher of Ukrainian language, literature and computer science
As a schoolboy, Oleksandr Cherkas didn’t like one of his teachers, who beat children and knew little about the subjects she taught. Cherkas hated her so much that he decided to become a teacher himself. He wanted to show how a real professional should act. Now 26, Cherkas teaches the Ukrainian language, literature and computer science, giving his students something he didn’t have – attention and love.
Oksana Drakhan, 29
Violinist, music teacher
Oksana Drahan is a music teacher and a great admirer of her hometown Hnizdychiv. There, she opened and now heads a music school, which local children adore. Drahan built this school from scratch in an abandoned town council building, and it now has 13 teachers and 90 students. At 29 years old, Drahan has become a local leader who changes the community around her for the better.
Yuriy Dvizhon, 26
Film and music video director, LGBTQ activist
Yuriy Dvizhon is a film and music video director. His first music video came out right after he finished school. Later, he directed videos for legendary pop singer Iryna Bilyk. Now Dvizhon is 26 and he has already made more than 30 music videos, including for local musicians like Pianoboy, Khrystyna Soloviy, and Jerry Heil. Apart from that, Dvizhon uses his voice and filmmaking skills to advocate for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine.
Valeria Egoshyna, 29
Investigative journalist
As a child, Valeriya Egoshyna dreamed of becoming a spy. Instead, she has become an investigative journalist who exposes spies. Egoshyna works at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative show. And even though it isn’t easy to be a journalist in Ukraine, at the age of 28, Egoshyna has published numerous investigations, exposing large-scale corruption in the country.
Mykhailo Fedorov, 28
Minister of digital transformation
At the age of 28, Mykhailo Fedorov is the youngest minister in Ukraine’s history. Ambitious and determined, Fedorov is one of the key figures in the current government. He is a deputy prime minister and minister of digital transformation who works to turn Ukraine into a tech nation. Coming to office as the youngest minister, Fedorov hopes he can leave it as the most efficient one.
Valentyn Frechka, 18
Inventor and biotechnologist, founder of Re-leaf Paper project
18-year-old Valentyn Frechka has reinvented paper. The Ukrainian found a way to produce paper sheets out of fallen tree leaves. Now he is working with the Zhytomyr Cardboard Factory to implement a technology that he calls Re-leaf Paper. His dream is to develop Re-leaf Paper into a successful company and start a charity fund.
Ivan Frolov, 26
Fashion designer
Ivan Frolov has put together an amazing portfolio by the age of 26. He is a constant participant of Ukrainian Fashion Week and the holder of several Best Fashion Awards in different categories. The U.S. star Gwen Stefani and British pop diva Dua Lipa were spotted wearing clothes by Frolov. His success is the result of his diligence and his passion for fashion.
Max Frolov, 26
Tech entrepreneur, scientist
26-year-old Max Frolov is an entrepreneur, who helps put Ukraine on the map as one of the leading tech and science countries in the world. His company DataRoot Labs is helping develop a virtual artificial intelligence friend for lonely people and a personal coaching platform for amateur athletes. Additionally, Frolov has created a free university-level program that now allows thousands of bright tech and science students to get a full education in data science, changing their lives.
Lesya Ivanova, 29
Investigative journalist
Lesya Ivanova is an investigative journalist with Bihus.Info. She has broken many important stories — several about corruption in Ukraine’s defense sector. She is the author of the bombshell investigations that implicated the son of top defense official Oleh Hladkovsky in corruption on a major scale.
Olga Kharasakhal, 18
Inventor, scientist and future oncologist
Olga Kharasakhal is only 18 years old, but she has already invented a new method of detecting melanoma, a skin cancer, that allows doctors to treat it in the earliest stage. The invention has become a breakthrough and brought Olga recognition globally. Now she is studying to be a doctor and wants to contribute to the world’s fight against cancer.
Viktoria Luchka, 27
Founder of the Accessible Cinema initiative
Viktoriya Luchka is working to make movie theaters accessible to people with visual or hearing impairment. She co-founded the Accessible Cinema initiative, which introduced a phone app where anyone can access audio descriptions and subtitles for films they are about to see.
Kateryna Lykhohliad, 28
Investigative journalist
At just 28 years old, Kateryna Lykhohliad has influence far beyond her years. That’s because she’s a journalist at Slidstvo.info, one of Ukraine’s leading investigative media outlets. Her work has taken viewers and readers inside the country’s brutal and notoriously corrupt prison system and shed light on some of the most shocking tragedies Ukraine has seen in recent years. She says that the aim of her work is “to make others do their job well.”
Pavlo Medyna, 28
Founder of Youth Resource Center “New Wings”
When Pavlo Medyna was a college student, he realized that if there is something you want to change, you have to change it yourself. That was exactly his mindset when he founded the youth resource center “New Wings” in Novovolynsk. It’s a space where young people can gather for social activities or to work on ideas for social enterprises they can implement themselves. Since New Wings, Medyna has created several similar spaces, including Mystetsky Dvor at the Novovolynsk Electromechanical College campus and SELO HUB in Lezhintsa village. Medyna is now the deputy chairman of the youth council at the Volyn Regional State Administration, where he will be developing programs for the region’s youth until 2025.
Kateryna Mykhalko, 18
Entrepreneur
Kateryna Mykhalko founded her own business at 16, when she and two partners started Nuka, creating an eternal notebook resistant to water, tearing and other physical damage. Within two years, her startup was an international success and now Mykhalko is aiming to pass her knowledge onto other youth, teaching leaders of Generation Z in small towns across Ukraine to run their own businesses with her new venture, Project.Mova.
Roman Nabozhnyak, 29
Co-founder of Veterano Brownie
After his experience as a participant in the EuroMaidan revolution in 2014, Roman Nabozhnyak says he felt it was his duty to defend his country when Russia invaded Ukraine. He signed up as a volunteer soldier, spending 14 months in eastern Ukraine, including 10 months on the front line. After the army, Nabozhnyak took up baking brownies to cope with stress and later teamed up with the Veterano group to build a business from his passion. Now Nabozhnyak runs Veterano Brownie, a bakery and cafe in Kyiv which employs veterans and internally displaced persons from Donbas and Crimea, with plans to open more locations in different cities around Ukraine.
Anna Novosad, 29
Minister of education and science
Anna Novosad entered her first job at Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science in 2014, fresh out of graduate school. Less than six years later, she took the helm of the ministry, aiming to reshape the post-Soviet education system to meet the demands of the modern world. Novosad is one of the two youngest ministers in the government and leads The New Ukrainian School, an ambitious 12-year reform launched in 2017 that tackles long-standing textbook shortages, low salaries for teachers, poor facilities and outdated equipment and plans to make the gender gap in education an additional focus of her work.
Zoya Ovsiy, 25
Sportswoman, para-athlete in club and disc throwing
For Zoya Ovsiy, sports means everything. Born with no legs and missing a few fingers on her hands, Ovsiy was abandoned as a baby and spent many years in an orphanage in Dnipro. But hard times didn’t break her, they only made her stronger. Today Ovsiy is a successful Paralympic athlete at club and disc throwing and the only Ukrainian who competes in club throwing at international competitions. This year at the World Para Athletics Championship, Ovsiy set a new world record in the sport, bringing home a gold medal.
Alina Pash, 26
Singer
At 26, Alina Pash is a rising star of the Ukrainian music scene. She boldly mixes hip hop with folk motifs and has millions of views on YouTube. This year, she performed at the Independence Day celebration in Kyiv. She also says that “music has no rules.”
Maksym Petruk, 27
Tech entrepreneur, CEO WeSoftYou
Maksym Petruk was once selling DVD discs and working at construction sites. Today, he owns an IT company with an array of international clients and splits his time between Ukraine and Silicon Valley. Financial services company Payoneer named him the Innovator of the Year in 2019.
Alyona Savranenko (Alyona Alyona), 28
Rapper
One year ago, Alyona Savranenko worked at a kindergarten. Today, she is one of the most recognized musicians in Ukraine, known under her stage name Alyona Alyona. Earlier this year, she released her first album, Pushka (Пушка). In September, she won the German Anchor Award as the best emerging artist of the year.
Iryna Shyba, 27
Lawyer
Iryna Shyba is the executive director of a legal think-tank called the DEJURE Foundation. In this role, she has a Herculean task — she’s helping to reform Ukraine’s judiciary by cleaning it of corrupt judges.
Natalka Sosnytska, 28
Coordinator at Druzi creative free space
Natalka Sosnytska has a dream: She wants to give a second life to Kostiantynivka, her hometown in Donetsk Oblast. She started by opening Druzi, a creative space in Kostiantynivka, where she holds events aimed at the revival of the city. She says the center is “helping people to break their internal barriers, find opportunities and use them.”
Maksym Studilko, 29
Civil society leader
When he was only 15, Maksym Studilko co-founded a human rights organization, Spring of Hope, in his hometown of Vinnytsia. For more than 10 years, it has been helping migrants and victims of human trafficking, and in 2014 it became one of the first organizations to assist Ukrainians displaced from Crimea and the conflict-torn regions in eastern Ukraine. In 2018, it opened a shelter for women affected by domestic violence. Now, Studilko works to strengthen civil society in Ukraine.
Lidiya Terpel, 27
IT entrepreneur
Lidiya Terpel, a 27-year-old IT prodigy and the founder and CEO at Skyworker, has already taken her teams and her tech projects to great places. She sees Ukraine as a place of innovation, creation and opportunity. We agree with her. She has represented Ukrainian IT at an international level, and continues to do so, while having plenty of fun too. Lidiya says we have to grab life by the horns, seize every opportunity and leap out of our comfort zones.
Oleksandr Zinchenko, 22
Soccer player
Oleksandr Zinchenko is among the world’s best young soccer players. Before an injury in mid-October, he was a starting left wing-back for Manchester City, the defending champions of the English Premier League. Zinchenko is also a leading player for Ukraine’s national soccer team, helping the team qualify for the 2020 European Championship.
Photos by Veronika Strashko, AFP, 14th Mechanized Infantry Brigade/Ukrainian Armed Forces, mon.gov.ua, Iryna Mysiura, National Paralympic Committee of Ukraine, Alex Dobrev, Anatolii Riepin/Ukrainian Association of Football.
See also: Meet the winners of Top 30 Under 30 of 2018
