Age: 20
Education: University of British Columbia, Polytechnic University of Turin
Profession: IT and aerospace entrepreneur
Did you know? Before going to university in Canada, 17-year-old Misha randomly hitchhiked across southern Europe, meeting all kinds of crazy characters such as Albanian drug dealers.
Imagine you’re a 20-year-old university student whose tech startup starts taking off internationally when you’re suddenly tapped to be CEO of a space company.
This is the life of Misha Rudominski, an engineer and entrepreneur. Born and raised in Kyiv, he helped Ukraine train novice pilots, pioneered a new wireless 4G solution for laptops and is making a new rocket to launch satellites from Ukrainian territory.
“I like to risk,” said Rudominski. “I like to see that the more effort, the more mind and intelligence I put into something, the more it comes back.”
Over the past year, Rudominski has been sinking much of his effort into his startup, Nect, which has developed a universal wireless connectivity solution for laptops. He was tired of constantly asking for the Wi-Fi password and wanted a better way.
One part universal 4G USB modem, one part secure data service, Nect’s device allows laptop users to access the internet in 113 countries and counting, without having to bother with SIM-cards. The company is growing its infrastructure through partnerships, letting its clients access almost any 4G network for a similar fee that people pay for a single local data plan.
The startup has raised $350,000 on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo and will be ready to ship its first production run in January to customers in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Japan, India, France, Germany and Ukraine.
Being preoccupied with Nect, Rudominski said he barely has time to complete his online coursework at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy. So he was in for a shock when startup Space Logistics Ukraine asked him to be its CEO in August, believing he was the best man to steer the company through growth and success.
“This is what I wanted to do for the past five-six years,” he said.
Rudominski’s love of space and aerotech began in childhood and grew in high school where he authored space-related research papers, which continued into university. In 2014, he home-built a small drone that was used to train Ukrainian military pilots. When he attended the University of British Columbia, he was part of a research team that developed reliable ways to communicate with Mars and built an airlock prototype.
“I like making things with my hands and I also like space… that’s called aerospace engineering,” he said. “But I always had an entrepreneurial mindset… I would like to become the head of a space agency or a space company.”
The Space Logistics proposal was a dream come true. After agonizing for days, he accepted.
Over the next several years, the company will make a commercial space vehicle to launch small satellites into orbit. Because of its limited size, it will be possible to launch from Ukraine — the cast-off rocket stages will fall harmlessly into the Black Sea or burn up in the atmosphere.
“We see it as a civil technology that will allow on-demand private launches of nano-satellites, which will be mostly used for scientific research, communication and screening of earth’s surface,” said Rudominski.
