6th Zavtra.UA" Youth Forum “From Idea to Action” has ended

On May 25-27, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation held its 6^th Annual Zavtra.UA Youth Forum, entitled “From Idea to Action”. Traditionally, the event gathered this year’s winners of the Zavtra.UA nationwide scholarship program of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation – over 300 best students selected among 1 900 candidates from all over Ukraine.

One of the main objectives of this year’s Forum entitled “From Idea to Action” was to encourage talented young people to generate their own ideas and bring them to life. During three days of the Forum young Zavtra.UA scholars learned about the mechanisms of startups, and had an opportunity to test sustainability of their ideas, as well as to develop them to the stage of the business model and a prototype. This year’s partner of the Forum is EastLabs – Kyiv-based startup accelerator. Eastlabs looks for ambitious projects in the field of IT, providing them with investments, offices, mentor support, and also helps to find investors for the following stage.

The ceremony was attended by a special guest - the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine

Serhiy Arbuzov who said: “It is a celebration of the future of our country. You are young, talented, you are our future. Such initiatives are very important for our country and I want to assure you that the Government will do everything possible to continue to support them. I want to thank you all and wish you luck. Do not stop on the achieved!”.

Victor Pinchuk, founder of Zavtra.UA program: “An idea is almost everything. Unrealized idea is almost nothing. It is very important to understand. A spacecraft cannot fly into space on an idea. An idea of ​​a computer cannot be put on a table and used. In today's world, from a concept to its implementation should take a few moments. And you’ve got all you need to do that.”

Also, Michio Kaku - world-renowned theoretical physicist, visionary, best-selling author, popularizer of science, as well as the face of a number of TV programs on Discovery, BBC and Science Channel, - was a guest of the Forum, who at the invitation of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation visited Ukraine for the first time.

Michio Kaku: “You must have a person that would be a model for you. Think and dream big, be ambitious. Do not fear mistakes, because they are the key to success. Finally, never give up after the first failure, because the reward comes later. Do not follow short paths. Top values, mission, creativity, energy, youth – you have all of it! You are our future!”

The Grand Jury of the Forum, which decided upon the winning team included: founder of "Zavtra.UA" Victor Pinchuk, co-founder and chairman of the Board of Directors of the "Infest" Emotions Holding Andriy Khudo, vice president of agro-holding "MRIA" Andriy Guta, co-founder and president of «KM Core» Evgeny Utkin and people's deputy of Ukraine, co-founder of EastLabs Olga Belkova.

Among invited mentors who helped teams during all three days of the Forum were known businessmen, community leaders and founders of successful startups such as Google CEO in Ukraine Dmytro Sholomko, deputy director of ICF "Renaissance" Inna Pidluska, EastLabs partner Ken Liver, CEO of the News Front PR Agency Vladimir Degtyarev, operations director of Ciclum Roman Khmil and others.

Photos from the event are available at pinchukfund.org under “Photos and Video” section