Famous serial entrepreneur and mentor Igor Shoyfot, who has recently moved to San-Francisco, thinks that young Ukrainian IT entrepreneurs don`t have to live their homeland in order to create successful start-ups. In fact there is an alternative - to build California in Kyiv. With a purpose of brining this idea to life, Igor Shoyfot with support of KMA in the nearest time is going to launch innovative space "California in Ukraine" in Kyiv.
In this innovative cluster Igor Shoyfot is planning to train the active community – the foundation of European Ukraine. In his announcement he emphasize that California in Ukraine is not a co-working, incubator or accelerator. “It is something completely new – you won`t be able to participate that simple, as it is on co-working. We will select the start-ups publicly, and then help them. It will be the mega-center of innovations in Kyiv”.
Innovative center "California in Ukraine" is going to be located in the downtown, at address Khreschatik, 10. There will be hackathons, programming, English, marketing and sales trainings, and courses on other disciplines, which are important for successful technological business creation. And all of it is for free.
Igor also added that the center is not a competitor to “Chasopys”, “Platforma” co-working or other IT-hubs of Kyiv. They are going to cooperate with California in Ukraine. Also, a lot of IT companies, funds and investors sided with the initiative. Pre-lunch of California in Ukraine for partners is going to be held tomorrow, and official start-up is planned on the November 2015.
Igor Shoyfot set his sights on this project in 2014 and since August has worked on its acceleration. He and his partners are also among the investors of the project. Currently the building of the center is in reconstruction process, expenses on which are on the city authorities and partner companies. “And in course of time Europe and America will also get involved” – said Igor Shoyfot.
