Vitalik Buterin, Mykhailo Fedorov and WEB3 — The Kyiv Tech Summit

The goal of this hackathon is to develop software solutions that can resolve emerging issues point-to-point in order to help Ukrainians and the economy of Ukraine. The prize pool of the competition amounted up to $175,000.

The event was organized by Blockchain charity fund “Unchain Ukraine” in conjunction with Ukraine DAO, the Atlantis World Metaverse and WEB3.

On top of the hackathon format, the summit included:

The highlight of the event was a surprise appearance of Vitalik Buterin, one of the creators of Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.

Source: Unit.city press service

The organizers kept his visit a secret until the last moment. The audience of the Kyiv Tech Summit found out the name of the special guest only when Buterin had already taken the stage. Only several invited journalists were hinted the day before that it would be “Elon Musk in the world of blockchain.” Kyiv Tech Summit visitors signed a non-disclosure agreement and Unit.City residents were forbidden to take pictures of the guest.

During the hackathon meeting, the creator of Ethereum said that it was his first time in Kyiv. He was motivated to attend Kyiv Tech Summit by his interest and admiration for the fact that the event is taking place in the capital of a country at war that has united the Web3 community from all over the world.

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This is incredible. Be brave like Ukraine, right? I wanted to see myself what kind of projects and applications based on Ethereum technology are being created here, to get to know the people behind them,

Vitalik Buterin said.

Source: Unit.city press service

Vitalik expressed his support for the Ukrainians once again (in April 2022, he donated 1,500 ETH to help Ukraine, which was the equivalent of about $5 million) and emphasized that he is following everything that is happening in Ukraine from the very beginning of the full-scale war.

At the same time, Vitalik Buterin noted that Ukraine has great potential and opportunities to become a WEB3 hub, because it was able to create an active WEB3 community:

I think that Ukraine may well become the next WEB3 hub. The Ethereum Foundation has hubs in Boulder, Berlin, Singapore, as communities have grown organically there. A country can become a WEB3 hub if its people are actively interested in this technology and decide to make a big contribution to its development. So yes, absolutely. Ukraine has both the capabilities and the determination for this,

the creator of Ethereum emphasized.

 Vitalik also wrote about his enthusiasm for the summit on his Twitter page: 

Source: Twitter

The Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov also became a guest of the summit. He noted that the first Kyiv Tech Summit WEB3 hackathon in Ukraine brought together more than 200 Ukrainian IT specialists.

Source: Mykhailo Fedorov’s Facebook page

I spoke at the first WEB3 hackathon in Ukraine – Kyiv Tech Summit. It brought together more than 200 Ukrainian IT specialists,

Fedorov noted.

Mykhailo added that Ukrainian IT companies and specialists are “heroes of the economic front” and that IT is one of the “few industries that is stable during the war, working and paying taxes”.

According to him, the implementation of one of the projects presented at the WEB3 hackathon was planned at the state level. The project may be related to fintech, virtual assets,registries and blockchain.

The Minister of Digital Transformation thanked the IT community for continuing to fight on the technological front, defend the economic sector and bring victory closer.

Ukraine is the bravest country in the world. Ukraine’s armed forces are doing the impossible. And we must do everything to emerge from the war as a powerful digital state,

Fedorov emphasized.