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Special Report People’s Technology

NOVEMBER 23 2017

The 2017 New Europe 100 is the fourth annual list of central and eastern Europe’sbrightest and best citizens who are changing the region’s societies, politics or businessenvironments and displaying fresh approaches to prevailing problems.

The aim is to raise the profile of the changemakers in emerging Europe and to buildconnections among those in the vanguard.

The individuals from 14 countries were selected by Res Publica, the Warsaw-basedjournal; Google; the state-supported Visegrad Fund promoting integration withincentral Europe; and the Financial Times.

BulgariaAnita Klasanova Co-founder and chief technologist of Roo Brands, which makes energy bars andcookies from dried fruits, raw nuts and superfoods. The inspiration for the companycame from Ms Klasanova’s search for healthier snacks for her own children.

Special Report Innovation

New Europe 100: eastern Europe’s emerging technology stars

The challengers were selected by Res Publica, Google, Visegrad Fund and the Financial Times

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Dimitar Dimitrov Chief executive of Tickey, an app that makes it easier for people to use publictransport.

Zanni Sabev, Blagovest Dimitrov, Lyubomir Yanchev Co-founders of MClimate, which helps users control cooling and heating systems intheir homes.

Joana Koleva, Iva Tsolova, Anton Gavrailov Co-founders of Jamba, an online platform providing training and career assistance fordisabled people.

Rossi Mitova Chief executive and founder of Farmhopping, an internet shopping platformconnecting farmers and consumers.

Alexander Naydenov Co-founder of PaperHive, an online hub where scholars can collaborate in readingcomplex texts.

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Neven Boyanov A digital entrepreneur recently involved with creating DivaCare, a platform that helpswomen recover from breast cancer treatment.

BelarusOleg Tikhonov Founder of Eightydays.me, a tool for planning multi-city trips.

Slava Mazai, Vsevolod Henin, Sasha Yakovlev, Evgeny Voronets, ChristinaButsko, Nikita Bedunkevich, Vladimir Piatryka Founders of Onesoil, a smart platform for precision farming.

Alexander Astafiev Co-founder of NeoSound, which has developed acoustic analysis technology that canbe used by call centres to detect the emotions of speakers.

Daria Minsky Founder of kyky.org, a Belarusian magazine, and co-founder of Exponenta, an AI toolthat helps content go viral.

CroatiaMatija Zulj Founder of Agrivi, a platform that helps farmers monitor and analyse crop data. MrZulj came up with the idea after running a blueberry farm and struggling to findadvice on farming techniques.

© Dreamstime

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Nenad Bakic A serial entrepreneur who has helped change the way Stem subjects are taught inCroatian schools.

Dominik Tomicevic Founder and chief executive of Memgraph, a real-time graph database.

Yazeed Kawther, Stevica Kuharski Co-founders of Locodels, a sharing economy-based parcel delivery company.

Czech RepublicKarel Kovar Video-blogger, also known as Kovy, who has more than 600,000 followers on hismain YouTube channel. In addition to pranks and parodies he discusses politics andsocial issues.

Jan Lukacevic Chief mechanical designer for the European Space Agency’s Predator experiment.

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Marek Novak Founder of X:GLU, which makes a credit card-sized smart glucometer that can helppeople better manage diabetes.

Michal Prager Founder of Pestra spolecnost, a charity that trains assistance and guide dogs.

Tomas Gogar, Tomas Tunys, Petr Baudis AI researchers and programmers who created a start-up called Rossum, which createsa neural network for understanding documents.

Adam Podhola Co-founder and leader of the Zachran Jídlo organisation, which tackles the problem offood waste.

Ivo Lukacovic Founder of Seznam.cz, a portal and search engine, and Windy.com, an app thatprovides real time data on wind.

Ondrej Steffl Founder of a new brand of primary schools, called Scio, based on the latest findings inpedagogy and psychology.

Petr Chaloupka Chief executive and co-owner of GreyCortex, an artificial intelligence company.

Pavel Konecny, Pavel KlingerCo-founders of Neuron Soundware, which diagnoses machine problems by analysingthe sounds they make.

Jan Mayer Data analyst who has helped in fighting fake news with The Beacon Project.

EstoniaMarkus Villig Founder and chief executive of Taxify, a ride-sharing app that has emerged as a rivalto Uber in a number of key markets. The company is backed by China’s car-bookinggroup Didi Chuxing.

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Maarja-Leena Saar An open data activist who has been one of the main drivers behind Open KnowledgeEstonia.

Jorma Jurisaar Chief executive and founder of Weps, which makes a chatbot that helps people buildwebsites.

Kustas Koiv, Ott Reinhold, Kristjan Hiiemaa Co-founders of Barking, a platform that allows organisations to rent out their parkingspots in cities.

Hannes Laar, Ardo Kaurit, Rait Udumae Founders of Ampler, which makes electric bicycles.

Henri Ploom Chief executive and co-founder of RebelRoam, a 4G internet service for transportationproviders.

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Taavi Must Chief executive of RangeForce, a cyber security simulation training program.

HungaryMiklos Tamasi Creator of Fortepan, an online photography archive.

Adam Divak, David Ottlik Founders of Synetiq, a company that uses biometric sensors to measure the wayaudiences respond to media and marketing content.

Laszlo Bekessy, Andras P Toth Inventors of CodeBerry, a platform that teaches people how to code.

Imre Sziszak, Miklos Ilyes, Jozsef Cseh Founders of Platio, a company that makes pavements from recycled plastic, which canharvest solar and kinetic energy.

Botond Feledy Founder and editor in chief of the Hungarian thematic foreign policy news portalKitekinto.hu.

Szabo Balazs, Gergo Nyikos, Peter Varga Founders of Konetik, which makes smart devices to help manage fleets of companycars.

LatviaUldis Leiterts Chief executive at Fragmentic, a marketing automation company.

LithuaniaTomas Okmanas, Eimantas Sabaliauskas Co-founders of Tesonet, a cyber security company.

Sarunas Chomentauskas Chief executive at Exacaster, a big data predictive analytics company.

Ada Jonuse Co-founder at Lympo, a fitness and wellbeing app using blockchain technology.

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Aurelijus Liubinas Co-founder and chief executive of Deeper, which makes a castable sonar, fitted withWiFi and GPS to help fishermen catch more fish.

PolandPiotr Hołubowicz, Artur Racicki Founder of Seedia, a company that creates eco-friendly products that harvest solarenergy, such as benches.

Wojciech Pazdur, Kamil Bilczyński, Robert Siejka Founders of The Farm 51, a computer games company whose projects include aneducational virtual reality tour of Chernobyl after the nuclear disaster.

Tomasz Zernicki, Piotr Szczechowiak Founders of Zylia, which has developed a technology that uses just a singlemicrophone to record multi-track sounds that can later be separated.

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Michal Wroczynski, Gniewosz Leliwa, Grzegorz Rutkiewicz, TomaszKrupa Founders of Fido AI, an artificial intelligence program that can understand internet-based blogs, comments, forums, and social media.

Ignacy Morawski Founder of SpotData, a platform for visualising and analysing economic data.

Szymon Boniecki, Bartosz Pietrzak Founders of Monterail, a web and mobile development company.

Piotr Barszczewski, Krzysztof Cybulski, Krzysztof Golinski, JakubKozniewski Founders of panGenerator, a new media and art group.

Marta Krupinska Co-founder of Azimo, the money transfer company.

Jan Pomierny and Lukasz Alwast Core members of Platige Image, a creative animation studio.

Miroslaw Filiciak Associate professor at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities andcreator of Cyberforum, a website that publishes research on culture and digitaltechnology.

Wiktor Warchalowski Co-founder of Airly, a company that builds networks of air quality sensors.

Grzegorz Nowaczewski Founder of Virtual Power Plant Company, a business that makes technology tomanage heating, ventilation and air conditioning in buildings.

Bogumila Matuszewska, Katarzyna Chrabaszcz, Michal Rys Co-founders of DrOmnibus, a company that makes multimedia learning and therapytools for children with special needs.

Milosz Balus, Krzysztof Kochmanski, Jarosław Krolewski Co-founders of Synerise, a marketing platform.

Piotr Goralczyk Founder of Unified API, a company that helps fintech companies connect to banks.

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Joanna Urbanska Middle school science teacher who runs the Edu-Initiative Foundation, whichencourages kids to create social projects and raise funds for them.

Dobromir Cias Managing director of Edge NPD, a company that provides business intelligence forretailers.

Joanna Fedorowicz Founder and chief executive of OvuFriend, an ovulation calculator.

Piotr Psyllos Founder and chief executive of Psyllosoft, a machine learning and data sciencecompany.

Paul Malicki Chief executive of Flapper, the Brazilian privet aviation platform. He also founded theride-hailing app Easy Taxi.

Dominik Nowak, Radek Jarema Co-founders of Husarion, an IoT development platforms for automation and robotics.

Sebastian Meszynski, Mateusz Jozefowicz, Inna UwarowaCo-founders of ABM Space, which develops projects for space missions.

Joanna Swiatkowska, Izabela Albrycht Creators of the Cybersec cyber security conference.

Krzysztof Szubert Deputy minister, Ministry of Digital Affairs.

Anna Grabczewska President of the Children’s University Foundation, which offers lectures andworkshops for children age six to 14.

Natalia Hatalska Founder and chief executive of the Infuture Hatalska Foresight Institute, whichforecasts future trends, and author of the hatalska.com blog.

Miron Mironiuk Founder and chief executive of Cosmose, which creates technology that connectsoffline stores to online ads.

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Pawel Gora PhD student at the Faculty of Mathermatics, Computer Science and Mechanics,Warsaw University. He is working on Traffic Simulation Framework software,modelling and optimising traffic in cities.

Maria Belka Chief executive of Bit Evil, an IT and digital marketing company.

RomaniaAlin Chiriac Co-founder of Adfaber.org, a non-governmental organisation that promotes computerscience education for children.

Sergiu Ardelean Founder of Artivive, an augmented reality tool for artists

Florin Talpes Founder and chief executive of Bitdefender, the cyber security company.

Daniel Dines Founder and chief executive of UiPath, which provides process automation software.

Ana Maria Udriste Co-founder of Avocatoo, an online marketplace for finding lawyers.

Cristiana Bogateanu Co-founder of Device Hub, an internet of things company and Academia Inventeaza, arobotics school for children.

SerbiaMilos Zikic Creator of Sava, a white label platform for managing events.

Igor Bogicevic, Deniz Kural Co-founders of Seven Bridges, a cloud-based platform for analysing bioinformaticdata

Slovakia

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Michal Mesko Co-founder and chief executive of Martinus, an online book-reseller and chain ofbrick-and-mortar bookstores. He has also founded the Foxford chain of coffee housesand Dibuk, an ebook distribution platform.

Jan Hargas Chief executive of Slovensko.digital, a watchdog organisation monitoring e-government activities.

Jan Gondol A Slovak policymaker and a coder, actively involved in promoting open data, openaccess to scientific research and open education.

Lucia Sickova Co-founder of Pixel Federation, the games company and leader of the company’sEdufactory initiative to apply gamification to learning.

Jan Urbancik Chief executive of digital agency NetSuccess and founder of konspiratori.sk — a list offake news and conspiracy sites in Slovakia and Czech Republic.

Symon Kliman, Viliam Csino, Boris Melus, Branislav Cavoj Founding members of Nadacia Cvernovka, an organisation that supports people in thecreative industry.

Pavol Cekan, Peter Kilian, Vladimir Wolf Co-founders of MultiplexDX, a molecular diagnostics company.

SloveniaAles Spetic, Marko Mrdjenovic Founders of CubeSensors, which makes connected sensors for monitoring everythingfrom air quality to noise in the home.

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Miha Fabjan, Matej Ramuta, Ziga Besal Co-founders of SmartNinja, an IT training school.

Jernej Vidmar, Martin Vuk, Ziga Bohm, Ziga Stopinsek Co-founders of AgiliCity, a 3D tool for city planning.

Damjan Malis Co-founder of Ulla, which makes a gadget that reminds people to drink enough waterthroughout the day.

Kristjan Kosic, Matej Vogrincic, Andraz Leitgeb, Zedin Salkanovic Co-founders of Adora, which allows doctors to look at patient data using gestures.

UkraineMax Gerbut, Julia Gerbut Founders of PassivDom, which makes 3D-printed, solar-powered houses. The housegenerates enough solar energy to cover all heating and cooling, as well as runningappliances.

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Roman Zinchenko Cleantech advocate and co-founder of Greencubator, an organisation that promotesenergy efficiency.

Irina Prokofieva Co-founder of Make me better, a non-profit project to provide mentoring for people atthe start of their careers.

Nataliya Gumenyuk Head of Ukrainian independent TV channel and media platform Hromadske.

Vitalii Moroz Head of New Media at Internews, a non-profit organisation that trains journalists.

Andrii Karpiuk Founder of BIOsens, which makes an IoT biosensor to detect mycotoxins in food.

Rustem Akishbekov, Anna Iarotska Creators of Robo Wunderkind, a robot that teaches children from the age of fiveupwards how to code.

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Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2021. All rights reserved.

For more details of the New Europe 100 list see www.ne100.org

This article has been amended to reflect the fact that Aurelijus Liubinas is based inLithuania, Robo Wunderkind is a Ukrainian start-up and Jan Mayer is based in theCzech Republic.

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