Forum for dedicated intellects

Twice as many people — 1,608 — competed in the nationwide competition for innovative projects than last year. This year’s competition has shown that the most talented young people in Ukraine live in Poltava oblast: the largest number of submissions came from there (307), the city of Kyiv and Kyiv oblast (117), and Kharkiv oblast (100).

The competition consisted of four categories: scholarly research and diploma papers on economic and humanities topics, business ideas, and social projects.

“I read many of the submissions, and it is clear that young Ukrainians are very patriotic: these young people know and love our language, culture, and history,” said Ukraine’s First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko, who heads the Supervisory Board of the Ukraine 3000 Charitable Foundation. “These works are on an extremely high level. Because I have worked in many countries, I can make certain comparisons: our 15— to 17 year-old youngpeople devise wonderful projects that are created abroad only by university graduates. The social projects were very appealing to me because I head a charitable foundation. Although I work in this sphere every day, I found some new ideas in the works that were submitted by students and pupils.

“I want to single out the following projects: the creation of playgrounds by Oleksandra Korniichuk, a student at the National University of Ostroh Academy; a project to create centers for blind children by Antin Korzun from Lviv; and a project to establish centers for young mothers by Maryna Kovach from Zakarpattia. It would be wonderful if Iryna Prohniuk, a student at Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko National University, implemented her project to create an electronic library of Ukrainian literary classics.

“In the social studies category most of all I liked the research done by Anastasia Zaitseva, a student at Lviv Polytechnic National University, who described how to make Lviv more attractive, beautiful, and clean with the community’s help.”

The jury selected the top 25 projects, and Mrs. Yushchenko awarded prize certificates to the winners, who also received money from sponsors to bring their projects to life. The question of implementing social and business projects is the most urgent. Many of them are rather expensive, like the project that was submitted by Antin Hlushko, who received an award for originality.

“The essence of my work lies in launching the implementation of a complex program to improve the nation’s health. The goal is to implement special psychologically— and ecologically-oriented courses in schools and universities, which will help orient Ukrainians toward safeguarding our health and environment — building life, not destroying it,” Hlushko said.

It is entirely possible that these ideas will help generate corresponding state programs. Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Volodymyr Ohryzko, who also heads the UNESCO National Commission, and Minister of Family, Youth and Sports’ Affairs Yurii Pavlenko, who were present at the awards ceremony, called upon talented youth to do this and invited them to come to work in these ministries after they graduate. Ivan Vakarchuk, the Minister of Education, also expressed his support.

“At the moment, these young people view the world intuitively, and they may not realize that what is interesting for them now may become very useful for society in the future, as well as the fact that one day they will be governing the state,” Vakarchuk said. “It is to our teachers’ great credit that we now have such talented youth because they were able to spot and develop their talent. I would very much like for these young people to hang on forever to their desire to get to know the world because that is the only way for science to develop, and this is the only way to win in life. We will build Ukraine thanks to our joint victories.”

Ukraine’s First Lady explained that the Ukraine 3000 Foundation is searching for ways to support talented youth in a more systemic way. She talked about establishing closer communication by creating a community or network of young intellectuals, thanks to which innovative ideas have a chance to multiply, be supported, and brought to life. “We have to make this competition more concrete: once we have good projects, we have to find the money to implement them by involving sponsors, because only these young people’s ideas will change our society.”