Last Saturday marked the final Demo Day of Venture Camp Ukraine — an entrepreneurship camp for youth aged 15–17, based at UCU, designed for those who want to develop their ideas and try themselves in the role of an entrepreneur.
15 teams took the stage to pitch their startups, but the journey started much earlier: 413 applications → top 30 selected for the online stage → top 15 teams → final offline pitches.
In just one month, participants strengthened their ideas, sharpened their skills, and learned how to think and act like founders — working with feedback, refining their solutions, and pitching with confidence. We’re incredibly proud of every single one of them 
A big thank you to our Demo Day jury — Hanna Bey, Roman Kozak, Kathleen Hessert, and John Shmorhun — for their support and honest, thoughtful feedback. Also, many thanks to Taylor Thigpen for participating in the event and supporting the program!
Venture Camp Ukraine winners:
Heart in Gestures — an inclusive platform for learning the Ukrainian sign language alphabet. Founder — Anna Slysh (also awarded the opportunity to continue her studies at the University of Notre Dame, USA) 
MedAItion — an educational game for training conflict mediation skills. Founder — Sofiia Ilkova.
Neary — a platform connecting helpers with people who need support. Founder — Mykhailo Binas.
Our sincere thanks to Kathleen Hessert for her tremendous support of Venture Camp Ukraine and for the partnership with Kids Konnect Ukraine, which made this program possible.
We’re looking forward to meeting all participants again in the future — this is only the beginning 
Venture Camp Ukraine is implemented by Ideas Center UCU in collaboration with Kids Konnect Ukraine, with the support of MOVEUKRAINE: homes jobs lives, the University of Notre Dame (USA), the Міністерство освіти і науки України, and Український католицький університет UCuniversity.
