Civic Education in Ukraine

Founders

Dmytro Savochkin

Dmytro has the psychological and pedagogical education. He worked as a teacher, a journalist, an agent of the criminal investigation, an editor, a commander of a training artillery battery, a business coach. He is currently working as a head of the HR department of a large international company. When the NGO OUM started its activity, he was responsible for the online project methodology and now he is a member of the supervisory board.

Olena Khil

The master-facilitator of the British Council’s “Active Citizens” international project, the leader of the “Active Citizens” project at the NGO OUM (she is specialized in training on Social Projects and Pitching on Project Financing (pitching.in.ua)), community-based work in the different regions of Ukraine. Coach of the international project on mutual understanding and non-violent communication AVP, expert on communications, public relations and media.

Olexandr Starodubtsev

Olexandr Starodubtsev is a Ukrainian reformer who is deeply involved in the creation of a new electronic public procurement system Prozorro, which is one of the most famous reforms in the country. Currently Starodubtsev is the Head of the Public Procurement Regulation Department in The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, and is an official policy maker in the spheres of public procurement and economic development in Ukraine.

The Prozorro system is famous for its different approaches to bottom-up reform based on the close collaboration between government, business and civil society. In 2016, the Prozorro system won several distinguished international awards, such as the Open Government Partnership Award, the Public Procurement Award, and was also recognized by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and Open Contracting Partnership. Moreover, Prozorro and its principles became an inspirational example for other Ukrainian reforms.

Starodubtsev was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1979. He graduated from Kharkiv National University in 2002. Previously he worked on the stock market where he made his career as a back-office specialist up to a managing partner of a Ukrainian branch of a multinational financial institution. He received an MBA degree from the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School and became Alumnus of the Year in its first competition in 2015. He is married and has a son and a daughter.

Ostap Stasiv

Head of the NGO OUM. A social entrepreneur and a civic activist. Ostap received MBA from the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School. He works in the field of a housing and utility sector, the development of apartment building co-owners associations, civic and distance education. In December 2013, he became the one of the founders of the Open University of Maidan (OUM). In recent years, he has been the leader and coordinator of the NGO OUM. With the support of like-minded people, he created and launched the First Distance Civic Education Platform – VUM online (https://vumonline.ua/). Ostap is also an expert in joint property management issues, community development, civic education, distance education, civil society development. Since 1990 he has been the member of the National Scout Organization of Ukraine “Plast”.

Roman Tychkivskyy

Coordinator and Leadership Program Manager in Western NIS Enterprise Fund. Under this program Western NIS Enterprise Fund implements a series of projects such as the Ukrainian Leadership Academy, SEED Grant, and the Corporate Governance Development Program.

He has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Kyiv Mohyla Academy and a master’s degree in science economy and innovation from Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.

He was a co-founder of the Open University of Maidan during the Revolution of Dignity and managed the project fundraising.

Roman worked as Coordinator for Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Program, which gives Ukrainian students the opportunity to study under a three-month internship program in the Parliament of Canada. Also, he was an assistant to the Member of the Parliament of Canada Corneliu Chisu. Previously, Roman worked in business consulting for foreign companies in Ukraine.

Roman also has experience as a Project Manager with Holding of Emotions! FEST (Lviv) – a network of conceptual restaurants and projects that promote tourist destinations in Lviv and Ukraine. In this capacity, he was involved in the development of franchising projects and partnership network in Ukraine and abroad.

He is a member of Plast – the National Scout Organization of Ukraine.

Yulia Tychkivska

Co-founder of the Open University of Maidan. Master’s Degree Program in Economics Faculty of National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. She has completed the short-term Think Tank MBA program in the USA, was a Vice President of AIESEC-Kyiv on corporate communications; trained at the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine and later was an advisor to the Minister of Economy; for 2 years she coordinated the international direction of the Ukrainian Fund for Support of Reforms. In recent years, Yulia is associated with business education (Inspira, Kyiv School of Economics), consulting and urban development projects. She is a founder of the Bendukidze Free Market Center.