The 4th Youth Forum of Zavtra.UA in Kyiv is over

The 4th Youth Forum of Zavtra.UA – a nationwide scholarship program of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation - ended in Kyiv. The event has gathered 320 top students from all over Ukraine – the winners of Zavtra.UA-2011 scholarship. They were selected based on the results of the three stage competition among 1 739 candidates from more than 100 Ukrainian universities.

The Forum ended with an award ceremony featuring President of Poland (1995-2005) Alexander Kwasniewski, Head of Main Office of Foreign Policy at President’s Administration Andriy Honcharuk, Head of Main Office of Humanitarian and Socio-political Issues at President’s Administration Hanna Herman, member of the Ukrainian Parliament and leader of the “Front Zmin” political party Arseniy Yatseniuk, member of the Ukrainian Parliament Andriy Shevchenko, front man of “Okean Elzy” music band Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, Ukrainian businessmen and public figures.

Addressing the scholarship winners at the ceremony, the founder of the Program Victor Pinchuk stated: “Mission of the Zavtra.UA program is to help you open your potential and direct it towards your own development and development of your country. How to do it? The recipe is very simple: to know, think and dream, and, of course, act”. In the modern world it is very important to dream about future, because a true leader doesn’t get stuck in the present and the more so in the past”. But none of the dreams will come true by itself. “You’ve got to act. Maybe not on the global scale, but in small social projects you implement as scholarship winners. But this is your call, an important call”, he said.

Alexander Kwasniewski: “We are eager to see the day when Ukraine joins the EU. And we work hard for it. Believe me, your country has a great chance and will be playing a very important role. You have an extraordinary potential”. He emphasized on the important role of youth in the future development of countries and advised young scholars to follow the slogan “Yes, we can!” in their lives and careers.

The best students of the Program and student social projects were awarded during the ceremony. In particular, awards were presented to the winners of the general Zavtra.UA student rating: Inna Peretiatko (Poltava State Agrarian Academy – 1^st place), Roman Petruk (Vinnytsia National Technical University – 2^nd place) and Eugenia Lazeba (Poltava State Agrarian Academy – 3^rd place).

During the first day of the event, team building sessions and dedication to the Community of scholars took place. The second day was dedicated to the development of social projects. Third day - lectures and discussions on “The World of Your Tomorrow: what to expect, what to be ready for, how to act”. Professor of Stockholm Business School and author of the bestseller “Funky Business” Jonas Ridderstrale, manager and director for strategic development of the Grameen Creative Lab Saskia Bruysten and one of Russia's leading macroeconomists-theorists Mikhail Khazin gave lectures to students.

On May 24, before leaving Kyiv, scholarship winners visited Olafur Eliasson’s solo exhibition “Your emotional future” at the PinchukArtCentre.

Since the launch of Zavtra.UA, over 1400 Ukrainian students have become scholarship holders. Over the years of program existence young scholars have implemented more than 40 social projects, including “Nature Reserve”, “Ranok” film festival, “Art Workshop”, etc. They also had a chance to participate in such interesting projects as the First Ukrainian Intellectual Youth Forum “Zavtra (Tomorrow): World, Ukraine, Me” with the 7^th Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan as a special guest; attended the Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit where they met with the top leaders of today: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Sergey Khruschev and others.

Find out more on the Program’s website: zavtra.in.ua