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

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

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

Bulgaria

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

Anita Klasanova

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

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

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

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

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

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

Belarus

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

Slava Mazai, Vsevolod Henin, Sasha Yakovlev, Evgeny Voronets, Christina Butsko, 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 can be 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 tool that helps content go viral.

Croatia

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

Pair of blueberry berry isolated on white background with clipping path
© Dreamstime

Nenad Bakic
A serial entrepreneur who has helped change the way Stem subjects are taught in Croatian 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 Republic

Karel Kovar
Video-blogger, also known as Kovy, who has more than 600,000 followers on his main YouTube channel. In addition to pranks and parodies he discusses politics and social issues.

Karel Kovar

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

Marek Novak
Founder of X:GLU, which makes a credit card-sized smart glucometer that can help people 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 creates a neural network for understanding documents.

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

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

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

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

Pavel Konecny, Pavel Klinger
Co-founders of Neuron Soundware, which diagnoses machine problems by analysing the sounds they make.

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

Estonia

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

Taxify

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

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

Kustas Koiv, Ott Reinhold, Kristjan Hiiemaa
Co-founders of Barking, a platform that allows organisations to rent out their parking spots 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 transportation providers.

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

Hungary

Miklos Tamasi
Creator of Fortepan, an online photography archive.

Adam Divak, David Ottlik
Founders of Synetiq, a company that uses biometric sensors to measure the way audiences 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 can harvest solar and kinetic energy.

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

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

Latvia

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

Lithuania

Tomas 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.

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

Poland

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

Piotr Hołubowicz, Artur Racicki

Wojciech Pazdur, Kamil Bilczyński, Robert Siejka
Founders of The Farm 51, a computer games company whose projects include an educational 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 single microphone to record multi-track sounds that can later be separated.

Michal Wroczynski, Gniewosz Leliwa, Grzegorz Rutkiewicz, Tomasz Krupa
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, Jakub Kozniewski
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 and creator of Cyberforum, a website that publishes research on culture and digital technology.

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 to manage heating, ventilation and air conditioning in buildings.

Bogumila Matuszewska, Katarzyna Chrabaszcz, Michal Rys
Co-founders of DrOmnibus, a company that makes multimedia learning and therapy tools 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.

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

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

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

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

Paul Malicki
Chief executive of Flapper, the Brazilian privet aviation platform. He also founded the ride-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 Uwarowa
Co-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 and workshops for children age six to 14.

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

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

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.

Romania

Alin Chiriac
Co-founder of Adfaber.org, a non-governmental organisation that promotes computer science 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, a robotics school for children.

Serbia

Milos 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 bioinformatic data

Slovakia

Michal Mesko
Co-founder and chief executive of Martinus, an online book-reseller and chain of brick-and-mortar bookstores. He has also founded the Foxford chain of coffee houses and 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, open access to scientific research and open education.

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

Jan Urbancik
Chief executive of digital agency NetSuccess and founder of konspiratori.sk — a list of fake 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 the creative industry.

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

Slovenia

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

CubeSensors

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 water throughout the day.

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

Ukraine

Max Gerbut, Julia Gerbut
Founders of PassivDom, which makes 3D-printed, solar-powered houses. The house generates enough solar energy to cover all heating and cooling, as well as running appliances.

 3D-printed, solar-powered houses by PassivDom

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

Irina Prokofieva
Co-founder of Make me better, a non-profit project to provide mentoring for people at the 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 five upwards how to code.

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 in Lithuania, Robo Wunderkind is a Ukrainian start-up and Jan Mayer is based in the Czech Republic.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
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