Some of the greatest innovations are rooted in Central and Eastern Europe. From the Hungarian Ernő Rubik’s cube to the Slovak Stefan Banic, who invented parachutes. Hence it is absolutely no surprise that 4 years in a row, the New Europe 100 Challengers project, led by Res Publica (the Warsaw-based journal), Google, the Visegrad Fund (state-supported integration promotion within central Europe), the Financial Times and a dozen of other institutions from the CEE region, puts together a list of top 100 challengers.
These chosen individuals from almost 20 countries are changing the world and improving people’s lives with world-class innovative ideas that scale up in the digital world. It’s about those, who are courageous enough to pursue innovation, new-tech expertise, unique skills, and have a great social outreach.
The list seeks to bring together the visions of such people, whose actions are challenging for a better tomorrow, challenging us and the world itself. The New Europe 100 Challengers list aims to tell the stories and celebrate the success of the 100 change-makers, who deserve recognition both on national and European level.
This year, the organizers honored Slovaks, who are encouraging the implementation of open policies, who are trying to improve educational practices, who are fighting against unethical uses of advertising or making development in cancer research. If you are curious what names have made it into the New Europe 100 challengers list, here is a short introduction of those we should definitely follow in the upcoming years. Just keep on challenging.
A policymaker and a coder, who’s working with several organizations to be actively involved in promoting Slovakia’s open data commitments. He led the initiative towards the Slovakia’s government to create open policy in Slovakia regarding open education and open access to scientific research.
Co-founder and CEO of Martinus,sk, the biggest online book-reseller in Slovakia, which has been one of the fastest growing technological companies in the EMEA region. He has also founded the Foxford chain of coffee houses and Dibuk, an e-book distribution platform.
CEO of Slovensko.digital, a watchdog organisation and platform aiming for open cooperation among state, companies and public. Their activities monitor e-government activities to foster transparent and effective use of public finances towards information-communication technologies.
Co-founder of Pixel Federation, a gaming company and of the most successful startups in Slovakia. She is the leader of the company’s Edufactory initiative to support innovative educational concepts and projects via games. Pixel Federation is also one of the co-creators of a program Butterfly Effect, in which young aspiring coders learn to develop their own apps or games.
CEO of a digital agency NetSuccess and a founder of konspiratori.sk — a list of fake news and conspiracy sites in Slovakia and Czech Republic to avoid supporting unethical and fake advertising platforms. He is also one of the co-developers of a new intelligent advertising system INRES.
Šymon Kliman, Viliam Csino, Boris Meluš, Branislav Čavoj
Founding members of Nadacia Cvernovka, an organisation that supports people in the creative industry by creating a space where the existing ecosystem of artists, creators, innovators, and developers could thrive.
Pavol Čekan, Peter Kilian, Vladimír Wolf
Co-founders of MultiplexDX, a molecular diagnostics company. Its mission is to eliminate cancer misdiagnosis by creating revolutionary diagnostic tests that would be 100% accurate, affordable and could precisely identify and quantify individual cancer markers.