Everything You Need to Know about this Year’s Meetup Program

October 6, 2021

This year the offline part of IT Arena will gather tech experts and people who love everything about innovations at the meetups to share their knowledge on and passion for the subject. Visiting meetups –‌ is a perfect chance to meet new people, learn things, get inspiration, and grow from both professional and human viewpoints. This year’s agenda covers relevant and up-to-date topics of the tech community’s development. We are ready to welcome meetup attendees and make them feel comfortable in the most excellent venues.

The third day of the conference is dedicated to meetups. On October 9, after topic-focused speeches and asking questions at IT Arena, the attendees will skip to the city center to join the meetups packed up with unique info. This year the meetups, the same as the IT Arena speakers lineup, are traditionally divided into topic groups: business, product, and technology so that you can choose the most relevant for you. To participate in the meetup, you need to select the one of your interest and register for it. The format of meetups was created a few years ago for the IT Arena attendees who come from other cities to get acquainted with Lviv alongside high-quality networking. 

This year the meetup map includes such locations: MAD bars house, Art Center Dzyga, Beer Theatre Pravda (4th floor), Beer Theatre Pravda (ground floor), Craft & Kumpel’, Grand Cafe Leopolis, Grand Hotel Lviv, Hotel Leopolis, Lviv City Hall, Lviv Coffee Mining Manufacture, Reikartz Medievale Lviv Hotel, The Most Expensive Galician Restaurant, Vernissage Lviv Mall. Let us see the details.

Please note, Senior and Executive tickets grant access to meetups. Meetup locations have limited capacity and require prior registration. 

MAD bars house, a six-stored restaurant in the historic center of Lviv is an ideal location for networking, sharing insights and ideas in the format of a meetup. Located at Shevska street, 10, MAD will host four listed below meetups uniting 50 participants to discuss the startups, workspace of tomorrow, and the use of AI. The meetups start at 11:00 ending at 17:45, according to the agenda.

11:00 – 12:30 – The future is hybrid working. Workspace of tomorrow. Communication Hub, by Andrzej Butra, Workplace Change Manager, Nowy Styl

12:45 – 14:15 – Confession of a bad manager: How to survive when you’re not supposed to, by Kate Alekseyeva, Delivery Manager, N-iX 

14:30 – 16:00 – Post-pandemic workplace reality: How Artificial Intelligence has changed the way we work forever, by Pavlo Khliust, Head of Product at Star

16:15 – 17:45 – Why Startups Love AWS, by Nadiia Kolibaba, Startups, Eastern Europe & Central Asia, Amazon Web Services 

Art Center Dzyga, a center of modern art, space of freedom, experiments and creative communication, where new ideas are born, will hold a series of meetups for fifty attendees, starting at 11.00 and ending at 17.45 at Virmenska Street, 35 Lviv. At these meetups, the issues of EV navigation and routing, best practices and the process of hypothesis selection and prioritization will be uncovered. 

11:00 – 12:30 – Mindset Reset: How to become Game-Changer, by Roman Markiv, SoftServe

12:45 – 14:15 – Why there is NO Autonomy without EV routing? by Denys Fedenko, Delivery Manager, Automotive segment, Intellias

14:30 – 16:00 – Progressive Delivery for Kubernetes with GitOps approach, by Volodymyr Shynkar, Senior Lead DevOps Engineer at Intellias

16:15 – 17:45 – Hypothesis Validation, by Andrii Pastushok, Sigma Software

Beer Theatre Pravda (4th floor) an industrial, multistorey beer temple on Rynok Square, 32 will host meetups for 100 attendees, where speakers from DataRobot, Squad and Reface will share their experience in content transformation with ML and using AI bots in day to day situations. The first meetup starts at 11.00 and the last one at 17.45. 

11:00 – 12:30 – Diving into the unknown: key pillars to ensure a successful start in a new domain, by Bohdan Popovych, Capgemini Engineering

12:45 – 14:15 – The future of content transformation with ML, by Dima Shvets, Co-founder & CEO at Reface

14:30 – 16:00 – Flying, Driving and Dining – the story of three AI bots, by Anton Kasyanov, Director of Engineering, MLDev at DataRobot

16:15 – 17:45  – Writing optimized code in memory-constrained systems, by Petro Karashchenko, FW Engineering Manager at Squad 

Beer Theatre Pravda (ground floor) The shop on the ground floor sells bottled beer and souvenirs; English-speaking staff is always on hand to help you. In this friendly and relaxed atmosphere, speakers from SoftServe and Luxoft will talk about life in the future: IoT solutions that change the way we live. 50 attendees will have a chance to listen to them and participate in discussions.

11:00 – 12:30 – How would you move mount Fuji or getting upskilled to meet market expectations, by Ivan Diorditsa, Luxoft

12:45 – 14:15 – IT specialists in their 50s: is there room for more? by Oleksiy Skrypnyk, Eleks

14:30 – 16:00 – Canada-Ukraine: Transforming the Planet Through the IoT, by Maria Mitiasova, Director of Sales and Business Development, TEKTELIC Communications Inc.

16:15 – 17:45 – Unleash the power: eliminating biases and judgments in the business and life, by Volodymyr Semenyshyn, EVP of Client Success at SoftServe 

Craft & Kumpel’ This venue on Rynok Square, 18, known for its hospitality of getting together big groups of friends, will host meetups for 35 attendees to discuss product management and share experiences while tasting the author’s local food and a unique craft beer.

12:45 – 14:15 – Ad Tech MeetUp by Sigma Software by Johan Liljelund, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer of DanAds, Sigma Software

14:30 – 16:00 – Panel Discussion: Impact-First Engineering Leadership, by Lesya Arnold, A-Players Recruiting

16:15 – 17:45 – The Art of Investing, by Anna Gapa, Freedom Finance Ukraine

Grand Cafe Leopolis meetups will unite 30 attendees to listen to speeches on federated learning in data protection and how to grow a successful international diversified business in Ukraine. Oleg Krot, an investor, innovator, entrepreneur, and expert in the technology industry will share his experience of doing business. Together with his partner Yurii Lazebnikov he drives TECHIIA Holding, which unites 10+ international businesses and attracts investments in a number of industries worldwide. 

11:00 – 12:30 – Federated Learning: data protected, or not? by Lyubomyr Senyuk, R&D Director at Avenga 

12:45 – 14:15 – Developer 2.0, by Olena Zhukova, Software Engineer at WIX

14:30 – 16:00 – Understanding Burnout in the IT Industry: Symptoms and Solutions, by Yegor Olshevskyy, Exadel

16:15 – 17:45 – Panel discussion. How to grow a successful international diversified business in Ukraine? by Oleg Krot, the Managing Partner at TECHIIA Holding

Grand Hotel Lviv is located in the historic center of Lviv at Prospekt Svobody 13, which combines the modern comfort of the highest level and refined classic atmosphere. Participating in the meetups hosted by Grand Hotel you will enjoy the highest-quality networking in the company of 80 like-minded attendees. 

11:00 – 12:30 – Employment via the Diia City, by Olga Magaletska, Vitaly Selder, Sviatoslav Kavetskyi, Alex Bornyakov, Victoriia Tigipko

12:45 – 14:15 – New opportunities to attract investment introduced by Diia City, by Michael Puzrakov, Pavlo Kartashov, Anna Babych

14:30 – 16:00 – Panel discussion. How to put a city on the global tech map, by Andriy Sadovyi, Ivan Babichuk

16:15 – 17:45 – Future of the Cybersecurity Market in Ukraine, by Anastasiia Oliinyk, Vitaliy Balashov, Roman Trukhin, Deborah Fairlamb, Jeff Vrchoticky, Pavlo Kartashov

Hotel Leopolis

Another beautiful venue in the very heart of the old city, ready to welcome the meetups attendees, is Leopolis Hotel. The meetups at Teatralna Street 16 will bring together 50 tech interested participants who will share ideas and inspire future development and achievements.

11:00 – 12:30 – Get funded or get lost: Everything you need to know about grants and equity free funding for your innovative startups, by Iurii-Volodymyr Blavt, Civitta

12:45 – 14:15 – Cap Table Explained: from FFF to Series Z, by Sandra Golbreich, Baltic Sandbox

14:30 – 16:00 – Quick Tips on Successfully Funding your Startup, by Snezhana Sukhoroslova, Finance PM

16:15 – 17:45 – Raise or brace – legal essentials for raising investments, by Den Beregovyi, Axon Partners Law Firm

Leopolis Hall 

11:00 – 12:30 – Modern IT Education: Trends and Challenges open discussion with Parimatch Tech Academy mentors, by Tetiana Derkach, L&D Team Lead, Parimatch Tech Academy

16:15 – 17:45 – Curiosity and fun as essentials for inspiration and creativity of СЕОs, СООs, and CFOs of a successful IT company, by Ihor Kovalov, Payoneer

Lviv City Hall is an administrative building at Rynok Square, 1, the residence of the Lviv City Council. In this official atmosphere, speakers from Prozorro and Sigma Software Labs will talk about building a state-owned product, modern IT education trends and synergy of product and service businesses. 

11:00 – 12:30 – Selling in billions. How to build a state-owned product, by Oleksandr Akulenko, Prozorro.Sales

12:45 – 14:15 – How to grow a unicorn, by Michael Fishman, InsightCat

14:30 – 16:00 Service and product businesses synergy. Venture builder, by Valery Krasovsky, Sigma Software Labs

16:15 – 17:45 – Panel Discussion: From Seed Investments to Multimillion Exit. Where to Get Funding for Startup and How to Sell Grown-Up Business, by Roman Shulyar, Marchenko Partners

Lviv Coffee Mining Manufacture In this location, at Rynok Square, 10, where Lviv coffee is born, speakers from Wix and Uklon will share their experiences on how to set meaningful goals for early-stage products and use data for discovering new products.

11:00 – 12:30 – The Extended Reality of OKR, by Kostiantyn Antonenko, Wix

12:45 – 14:15 – User Experience mindset: build an outstanding experience not just a product, by Olga Zakatnova, Business Analyst, Uklon

14:30 – 16:00 – Benefits of unit testing and challenges in adopting TDD on iOS, by Dmytro Kovryhin, iOS Tech Lead at Uklon

16:15 – 17:45 – Using data for discovering new products, by Volodymyr Andriienko, Head of Data Science & Analytics at Uklon

Reikartz Medievale Lviv Hotel will become the place to unite people who like everything about the product and will host meetups for 35 attendees. Reikartz Medievale Lviv Hotel-based meetups will be completely dedicated to the product discussion. Speakers from Tumblr and Vimeo will dwell on remote and distributed product teams and building a partnership for users.

12:45 – 14:15 – Product for Users: how to work with product metrics, by Bogdana Iuryk, Squad

14:30 – 16:00 – Leading remote and distributed product teams, by Bohdan Kit, Tumblr

16:15 – 17:45 – Vimeo and Asana. How to build a partnership for 4 million users, by Oleg Svirskyi, Senior Product Manager at Vimeo

The Most Expensive Galician Restaurant will host meetups for 30 attendees where speakers from Vector Software and Sigma Software will talk about the social impact of software developed in Lviv and emerging FinTech trends & solutions in 2021.

11:00 – 12:30 – Social impact from software developed in Lviv, by Nikolay Vorobyev, Head of Business Development, Vector Software

12:45 – 14:15 – Tech Startup: How to make failure less likely, by Geir Myhre, Member of Board, Co-founder at Vector Software

14:30 – 16:00 – AWS Data Platform Architecture design and implementation. Cases of building low-latency Data Services, Cloud Data Analytics & ML Platform in AWS Cloud, by Vitalii Bondarenko, Head of Data & Analytics CoE, Ciklum 

16:15 – 17:45 – Emerging FinTech trends & solutions to watch out in 2021, by Hanna Khrystianovych, Sigma Software

Vernissage Lviv Mall is located in a historic building on the crossroads of major Lviv tourist routes at Shevska, 12. This venue will host a satellite event for 30 attendees, holding live streaming interviews with 5 tech industry executives.

11:00 – 14:15  – Satellite Event, AIN LIVE, by Illia Kabachynskyi, editor in chief at AIN.UA.

In 2021, IT Arena will not come back entirely offline, but we boost in-person communication at the meetups giving an excellent opportunity to gather people offline in a more cozy atmosphere abiding by all Covid-19 safety recommendations. Connect with people on a personal level, share ideas and insights and contribute to the success acceleration of each other.

Please note, Senior and Executive tickets grant access to meetups. Meetup locations have limited capacity and require prior registration.