From startup founders and scientists to musicians, directors, and media project creators — the first Next 35 includes Belarusians under 35 who are building careers and creating projects on an international scale. We explain how 35 names were chosen from almost 300 candidates and who made it onto the list.
Next 35 is a new annual list of 35 Belarusians from around the world who are under 35 years old and are developing careers, businesses, scientific, cultural, and social projects at an international level.
The project was launched by two Belarusian initiatives — Competence School and Belarus Future Leadership Award (BFLA).
The creators of Next 35 immediately make an important caveat: this is not a competition or a "35 best Belarusians" ranking. They describe the project more as an attempt to capture a generation at a specific moment — to notice people who are currently growing, launching something new, and becoming part of international professional communities.
Candidates were sought in seven categories: Rising Stars, Impact, Builders, Creators, Artists, Innovators, and Science & Thinkers. This means that the aim was to gather people from very different fields in one list — from entrepreneurship and technology to science, media, and art.
How the 35 people were chosen
It was possible to apply not only personally: participants could be nominated by others.
As a result, the Next 35 longlist included 288 people from 28 countries and 79 cities. Applications were reviewed by Next 35 advisors — experts from business, technology, science, culture, and other fields.
Several such experts worked in each of the seven categories. They reviewed applications and candidate achievements, assigning scores based on four criteria. First, a longlist was formed from the general pool, then a shortlist, and from that, the final 35.
The organizers also state that they looked not only at what a person had already achieved. For Next 35, the trajectory is also important: where the person is heading, how ambitious their goals are, and whether their work extends beyond the borders of one country.
And here's who made it into the first Next 35.
Rising Stars
Eva Volkova — Concert Violinist
Eva is a Belarusian violinist who first performed solo with the Belarusian State Symphony Orchestra at the age of 11. She graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is currently pursuing a Master's degree on a full scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London. Eva has won international competitions in Tokyo and Malta, received the Grand Prix of the "Chortitsa Chords" competition, and today performs on renowned world stages — from Carnegie Hall to London's Barbican Centre.
Matvey Yakubovich — Student and AI Project Developer
Matvey is a University of Florida student and artificial intelligence project developer. He grew up in Luninets, received a full scholarship to study at UWC Dilijan (United World College) in Dilijan, and then enrolled at the University of Florida.
Currently, the young man is working in a research laboratory on MolCrystalFlow — a generative AI system that predicts the structure of molecular crystals. In parallel, he is creating his own products: LegalAlien, related to student visas and deadlines, and Icarus — a wearable device that warns of the risk of overheating for people working outdoors. The latter project has already entered the university's startup incubator.
Roman Smitienko — Student and Educational Project Manager
Roman started participating in case championships back in school: he took second place in a national competition and represented Belarus at an international level. Later, he moved from Brest to Vilnius, where he is now studying economics and data analysis at ISM University of Management and Economics.
There, the young man became the project director of IGB — an educational platform that gives students the opportunity to work with real business challenges and gain practical experience. The first IGB championship, which expected to attract 20 people, gathered 80 participants from six countries. During the second one, students were already working with cases from a Belarusian company and a European startup.
Liliya Bogdan — Researcher and Founder of VirtuGlow
Liliya is a 20-year-old researcher and founder of the startup VirtuGlow. She conducted research in the field of skin bioinformatics, studied engineering technologies at KU Leuven (Belgium), and studied at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Currently, Liliya specializes in biotechnology at the University of Edinburgh and is simultaneously developing VirtuGlow — a technology that corrects a person's image during video calls to compensate for camera and lighting distortions. The team plans to release a beta version of the product in September 2026.
Andrei Kagalyonak — Actor and Director
Andrei is a Belarusian actor and director who moved from Minsk to the USA at the age of 17. He has acted in six feature films, TV series, short films, and theatrical productions, including the film "The Christmas Letter" with Chevy Chase and a Fox Nation series about George Washington. Andrei is also involved in directing: his debut short film "For Them," for which he wrote the script and played the lead role, was shown at the Northern Lights film festival.
Impact
Anna Karney — Clean Energy Strategist
Anna is an energy expert and Senior Consultant at S&P Global in New York. She helps energy and technology companies adapt to market changes, modernize power grids, and transition to clean energy. One of her current areas of work is preparing the American energy system for increased load, including that associated with the development of artificial intelligence.
At 18, the girl left Belarus and became the first Belarusian to receive a full scholarship to study at the United World College in Armenia. Later, she taught English in rural Ecuador, spent four months on a ship on a round-the-world trip, studied in Vermont and North Carolina, and two years ago received a master's degree in energy systems from Duke University. In 2021–2023, Karney also headed the UWC Belarus board. With her participation, more than 20 Belarusian students passed the selection process, and more than $1 million was raised for their education.
Eva Petrashina — Minecraft Game Designer
Eva is a game designer at the Swedish studio Mojang, where she works on Minecraft, one of the most successful video games in history. She studied mathematics and computer science, and in 2019, she completed a game design course, after which she received an internship and then her first permanent job in the industry.
In addition to working on Minecraft, Eva develops GameDev Bookshelf — a professional community where she organizes meetings with authors of books about the gaming industry. She is also an ambassador for Women in Games, is part of the organization's Creator Circle, and helps young game designers as a mentor. The Favikon platform included Eva in the global top 50 content creators about video games on LinkedIn.
Agata Laska — Founder of AGLA Education.USA
Agata helps students from Belarus and other countries in the region get into US universities. She herself received full funding for her studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York State, and later turned her own admissions experience into the educational project AGLA Education.USA. Its team supports applicants at all stages — from preparing applications, essays, and interviews to obtaining a visa and finding funding.
Iryna Ponedelnik — Coordinator of the CAN EECCA Climate Network
Iryna is a climate communications specialist and project manager from Maryina Horka, currently living in Berlin. She coordinates CAN EECCA — the largest network of climate NGOs in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, and also manages a climate journalism project for this region.
Marina Rybakova — Art Entrepreneur
Marina is an entrepreneur from Vitebsk and co-founder of ReA! Art Fair in Milan — a fair where young artists can sell their works without gallery intermediaries. She also co-founded the art marketplace Artsted, which attracted $500,000 in investments. In 2025, Forbes included Marina in the European 30 Under 30 list. She currently lives in San Francisco and develops projects at the intersection of technology and art.
Innovators
Hanna Platnitskaya — Pediatrician and Co-founder of Medical AI Platform Doctorina
Hanna graduated from Belarusian State Medical University with a degree in pediatrics, and then worked for five years in Guatemala. There, she managed the local branch of Health & Help, which provided medical assistance to a community of over 25,000 people. For this work, she received the Diana Award in 2023. Currently, she is the co-founder and medical director of Doctorina, an AI platform for people with chronic diseases, used in more than 60 countries.
Alex Suvorov — Co-founder of Blockchain Platform RedStone
Alex studied computer science at the University of Warsaw, and in 2021, he co-founded RedStone — a decentralized oracle network that transmits real-time external data to blockchain programs. Today, RedStone provides over 1100 data streams across more than 30 blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, and Arbitrum; its technologies are used by BlackRock, among others. In addition to his technology business, Alex co-founded the Warsaw Stand Up Local Comedy Club, where he performs as a comedian and host.
Bahram Ismailau and Pavel Rudkouski — Co-founders of Yope
Bahram and Pavel met while studying at Belarusian State University, and in 2021, they launched Yope — a private social network for close circles without ads, algorithms, or a public feed. Today, the service has over 15 million registered users and has attracted $20 million in investments. Bahram manages the company as CEO, and Pavel is responsible for technical development as CTO, with their team working in London, Lisbon, and San Francisco.
Max and Veranika Prylutskaya — Co-founders of Lingo.dev
Max and Veranika started in Minsk: he studied computer systems and networks at BSUIR, she — applied mathematics and computer science at BSU. After leaving Belarus, they created their first startup, Notionlytics.
After selling the company, Max and Veranika developed a prototype of Lingo.dev — a platform that, with the help of large language models (LLM), helps companies translate and adapt their digital products for different countries and languages. At the end of 2024, the project was accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator, after which the team moved to San Francisco. Lingo.dev has already attracted $4.2 million in investments.
Siarhei Budkouski — Founder of Alternative Mobile Game Store Skich
Siarhei lives in Warsaw and is developing Skich — one of the first alternative mobile game stores for iOS and Android. It is sometimes called "Steam for mobile games": the platform categorizes games into over 280 genres, offers personalized recommendations and social features. The project received support from Xsolla, and its main markets are the USA and Brazil.
Builders
Illia Liasun — Co-founder of AI Startup GRAI
Illia studied at BSUIR, and in 2019, together with his team, launched Vochi — a video editing application that was acquired by Pinterest two years later. After that, he headed the artificial intelligence department at Pinterest's Polish office, and is now developing his fourth startup — GRAI. The company creates AI-based tools that allow users to remix music with the consent of musicians.
Recently, GRAI attracted $9 million in investments. In addition, Illia is the co-founder of Remaster, a Warsaw-based shoe and clothing cleaning and repair service, and is also involved in investments.
Mikita Manichau — Director of Development at Deel
After his master's degree at BSU, Mikita worked at EPAM, founded two startups, and twice tried to get into Y Combinator, and later joined Deel — an international HR platform valued at $17 billion. At the company, he created from scratch a service that helps with employee immigration and now operates in more than 70 countries. This direction grew to $50 million in annual revenue. Currently, Mikita is working on launching a new product, Deel Retirement, related to pension programs for employees.
Ivan Shyla and Illia Shyla — Co-founders of CleanWhale Service
Ivan and Illia are brothers from Salihorsk who launched CleanWhale in 2016 — an online service that connects clients with cleaning specialists. Ivan was responsible for business development, and Illia — for creating the platform. In ten years, the project, without venture investments, entered the markets of five European countries and achieved multi-million dollar revenues. Today, more than 700 contractors cooperate with CleanWhale, and the USA is expected to be the company's next market.
Alesia Shcherbina — Founder of International Digital Agency Fands
Alesia manages the international agency Fands, which specializes in brand development and promotion. In a few years, she assembled a team of over 20 specialists who implemented more than 100 projects — from strategy development and design to advertising and influencer marketing. Currently, Alesia is creating her own product, Jenzi, an app for language learning built around forming a habit of regular practice, based at the agency. She funds its development from Fands' revenues, and even before its official launch, the project attracted its first audience and paying users.
Matt Hramovich — Co-founder of CPTN Limited and Capitaliply
Matt is an entrepreneur from Minsk, currently living in Warsaw. Previously, he founded five companies, including the dating app Zodier, which gathered over 4 million users. Currently, Matt manages the product company CPTN Limited and is a general partner at the American fund Capitaliply, which acquires and develops B2B services for the Shopify ecosystem. Together, they have formed a holding of six acquired companies and two proprietary products, serving over 10,000 businesses worldwide. Their clients include Avon, Sony, and the Central Bank of Malta.
Creators
Toni Lashden — Writer and Researcher
Toni is a writer and decolonial researcher from Minsk, currently living in Stockholm and working on themes of Belarusian memory, identity, and Belarus's experience in the USSR. Over the past two years, two collections of her short prose have been published — "Black Forest" and "On the Corner of Independence," the first of which is being translated into French and German.
Toni also co-manages the feminist archive and writing lab Rastsiazhenne, through whose programs 55 Belarusian authors from various countries have passed. She is currently working on her debut novel in Belarusian and a book in English about migration and social class.
Emil Zianko — Artist and Musician
Emil studied painting in Grodno, then lived in Berlin, Stockholm, and Poland, and is now in Paris. He works in several directions at once — creating music, videos, and graphics, and among the brands he has collaborated with are Prada, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, and Walter Van Beirendonck. His tracks have accumulated hundreds of thousands of listens on Spotify.
Ulad Halyon — Videographer and Author of Barcelona Local Media Project
Ulad is a videographer and content creator from Narach, currently living in Barcelona. In Belarus, he ran a blog and worked at 21vek.by, where he filmed an author's series about Belarusian villages and their residents. After moving to Barcelona, Ulad focused on urban culture: he creates videos and music clips for artists, including Luna and ooes, which gain millions of views on Instagram. There, he also launched Barcelona Local — his own media project about the city.
Darya Zahorskaya — Music Video Director
Darya is a director from Novopolotsk, who works under the pseudonym Madsangria and currently lives in Warsaw. She started with photography and media work, and after moving to Poland, she collaborated with Sony Music Poland and gradually fully transitioned to directing. In a few years, Darya has shot about 30 music videos for Belarusian, Russian, and Polish artists, including Naviband, Monetochka, and Anastasiya Rydleŭskaya. Her works garner millions of views, and Darya herself was nominated for Fryderyk — one of Poland's main music awards.
Idrak Mirzalizade — Stand-up Comedian
Idrak was born in Azerbaijan to a Talysh family, and at the age of 12, moved to Minsk and later obtained Belarusian citizenship. He began his career in Belarusian KVN, and gained widespread fame thanks to the TV projects "Open Microphone" and Stand Up on TNT.
Currently, Idrak lives in Warsaw, performs stand-up, develops a YouTube channel, and works with other comedians on Stand Up Lokal. He remains one of the most recognizable representatives of Belarusian and Russian-speaking stand-up.
Kate Kishko — Videographer and Content Creator
Kate is a videographer from Gomel, who works under the pseudonym Kaytie and currently lives in Paris. She started with SMM projects for restaurants and hotels in Minsk, and after moving to France, began developing her own Instagram, where she gathered over 100,000 subscribers, and her videos gain millions of views. The girl creates short narrative videos about love, time, and self-discovery, combining cinematic techniques with the vertical video format for social networks.
Artists
Vitali Alekseenok — Conductor
Vitali was born in Vileyka, studied trombone in Minsk, and later conducting in St. Petersburg and Weimar. In 2021, he won the Arturo Toscanini International Conducting Competition in Parma, and since 2024, he has been the principal conductor of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg.
Vitali has also performed at La Scala and the Salzburg Festival, conducted the world premiere of Volha Padhaiskaya's opera "The Wild Hunt of King Stakh" at the Barbican in London. Since 2021, he also heads the Kharkiv Music Festival, which organizes concerts in bomb shelters and metro stations during the war.
Sasha Vialichka — Photo Artist
Sasha was born in Slonim and earned a master's degree in quantum radiophysics, but since 2023, she has dedicated herself entirely to art. She now lives in Warsaw and works with photography, archives, installations, and new media, exploring propaganda, post-truth, manipulation, and trauma.
Her project "State of Denial" was included in the Talent 2026 program of Amsterdam's Foam photography museum, selecting 15 artists from around the world. Sasha's works have been exhibited in 11 countries in Europe and Asia, and her project "Called to the Carpet" received a grant from Poland's Fotofestiwal in Lodz.
Artsiom Shalak — Artist and Fashion Designer
Artsiom was born in Zhodzina and started with graffiti, then studied journalism at BSU and wrote about music, eventually fully transitioning to art and fashion. He works under the pseudonym Acid Topser and develops his own clothing brand Random Rebels. The young man has collaborated with Vivienne Westwood, Billionaire Boys Club, Nike, Puma, and Adidas, and during Paris Fashion Week in 2024, he designed the windows of the Vivienne Westwood pavilion, leaving the name of his hometown — Zhodzina — among the inscriptions. In his works, he experiments with unconventional cuts and forms, using images and experiences from his childhood in Belarus.
Anastasia Vasiuchenka — Designer and Founder of KANVA
Anastasia studied costume design at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts, and in 2018, she founded the KANVA brand in Minsk. In her works, she reinterprets Belarusian traditional culture: for example, she transformed the straw "spider" — an amulet hung in houses — into modern jewelry.
Since 2022, the girl has been developing the brand in Warsaw, and her works have been shown at Milan Design Week. Recently, she also returned to creating clothing as part of the Refashioned program, and the collection was published in the print edition of Vogue Polska.
Mikita Ilinchyk — Playwright and Director
Mikita was born in Navahrudak, studied directing at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow, and worked with independent theater in Belarus, including the Minsk cultural venue OK16. He now lives in Poznań, and some of the main themes of his plays have become migration, borders, and life between different countries and identities. His play "Witaj, Abdo" (Hello, Abdo) is dedicated to the humanitarian crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border. In 2026, Mikita was nominated for the Paszporty Polityki — a prestigious Polish cultural award — in the performing arts category.
Science & Thinkers
Dzmitry Bahdanau — Scientist Who Was at the Origins of Modern AI
Dzmitry is an artificial intelligence researcher from Gomel. While working on his doctoral dissertation under the supervision of one of the AI pioneers, Yoshua Bengio, in 2014 he co-authored the attention mechanism — an approach that allows neural networks to focus on the most important parts of information and became one of the foundations for the development of modern language models.
His scientific work on this topic has been cited over 50,000 times. Currently, Dzmitry works at the Mila research institute in Montreal and teaches at McGill University, and is also one of the founders of Periodic Labs — a company that develops autonomous AI scientists for research in physics and materials science.
Ulad Tserashchanka — Surgeon and Neurotechnology Researcher
Ulad works at the intersection of surgery and neuroengineering. He is currently undergoing training in plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Medical University of Vienna, and previously conducted research at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. His scientific work is dedicated to neurointerfaces that help restore movement and sensation to people with prostheses. In particular, Ulad participated in the development of technology that allows bionic limbs to transmit the sensation of touch. For his research on pain associated with neuromas, Ulad was the first to receive the Young Investigator Award from the Global Nerve Foundation.
Darya Minina — Economist at the International Monetary Fund
Darya began her career at the Ministry of Economy of Belarus, and then moved to Amsterdam, where she studied economics at the University of Amsterdam and the Tinbergen Institute, later earning a doctoral degree. Her research examines how people and businesses form expectations about inflation and how central banks can influence them. Darya's works have been published in leading economic journals, and her research has been used by the central banks of Germany and the Netherlands. She currently works as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington.
Rita Kurban — Researcher in Medical AI
Rita works as a research engineer at the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford, where she develops machine learning models based on medical data from millions of patients. She received a master's degree in the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare from University College London (UCL). The girl is currently working on technologies that help analyze large volumes of clinical data and find patterns useful for medicine.
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