Tech for Good: Rebuilding Ukraine

By Founders Forum Group // 18 June 2022

President Zelenskyy addresses the FF community via hologram, live from the Forum Dome at FF London. Photo via Caleb Miller.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses European tech community via hologram, live from Founders Forum London.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at Founders Forum London 2022! More on the day to come, but first, a look at one very special moment we shared in our effort to support Ukraine and amplify an important message from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

With the help of our friends at Talesmith, Garden Studios, Evercoast and ARHT Media, the President addressed Europe’s tech leaders via 3D hologram, live from Founders Forum on Thursday. He urged our community to donate to United24’s Rebuild Ukraine fund and invest in the digital transformation that will define the country’s long-term rebuild, highlighting Ukraine’s resilient development, despite the ongoing war. 

By broadcasting President Zelenskyy’s address via hologram and 3D avatar, our aim was to exemplify the world-changing innovation our community is capable of delivering and inspire our network to develop new technologies that can help rebuild Ukraine and promote truth dissemination.

President Zelenskyy appears via Hologram at Founders Forum, Brilliant Minds, The Next Web and VivaTech
The President’s hologram appearing on-stage at Founders Forum, via ARHT Media’s holographic CAPSULE. Photo via Sam Churchill.

We worked with ARHT Media to bring their holographic capsule to three other European cities, enabling the President to appear on stage simultaneously at the UK’s Founders Forum, Stockholm’s Brilliant Minds, Amsterdam’s The Next Web and Paris’ VivaTech. We also live-streamed his telepresence to Dublin Tech Summit, London Tech Week’s AI Summit and SuperReturn Berlin, to bring the President’s  message to nearly 200,000 leaders across every vertical of the tech industry. You can view President Zelenskyy’s address via Evercoast’s mobile augmented reality experience using the links and QR codes below:

Talesmith’s founder, Martin Williams and Evercoast’s founding CEO, Ben Nunez travelled to Kyiv to record the President volumetrically and ensure we delivered his message in 3D, showcasing the potential for Ukraine to leapfrog into a better, tech-enabled world, post-war.

The volumetric capture hardware used for the project has been donated to the Ukrainian government, to enable continued communications in extended reality formats, and ARHT Media is donating the equipment used for the hologram capture to the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, located in Kyiv.

President Zelenskyy was recorded volumetrically enabling him to appear as a 3D avatar in a mobile augmented reality experience, available via QR code
President Zelenskyy addresses tech innovators from a volumetric capture studio, enabling global audiences to view his 3D avatar via Evercoast’s mobile augmented reality experience. Photo via Talesmith.

Our mission at Founders Forum is empowering entrepreneurs at every stage of their journeys to drive positive change through technology. We are continually inspired by the creative technologies our community develops to solve problems and overcome challenges both big and small, and we believe wholeheartedly in tech as a force for good in the world. We believe in tech as a means of empowering democracies to prevail over autocracies.

We are proud to have hosted several Ukrainian thought leaders at this week’s event, including Dima Shvets, Viktoriya Tigipko, Igor Zhadanov, and Irra Ariella Khi who raised well over $1 million USD via Sunflower Relief at Thursday’s event, to provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Thank you to The Kyiv Independent’s Olga Rudenko and Daryna Shevchenko who travelled from Ukraine to join us in person.

Thank you also to Amanda Holden, Bernard Henri-Lévy, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Gayle King, Nile Rodgers, Oleksandr Balabanov, Ozwald Boateng and Peter Gabriel, who helped us amplify the President’s message and shared powerful words of support from the FF stage. 

We’re working with Talesmith to release an extended message of solidarity in the coming days, featuring 35 global leading lights, so stay tuned for more as we look to unify our community to strengthen and accelerate Ukraine’s rebuild over the coming weeks.

Thank you to our generous donors who contributed significant funds to Ukraine’s humanitarian and rebuilding initiatives as we fundraised at this past week’s event.

Thank you to The New York Times, The Times and The Guardian for helping shed light on this project and expanding the reach of President Zelenskyy’s message.

Thank you as well, to Thomas Hoegh, who created and produced the project alongside Talesmith’s Martin Williams, Mark Wright and Ruth Roberts

This is only the beginning – we stand with the Ukrainian people and are ready to do everything we can to help #RebuildUkraine. 

Please reach out here if you’d like to get involved.