DATE AND TIME
19 July 2025
PLACE
National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War
NATIONAL YOUTH FORUM
State-builder: a generation of resilience
The event brought together 400 proactive young people from across the country, who were selected from over 1,800 applicants on a competitive basis. Forum participants had the opportunity to learn from experts from the public, private and non-governmental sectors during three panel discussions and four TEDx talks.
Invited government officials took part in a discussion on the reconstruction of Ukraine, experts from the private sector discussed the role of business in state-building, and public figures shared their vision of the synergy between young people, donors and international organisations.
The resilience of the Ukrainian nation was a recurring theme throughout the event, and the forum aims to become a platform for building a community of young people with strong values who are ready to take responsibility for the present and future of their country.
The State Builder Forum was organised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Youth Centre, the Ukrainian Student League and the Kyiv School of Public Administration named after S. Nyzhnyy, in cooperation with the national project “Side by Side: United Communities‘, the NGO ’3.5%‘ – with the support of UNICEF in Ukraine, with financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the German Development Bank (KfW), as well as within the framework of the ’EU4Youth IV” project, co-financed by the European Union and BMZ and implemented by GIZ, with the participation of the charitable foundation ‘MHP – Community’.
Speakers
- Ruslan Stefanchuk — Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;
- Matviy Bidny — Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine;
- Munir Mamedzade — Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Ukraine;
- Hanna Mishchenko — Managing Partner of the Kyiv School of Public Administration named after Serhiy Nyzhnyy;
- Kostyantyn Kovalchuk – Deputy Minister of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine;
- Serhiy Sukhomlyn – Head of the State Agency for the Restoration and Development of Infrastructure of Ukraine;
- Mykola Kalashnyk – Head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration;
- Regina Kharchenko – Acting Mayor of Zaporizhzhia, Secretary of the Zaporizhzhia City Council;
- Natalia Alyushina – Head of the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service
- Igor Zhovkva – Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine
- Oleksandr Pertsovsky – Chairman of the Board of Ukrzaliznytsia
- Vyacheslav Klimov – Co-founder of Nova Poshta, President of the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs
- Gennadiy Chizhikov – President of the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
- Gennadiy Karlinsky – Marketing Director of WOG
- Dmytro Zavgorodniy – Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine
- Oleksandr Pakholyuk – Director of the MHP – Community Charitable Foundation
- Olena Kazmazovska – National Coordinator of the EU4Youth IV project in Ukraine, GIZ
- Marta Benyshyn – Head of the public organisation ‘Building Ukraine Together’
- Yuriy Kotubey – Member of the Board of the public organisation ‘3.5 Percent’
- Serhiy Volynskyi “Volyna” – Veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Hero of Ukraine, initiator of the charitable foundation ‘Stalovi’, public figure
