Interview with Oleksandra Boguslavska, CEO & Founder at Data Science UA

Oleksandra Boguslavska, CEO & Founder at Data Science UA

Since 2016, she has been actively building and developing the Data Science Community in Ukraine, which now has more than 10,000 engineers.
Data Science UA has been organizing an international conference on Data Science since 2016; is engaged in training in AI and IT-recruiting; AI-outsourcing and outstaffing; has been opening R&D centers in Ukraine for almost 1.5 years. In addition, the company has its own recruitment team, which finds IT professionals for the most difficult jobs.

Oleksandra, in your opinion, what is Ukraine's place in the global AI market? And what is the dynamics of development?

Recently, Ukraine has taken a very strong position as we have very valuable engineers, Data Scientists, highly qualified specialists who are fast and provide quality products and results. There is now a strong growth in the need for engineers, both in Ukraine and in Europe and the United States. As a community, we help companies and professionals find the best option for both parties to work together. In Data Science UA we objectively know the market from the inside, we know its needs. And that’s where we differ.

In 2018, you started working with large companies. You are approached by business representatives who have a lot of information about customers, about the business, but there is no understanding of the specifics of working with it, as well as how to become better through the data. Please tell us how you help entrepreneurs and end-users.

Indeed, in 2018 we launched a consulting area, today we advise both large companies and startups, geography - the whole world!
We teach how to work with data, how to analyze it so that the clients receive information based on their history of interaction and their needs. That is, the consumer receives a personalized offer. Data and analysis help to see the objective situation in business, decisions are made on their basis in a new direction and development.

Our new product Avocado AI - its main goal is to optimize purchases for restaurants and bars. This will help reduce the cost of products that are not used and increase the profits of an institution. In this example, it is clear that we care about both the producer and the consumer.

In 2017, you opened a recruitment agency that successfully fills the positions and works with leading companies. What is the recipe for success of the agency?

We know the market very well and evaluate it objectively. Given our resources, we have the opportunity to recommend the company in accordance with the priorities of the specialist.

In 2016, you started your work with organizing a conference on the topic of Data Science and AI. Totally you held 9 conferences. You are developing an industry. What will be the 10th anniversary conference and what will be the main message of the event?

This is a fairly large project, which we are passionate about and look forward to the next conference.
We have already organized 7 offline conferences and 2 online conferences.
I can definitely say that the next conference will be only offline. My team and I hope that the situation with the pandemic will allow us to hold a conference in 2022.

What is your main message as a conference organizer for your community?

The main message is that we are all human beings, and we all miss communication and live meetings. I hope that we will finally be able to meet at conferences and share experiences live. Our main goal is to show the world that our engineers are the best in the world. And that the products which are created by Ukrainian engineers - are created with heart and soul, that they are the best!