How Canadian tech can help Ukrainians

I often describe this podcast as one dedicated to talking about Canadian tech and tech from a Canadian perspective.

It’s a framing that allows us to capture global context while still keeping focused on important conversations in Canadian tech.

“There’s such a heavy emotional toll of uncertainty and not knowing what’s going to happen with your life.”

But sometimes those conversations can’t be contained within such a limited context. Sometimes, they become the context.

Like with COVID-19, or the Black Lives Matter movement. Or the invasion of Ukraine and the attack on its sovereignty.

Make no mistake, this is a global event, with impacts that are complex and well beyond the concerns and considerations of a tech podcast.

But it’s also an event impacting real people – people you may know, people you may work with, people who build the tools and tech you use every day. To ignore that would be to turn a blind eye to the personal because we are overwhelmed by the political.

So today we’re speaking to two people: Ilya Brotsky, CEO of VanHack; and Daryna Kulya, co-founder and COO of OpenPhone.

Both have personal connections to what is happening in Ukraine, and both are using their businesses to do something about it. And both know this is a much bigger conversation than tech – even if that’s what we try to talk about today.

Let’s dig in.

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