Name: Yaroslav Azhnyuk
Age: 28
Education: Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Y Combinator
Profession: Entrepreneur and mathematician; co-founder and CEO at Petcube
Did you know? Azhnyuk likes to dance swing, and visits swing dancing venues in every city he can.
Yaroslav Azhnyuk can’t talk to animals, but he wants to understand them. His aim is to use artificial intelligence to help pet owners communicate better with their furry friends.
The entrepreneur, however, started with a less ambitious goal in 2012. That was when Azhnyuk and his partners, Andrey Klen and Alex Neskin, founded a startup called Petcube, making a gadget pet owners could use to watch and play with their pets remotely.
The Petcube team created a cube with a camera inside, connected via Wi-Fi to pet owners’ smartphones with an application. They also added a laser pointer that could be controlled remotely by users sweeping a finger across their smartphone display, so owners could play with their pets. They then added microphones to allow owners to talk to their pets as well as recording functions, so users could save some of the moments captured on camera.
“About 12 years ago one could only imagine the Internet of Things, which is a big thing nowadays,” Azhnyuk told the Kyiv Post. “It’s funny that I have become involved in creating a world that, when I was entering university, our professors were only dreaming about.”
Since then, Petcube has become more than just a local tech startup — it is now a successful company that works in the Internet of Things field. It has offices in the United States, China and Ukraine, with $14 million in funding. It’s been a partner of movie-making giant Universal Studios and boasts Hollywood star Emma Watson as a customer.
The company has produced another gadget that allows users to play fetch with their pet and reward the animal with a snack remotely. The team is devoting a lot of time to research animal behavior to develop new products.
“We’re connecting pets to the internet and studying their behavior. We think we’ll be able to give them a voice, to better understand them, eventually,” Azhnyuk said.
Despite the achievements, CEO Azhnyuk remains modest. He’s still surprised when people from the tech industry say the success of Petcube inspires them. Surprised, he said, but also happy.
Azhnyuk says people in the Soviet Union were inspired by bureaucrats — people at the top who would steal, become wealthy and achieve respect in society. “I’d like that to change,” he said. “I want people to start seeing new role models. If we can show that three guys from Kyiv, by working hard and thinking globally, can create value for hundreds of thousands of people around the world — then I’ll be happy.”
