The Invasion of Ukraine: Impacts and How Silicon Valley Can Help

Tomorrow—Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 at 9:00 AM PST.—we're holding a briefing to address one of the most important events in our history: "The Invasion of Ukraine: Impacts and How Silicon Valley Can Help".

Featuring discussions between Polina Sinovets, Head of Odessa Center for Nonproliferation (OdCNP); Yulia Bezvershenko, fellow of the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University; Anna Bulakh, Technology Ethics & Policies, International Security & Resilience Expert; and Ahmad Thomas, SVLG, CEO—it will be a chance to learn about the crisis from Ukrainian academics with unparalleled understanding of nuclear proliferation, threat analysis, politics and culture.

We will investigate the new challenges we face, and try to provide information you can use to formulate strategies for providing aid and services on both business and corporate levels.

As the first SVLG Access event it is open to all, SVLG members and the public alike. Please go here to register and reserve your spot.

NB: Given the extreme instability in Ukraine at present we reserve the right to replace/remove speakers, or cancel the event entirely, without prior notification.

Many organizations have been vetted, do important work, and are on the ground. We hope you support the following organizations:

• UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund)—a focus on delivering aid to children and families—unicefusa.org
• World Central Kitchen—cooking high-quality food for refugees entering Poland from Ukraine—WCK.org
• Global Empowerment Mission—buying refugees train and plane tickets—globalempowermentmission.org
• Médecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders—providing access to healthcare and prescription medicines—doctorswithoutborders.org
• Voices of Children—a Ukranian charity helping children overcome the trauma of war—voices.org.ua/en/

BIOGRAPHIES

Anna Bulakh - Anna Buklakh is an expert and advisor on international security and technologies. Currently, she is part of the Hybrid warfare Task Force at Kyiv School of Economics and Ukrainian tech community. Anna has 10 years of experience in security and defense policies. She is a former Research Fellow at the International Centre for Defense and Security in Tallinn and Prague Security Studies Institute. Since 2019 she has also be part of the IT community in AI, cyber and information security. Anna was a policy adviser to Reface, an AI powered app on synthetic media. She is a Co-Founder of Cappture.cc, a start-up funded by the Startup Wise Guys accelerator program, and former Program director at Disinfo.Tech. Both companies focused on developing solutions to help combat online threats and disinformation. In her work she is dealing with issues such as tech impact of national security, information and cyber security, broader national security policies and resilience building.

Polina Sinovets– Associate Professor, Ph.D in Political Science, Department of International Relations, Political Science and Sociology, Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University; Head of Odessa Center for Nonproliferation (OdCNP), based at ONU.

In 2003-2012, she worked as senior research associate at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, then as a fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome (2015). In 2017-2018 – Fulbright Fellow at James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Dr. Sinovets is an expert in nuclear weapons policy and has published articles in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Russia in Global Politics, and NATO Defense College Research Papers, among others. Areas of expertise: nuclear deterrence, strategic stability, Russian nuclear policy, European security. Author of more than 80 research publications in scientific journals of Ukraine, US, Russia.

Yulia Bezvershenko is Director General of Directorate for Science and Innovation at the Ministry of Education and Science. The Directorate was created for policy development and implementation in the research, development and innovation sector.

Since the Revolution of Dignity, Bezvershenko has been deeply involved in the reform of science development and implementation process. Her mission is to build knowledge-based Ukraine as economy and society based on knowledge, science and innovation. She has contributed to the Law on Science, which was adopted by Parliament in 2015. In cooperation with scientists and reformers she developed and actively participated in the creation of two new institutions, the National Council on Science and Technology and the National Science Fund. Bezvershenko currently works both on implementation of the aforementioned law and on its future iterations.

Bezvershenko holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics (National Academy of Science of Ukraine) and a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Governance from the Kyiv School of Economics. She has diverse experience in the research and development sector, having worked as a researcher at the Bogolyubov Institute as well as a senior lecturer on quantum theory at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Until 2019, Yulia was a Deputy Head of Young Scientists Council of National Academy of Science of Ukraine and Vice-President of NGO "Unia Scientifica" aimed to promote science and to advocate reform of science in Ukraine.