Interview with Kateryna: Estonia’s Hackathon Winner with Strong Entrepreneurial Mindset

Kateryna Hutak was a participant of the Start Smart – Be the Next Gen program.
Kateryna’s team became the winner of the online cross-border hackathon, demonstrating creativity, teamwork, and strong entrepreneurial thinking.

Tell us a little about yourself?
My name is Kateryna, but you can call me Katya. I am a student at Tallinn English College. I have a strong interest in business and artificial intelligence, which is why I decided to join this program.
I am especially interested in trading and investing. I have some experience already – I invested together with my dad because I’m not old enough to have my own account yet. When I joined Start Smart, I finally began to understand what I really want to do in the future and how I can turn my interests into a real idea.

How did you find out about the Start Smart program?
Actually, my mom told me about the program. Before that, I had no idea that something like this even existed. I’m really grateful that she told me, because it gave me a great opportunity to meet new people and learn a lot of useful things through the Start Smart program.

What was your idea in the program and what are your future plans?
At the beginning, I honestly had no clear idea of what kind of business I wanted to create. I only knew one thing for sure – I wanted to do business. So I started by brainstorming and writing down everything I could possibly do.
This program really helped me look at my hobbies from a completely different perspective. Eventually, I came up with an idea for a platform designed for people of different ages. My goal is to teach them how to invest properly, even if they are not sure whether investing is right for them or not. I find this idea very exciting, and I really hope that I will be able to start working on it soon.

What were your expectations before joining the program?
To be honest, I expected the program to be quite boring. There are many business programs that are very theoretical and not very engaging, so my expectations were quite low.
However, when I joined, I was really happy to meet like-minded people. I also loved the structure of the program and the free learning materials. It was especially great that we received free access to ChatGPT Plus. I really loved working with Ilja and Nastya — they made the program enjoyable and inspiring. Thank you for creating such a great experience!