Uliana - Projects

This is a place where I collect things I've done.

I do things not because they fit into a plan (they don't), but because at some point I cared about them enough to actually do them.

Most of my projects start the same way: something feels missing or annoying, so I try to fix it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it turns into something bigger, sometimes it's just fun. This has taken me to some interesting places:

Maths at Cambridge · from Ukraine 🇺🇦

What I'm working on now

AI Tutoring Platform

Education

Ukrainian education is in a really bad place right now. 25% of students are studying online-only. 20% of classes get cancelled because of bombings. In the east, more than half don't happen at all.

The NMT - the national exam that decides whether you get into university - still happens every year. Kids are expected to prepare like everything is normal. It's not. Most families can't afford a tutor, and if your school barely functions, you're just on your own.

I built Kudyvstupaty a few years ago because Ukrainian students had no information about applying abroad. This comes from the same place - these are kids who need help right now and aren't getting it. So I'm building a free AI tutoring platform with Anton Tsypko, where it matters most.

ronko.app →

Past projects

Kudyvstupaty (English: where to study)

Education ▾

Built the resource I wished I had at 15 - 85+ honest acceptance stories for Ukrainian students applying abroad. 2,500+ students helped so far.

I started Kudyvstupaty because Ukrainian students applying abroad usually have zero real information. University websites are in different languages, every country has its own weird rules, and no one at school knows how any of it actually works.

When I was 15, I had to cold-message friends of friends of friends just to understand basic things. Later, when I had easy access to people studying at top universities, I collected 85+ honest real acceptance stories and put everything in one place. It took a few days to build and a lot of annoying my friends, but it became exactly the resource I wish I had.

So far, it's helped 2,500+ Ukrainian students navigate applying abroad during a critical moment for Ukrainian education.

kudyvstupaty.com →

CamHack

Event ▾

I led Cambridge's largest hackathon. 250+ people building genuinely unhinged projects for 30 hours under the theme "Unintended Behaviour."

I led Cambridge's largest hackathon.

Most hackathons felt corporate and boring, basically recruitment events with merch. I wanted to create something different, a weekend which students would spend building insane projects.

So together with James we ran CamHack 2025. We ran a slightly insane advertising campaign (including hiding 650 small rubber ducks around the university) and grew it from ~100 to 250+ participants.

30 hours of building genuinely unhinged projects under the theme "Unintended Behaviour". And it worked!!! The projects were weird, technically strong, and people actually cared.

Cambridge Game Jam

Event ▾

I led this - 48 hours to build any game you can dream of. Theme was "Set In Stone." 47 games submitted. Hid ~1000 rubber ducks around Cambridge as marketing - surprisingly effective.

I led this with James and an amazing team - 48 hours to build any game you can dream of: video games, board games, ARGs. The theme was "Set In Stone" and people went absolutely wild with it. Hid ~1000 rubber ducks around Cambridge as marketing, which turns out is surprisingly effective - we ended up getting people from all kinds of fields, not just CS.

47 games were submitted. Someone built a mobster interrogation game where you're accused of killing your brother and have to shift the blame before your feet get set in concrete. Someone made a gaze-controlled snake game designed for people with cerebral palsy. Someone wrote an entire game in Verilog and ran it on an FPGA. There was a Medusa puzzle game, a mahjong tower defence, a kidney stone that travels back in time, and a board game based on Irish mythology.

I secured sponsorship from Jane Street, Citadel Securities, Optiver, Anthropic, and others.

games →

QUACK

Community ▾

I started a weekly build night at Cambridge because no one seemed to be making things just for fun. ~100 members, ~30 show up weekly.

Cambridge felt weirdly uncreative - everyone wrapped in deadlines, no space to just build something for fun. I couldn't find people who'd spend evenings making stuff just because.

So I started QUACK with James. It's a weekly, no-pressure build night where people just show up and work on whatever they're excited about.

~100 members total, around 30 show up weekly to work on AI tools, quantum projects, graphics engines, hardware builds, whatever catches their interest.

I secured sponsorship from HRT, Citadel Securities, Optiver and EF for hardware to allow students to build whatever they want.

camquack.com →

EasyUkrainian

Tool ▾

Made my own language learning app after installing 24 different ones and not being happy with any of them.

I created my own language learning app for my friends to learn Ukrainian. I learnt German myself from scratch to B2 (upper intermediate) without any courses or classes - just a mix of different apps/websites/approaches.

I did not like any app, but I liked parts of many (at some point I had 24 apps installed on my phone - I wanted to experiment to find what worked for me).

So I built one place that combines spaced repetition (Anki-style), a chatbot to actually use the language, small games, and structured lessons - all sharing the same vocabulary, so you're not relearning the same words in five different apps.

demo video →

My own free SuperWhisper

Tool

Didn't want to pay for speech-to-text software. Asked Claude to build it for me. That's it.

github →