Valentin Kravtchenko
Valentin Kravtchenko
CEO
(19)
4
Location
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Bio

Valentin Kravtchenko has 7 years of experience in project management and over a decade in communication - with a focus on new media, new technologies, and social entrepreneurship.

He founded Grey-Box.ca , a social innovation startup that provides free WiFi access to educational resources in remote areas where access to the Internet and electricity is inconsistent (50% of the world's population is disconnected according to the UN Broadband Commission).

He specializes in the management of projects that involve creative and technical components. He trains and supports clients in their content creation strategies for the digital age.

Companies
Categories
Communications Education Information technology Market research Social sciences

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Recent projects

Grey-box - Free WiFi for Remote Communities
Grey-box - Free WiFi for Remote Communities
Montréal, Québec, Canada

Commercialization - Social Impact Project

WHO: Grey-box is social innovation startup that is working on providing free wifi access to educational content in areas where internet and electricity access is problematic. WHY: 50% of the world lives offline – they haven’t connected to the internet in the last 3 months. In Africa, the average cost for 1GB of data is 7% of the average monthly salary. Even in North America, 50% of rural Canada does not have access to the minimum speed for the Internet. We believe that this is a solvable problem. HOW: In a nutshell, we are wrapping up our pilot project in Canada, Madagascar, Congo, Cameroun, Mexico and South Soudain. The mandate is to ensure a solid administrative and financial structure that allows this project to scale since the goal to open our marketplace to allow NGOs and organizations worldwide to purchase directly.

Matches 4
Category Competitive analysis + 4
Open
Grey-box - Free WiFi for Remote Communities
Grey-box - Free WiFi for Remote Communities
Montréal, Québec, Canada

International expansion - Social Impact Project

WHO : Grey-box is a social innovation startup that is working on providing free wifi access to educational content in areas where internet and electricity access is problematic. WHY: 50% of the world lives offline – they haven’t connected to the internet in the last 3 months. In Africa, the average cost for 1GB of data is 7% of the average monthly salary. Even in North America, 50% of rural Canada does not have access to the minimum speed for the Internet. We believe that this is a solvable problem. HOW : Over the last 2 years and based on field research and work, we have developed an array of mostly open-source social innovation projects. Each of those projects has a dedicated page on Riipen, but this listing serves as a quick summary: UNI  is a low-cost device (and soon an Android application) that allows Wi-Fi access to everyone, everywhere, even in areas without reliable or safe internet. With a simple click to upload, Slides, PDFs, videos, Moodle, databases, or even copies of entire websites can be made available offline for free. Project Codex  uses AI to translate medical databases in several languages and regions to facilitate international operations. It can be accessed via a mobile site or a tool such as WhatsApp. The Medical Codex project aims to provide an easy-to-use tool that can help coordinate medical equipment between countries and to quickly translate medical terms across multiple languages while accounting for local variations such as brands and generics. Project   Symmetry  is an application using AI to accelerate Wikipedia's translation efforts in less-represented languages (less than 1 million articles) by building a semantic understanding of similar articles in various Wikipedia languages and providing relevant translations for missing information Project Scraper  is a Google Chrome extension that enables offline access to a web page or an entire website with just a few clicks. Project Mesh  is an application that enables Android devices to connect and send files and messages over long distances without requiring internet connectivity. Project Cybercafe  is software that runs on an Android device, enabling smart hotspot functionality for the sharing of internet connectivity with other Wi-Fi devices. Recognizing costs and other restrictions that may exist in our targeted regions, several controls are in place to allow a high level of control over how a user’s hotspot device is used for internet access.

Matches 22
Category Competitive analysis + 4
Open
Grey-box - Free WiFi for Remote Communities
Grey-box - Free WiFi for Remote Communities
Montréal, Québec, Canada

Team lead Agile Development

We are looking for students to act as a Scrum Master/ Team Lead/ Project Manager. You will support the team by ensuring that tasks are clearly defined, documented and followed up on. Regular reviews of the project and communication with the team will allow you to detect task dependencies and allow visibility of your project's priorities. Grey-box is a social innovation startup that is currently incubating on multiple projects; here's a partial list: Project Symmetry - Improve the translation efforts for under-represented languages on Wikipedia by using ML. Project Mesh - Allow low-cost Android devices to connect themselves wirelessly over WiFi or Bluetooth Project CyberCafe - Allow an Android device to manage how it shares its hotspot internet connectivity with other devices Project Web Scraper - A Chrome extension that allows creating an offline copy of a web page or a whole website Project Codex - This project aims at translating & finding equivalence for medical data and equipment. See More

Matches 2
Category Project management + 3
Open
Grey-box - Free WiFi for Remote Communities
Grey-box - Free WiFi for Remote Communities
Montréal, Québec, Canada

Wikipedia's Content Translation through Machine Learning (Project Symmetry)

WHO: Grey-box is social innovation startup that is working on providing free wifi access to educational content in areas where internet and electricity access is problematic. WHY: 50% of the world lives offline – they haven’t connected to the internet in the last 3 months. In Africa, the average cost for 1GB of data is 7% of the average monthly salary. Even in North America, 50% of rural Canada do not have access to the minimum speed for internet. We believe that this is a solvable problem. HOW: In a nutshell, for the current project (codename: symmetry), we want to translate content from one language in Wikipedia to another (for exemple, improve Molière English Wikipedia article based on content available only on the french page - and vice versa). The idea is to improve the overall Wikipedia content, especially in underrepresented langages. Grey-box is a nonprofit structured under the principle of mobile-first and remote-first. Diversity is not only encouraged, it is an integral part of the strength of the team and its projects

Matches 5
Category Software development + 4
Open