My Journey

I was born in Odesa, Ukraine, and from the age of six, my life revolved around the basketball court. Following in my father's footsteps, I realized early on that basketball isn't just about the game - it’s about learning how to perform and grow under pressure.

At 15, I managed to get a scholarship in California to play there, before the COVID-19 eventually transferred me to Wichita, Kansas in 2020. It was there that I took my first programming class which changed the way I approached problem solving.

While doing my algebra homework, I started writing small Python scripts to automate the process, realizing that logic could save time. It wasn't about avoiding effort, but about finding the fastest way to get results - it was this idea that led me to study Artificial Intelligence.

After graduation, I gained my first real-world experience as a team intern for We Are D3, a professional basketball team competing in the $1 million TBT tournament.

Seeing how things run behind the scenes it taught me that data is the "secret" of sports. It’s the difference between a random guess and a winning strategy.

While playing college basketball at GCC in Michigan during the 2023/2024 season, I began exploring DeFi because of the idea of ​​financial systems running as open source.

I realized that both AI and DeFi are about the same thing, creating more advanced systems that don't rely on old, slow intermediaries.

After finishing my 1st year of college and studying Computer Programming, I returned to We Are D3 in the summer of 2024. I traveled with the team to Dayton, Ohio, to witness the team's first tournament win in six years.

→ Spoiler: Watch the first ever win emotions

A summer in Ohio along living and traveling around New England with my family, made my mind: whether this was a winning strategy or a smart contract analysis for a liquidity pool, I wanted to learn more about the science behind it in the rapidly changing world of AI.

That's why I made the most important decision of my life: to end my basketball career which brought me to the States 7 years ago, and move to Aberdeen to pursue a degree in Data Science with AI at RGU and be closer to my family, who live in the city.

I want to focus on building something truly important that can benefit people – using AI or machine learning to solve complex problems and exploring the idea of ​​DeFi as the future of data in finance.