The 2017 New Europe 100 is the fourth annual list of central and eastern Europe’s brightest and best citizens who are changing the region’s societies, politics or business environments and displaying fresh approaches to prevailing problems.

The aim is to raise the profile of the changemakers in emerging Europe and to build connections among those in the vanguard.

The individuals from 14 countries were selected by Res Publica, the Warsaw-based journal; Google; the state-supported Visegrad Fund promoting integration within central Europe; and the Financial Times.

Bulgaria

Anita Klasanova

Co-founder and chief technologist of Roo Brands, which makes energy bars and cookies from dried fruits, raw nuts and superfoods. The inspiration for the company came from Ms Klasanova’s search for healthier snacks for her own children.

Dimitar Dimitrov

Chief executive of Tickey, an app that makes it easier for people to use public transport.

Zanni Sabev, Blagovest Dimitrov, Lyubomir Yanchev

Co-founders of MClimate, which helps users control cooling and heating systems in their homes.

Joana Koleva, Iva Tsolova, Anton Gavrailov

Co-founders of Jamba, an online platform providing training and career assistance for disabled people.

Rossi Mitova

Chief executive and founder of Farmhopping, an internet shopping platform connecting farmers and consumers.

Alexander Naydenov

Co-founder of PaperHive, an online hub where scholars can collaborate in reading complex texts.

Neven Boyanov

A digital entrepreneur recently involved with creating DivaCare, a platform that helps women recover from breast cancer treatment.

Belarus

Oleg Tikhonov

Founder of Eightydays.me, a tool for planning multi-city trips.

Slava Mazai, Vsevolod Henin, Sasha Yakovlev, Evgeny Voronets, Christina Butsko, Nikita Bedunkevich, Vladimir Piatryka

Founders of Onesoil, a smart platform for precision farming.

Alexander Astafiev

Co-founder of NeoSound, which has developed acoustic analysis technology that can be used by call centres to detect the emotions of speakers.

Daria Minsky

Founder of kyky.org, a Belarusian magazine, and co-founder of Exponenta, an AI tool that helps content go viral.

Croatia

Matija Zulj

Founder of Agrivi, a platform that helps farmers monitor and analyse crop data. Mr Zulj came up with the idea after running a blueberry farm and struggling to find advice on farming techniques.

© Dreamstime

Nenad Bakic

A serial entrepreneur who has helped change the way Stem subjects are taught in Croatian schools.

Dominik Tomicevic

Founder and chief executive of Memgraph, a real-time graph database.

Yazeed Kawther, Stevica Kuharski

Co-founders of Locodels, a sharing economy-based parcel delivery company.

Czech Republic

Karel Kovar

Video-blogger, also known as Kovy, who has more than 600,000 followers on his main YouTube channel. In addition to pranks and parodies he discusses politics and social issues.

Jan Lukacevic

Chief mechanical designer for the European Space Agency’s Predator experiment.

Marek Novak

Founder of X:GLU, which makes a credit card-sized smart glucometer that can help people better manage diabetes.

Michal Prager

Founder of Pestra spolecnost, a charity that trains assistance and guide dogs.

Tomas Gogar, Tomas Tunys, Petr Baudis

AI researchers and programmers who created a start-up called Rossum, which creates a neural network for understanding documents.

Adam Podhola

Co-founder and leader of the Zachran Jídlo organisation, which tackles the problem of food waste.

Ivo Lukacovic

Founder of Seznam.cz, a portal and search engine, and Windy.com, an app that provides real time data on wind.

Ondrej Steffl

Founder of a new brand of primary schools, called Scio, based on the latest findings in pedagogy and psychology.

Petr Chaloupka

Chief executive and co-owner of GreyCortex, an artificial intelligence company.

Pavel Konecny, Pavel Klinger

Co-founders of Neuron Soundware, which diagnoses machine problems by analysing the sounds they make.

Jan Mayer

Data analyst who has helped in fighting fake news with The Beacon Project.

Estonia

Markus Villig

Founder and chief executive of Taxify, a ride-sharing app that has emerged as a rival to Uber in a number of key markets. The company is backed by China’s car-booking group Didi Chuxing.

Maarja-Leena Saar

An open data activist who has been one of the main drivers behind Open Knowledge Estonia.

Jorma Jurisaar

Chief executive and founder of Weps, which makes a chatbot that helps people build websites.

Kustas Koiv, Ott Reinhold, Kristjan Hiiemaa

Co-founders of Barking, a platform that allows organisations to rent out their parking spots in cities.

Hannes Laar, Ardo Kaurit, Rait Udumae

Founders of Ampler, which makes electric bicycles.

Henri Ploom

Chief executive and co-founder of RebelRoam, a 4G internet service for transportation providers.

Taavi Must

Chief executive of RangeForce, a cyber security simulation training program.

Hungary

Miklos Tamasi

Creator of Fortepan, an online photography archive.

Adam Divak, David Ottlik

Founders of Synetiq, a company that uses biometric sensors to measure the way audiences respond to media and marketing content.

Laszlo Bekessy, Andras P Toth

Inventors of CodeBerry, a platform that teaches people how to code.

Imre Sziszak, Miklos Ilyes, Jozsef Cseh

Founders of Platio, a company that makes pavements from recycled plastic, which can harvest solar and kinetic energy.

Botond Feledy

Founder and editor in chief of the Hungarian thematic foreign policy news portal Kitekinto.hu.

Szabo Balazs, Gergo Nyikos, Peter Varga

Founders of Konetik, which makes smart devices to help manage fleets of company cars.

Latvia

Uldis Leiterts

Chief executive at Fragmentic, a marketing automation company.

Lithuania

Tomas Okmanas, Eimantas Sabaliauskas

Co-founders of Tesonet, a cyber security company.

Sarunas Chomentauskas

Chief executive at Exacaster, a big data predictive analytics company.

Ada Jonuse

Co-founder at Lympo, a fitness and wellbeing app using blockchain technology.

Aurelijus Liubinas

Co-founder and chief executive of Deeper, which makes a castable sonar, fitted with WiFi and GPS to help fishermen catch more fish.

Poland

Piotr Hołubowicz, Artur Racicki

Founder of Seedia, a company that creates eco-friendly products that harvest solar energy, such as benches.

Wojciech Pazdur, Kamil Bilczyński, Robert Siejka

Founders of The Farm 51, a computer games company whose projects include an educational virtual reality tour of Chernobyl after the nuclear disaster.

Tomasz Zernicki, Piotr Szczechowiak

Founders of Zylia, which has developed a technology that uses just a single microphone to record multi-track sounds that can later be separated.

Michal Wroczynski, Gniewosz Leliwa, Grzegorz Rutkiewicz, Tomasz Krupa

Founders of Fido AI, an artificial intelligence program that can understand internet-based blogs, comments, forums, and social media.

Ignacy Morawski

Founder of SpotData, a platform for visualising and analysing economic data.

Szymon Boniecki, Bartosz Pietrzak

Founders of Monterail, a web and mobile development company.

Piotr Barszczewski, Krzysztof Cybulski, Krzysztof Golinski, Jakub Kozniewski

Founders of panGenerator, a new media and art group.

Marta Krupinska

Co-founder of Azimo, the money transfer company.

Jan Pomierny and Lukasz Alwast

Core members of Platige Image, a creative animation studio.

Miroslaw Filiciak

Associate professor at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities and creator of Cyberforum, a website that publishes research on culture and digital technology.

Wiktor Warchalowski

Co-founder of Airly, a company that builds networks of air quality sensors.

Grzegorz Nowaczewski

Founder of Virtual Power Plant Company, a business that makes technology to manage heating, ventilation and air conditioning in buildings.

Bogumila Matuszewska, Katarzyna Chrabaszcz, Michal Rys

Co-founders of DrOmnibus, a company that makes multimedia learning and therapy tools for children with special needs.

Milosz Balus, Krzysztof Kochmanski, Jarosław Krolewski

Co-founders of Synerise, a marketing platform.

Piotr Goralczyk

Founder of Unified API, a company that helps fintech companies connect to banks.

Joanna Urbanska

Middle school science teacher who runs the Edu-Initiative Foundation, which encourages kids to create social projects and raise funds for them.

Dobromir Cias

Managing director of Edge NPD, a company that provides business intelligence for retailers.

Joanna Fedorowicz

Founder and chief executive of OvuFriend, an ovulation calculator.

Piotr Psyllos

Founder and chief executive of Psyllosoft, a machine learning and data science company.

Paul Malicki

Chief executive of Flapper, the Brazilian privet aviation platform. He also founded the ride-hailing app Easy Taxi.

Dominik Nowak, Radek Jarema

Co-founders of Husarion, an IoT development platforms for automation and robotics.

Sebastian Meszynski, Mateusz Jozefowicz, Inna Uwarowa

Co-founders of ABM Space, which develops projects for space missions.

Joanna Swiatkowska, Izabela Albrycht

Creators of the Cybersec cyber security conference.

Krzysztof Szubert

Deputy minister, Ministry of Digital Affairs.

Anna Grabczewska

President of the Children’s University Foundation, which offers lectures and workshops for children age six to 14.

Natalia Hatalska

Founder and chief executive of the Infuture Hatalska Foresight Institute, which forecasts future trends, and author of the hatalska.com blog.

Miron Mironiuk

Founder and chief executive of Cosmose, which creates technology that connects offline stores to online ads.

Pawel Gora

PhD student at the Faculty of Mathermatics, Computer Science and Mechanics, Warsaw University. He is working on Traffic Simulation Framework software, modelling and optimising traffic in cities.

Maria Belka

Chief executive of Bit Evil, an IT and digital marketing company.

Romania

Alin Chiriac

Co-founder of Adfaber.org, a non-governmental organisation that promotes computer science education for children.

Sergiu Ardelean

Founder of Artivive, an augmented reality tool for artists

Florin Talpes

Founder and chief executive of Bitdefender, the cyber security company.

Daniel Dines

Founder and chief executive of UiPath, which provides process automation software.

Ana Maria Udriste

Co-founder of Avocatoo, an online marketplace for finding lawyers.

Cristiana Bogateanu

Co-founder of Device Hub, an internet of things company and Academia Inventeaza, a robotics school for children.

Serbia

Milos Zikic

Creator of Sava, a white label platform for managing events.

Igor Bogicevic, Deniz Kural

Co-founders of Seven Bridges, a cloud-based platform for analysing bioinformatic data

Slovakia

Michal Mesko

Co-founder and chief executive of Martinus, an online book-reseller and chain of brick-and-mortar bookstores. He has also founded the Foxford chain of coffee houses and Dibuk, an ebook distribution platform.

Jan Hargas

Chief executive of Slovensko.digital, a watchdog organisation monitoring e-government activities.

Jan Gondol

A Slovak policymaker and a coder, actively involved in promoting open data, open access to scientific research and open education.

Lucia Sickova

Co-founder of Pixel Federation, the games company and leader of the company’s Edufactory initiative to apply gamification to learning.

Jan Urbancik

Chief executive of digital agency NetSuccess and founder of konspiratori.sk — a list of fake news and conspiracy sites in Slovakia and Czech Republic.

Symon Kliman, Viliam Csino, Boris Melus, Branislav Cavoj

Founding members of Nadacia Cvernovka, an organisation that supports people in the creative industry.

Pavol Cekan, Peter Kilian, Vladimir Wolf

Co-founders of MultiplexDX, a molecular diagnostics company.

Slovenia

Ales Spetic, Marko Mrdjenovic

Founders of CubeSensors, which makes connected sensors for monitoring everything from air quality to noise in the home.

Miha Fabjan, Matej Ramuta, Ziga Besal

Co-founders of SmartNinja, an IT training school.

Jernej Vidmar, Martin Vuk, Ziga Bohm, Ziga Stopinsek

Co-founders of AgiliCity, a 3D tool for city planning.

Damjan Malis

Co-founder of Ulla, which makes a gadget that reminds people to drink enough water throughout the day.

Kristjan Kosic, Matej Vogrincic, Andraz Leitgeb, Zedin Salkanovic

Co-founders of Adora, which allows doctors to look at patient data using gestures.

Ukraine

Max Gerbut, Julia Gerbut

Founders of PassivDom, which makes 3D-printed, solar-powered houses. The house generates enough solar energy to cover all heating and cooling, as well as running appliances.

Roman Zinchenko

Cleantech advocate and co-founder of Greencubator, an organisation that promotes energy efficiency.

Irina Prokofieva

Co-founder of Make me better, a non-profit project to provide mentoring for people at the start of their careers.

Nataliya Gumenyuk

Head of Ukrainian independent TV channel and media platform Hromadske.

Vitalii Moroz

Head of New Media at Internews, a non-profit organisation that trains journalists.

Andrii Karpiuk

Founder of BIOsens, which makes an IoT biosensor to detect mycotoxins in food.

Rustem Akishbekov, Anna Iarotska

Creators of Robo Wunderkind, a robot that teaches children from the age of five upwards how to code.

For more details of the New Europe 100 list see www.ne100.org

This article has been amended to reflect the fact that Aurelijus Liubinas is based in Lithuania, Robo Wunderkind is a Ukrainian start-up and Jan Mayer is based in the Czech Republic.