Educators are failing students by only using one book from the shelf.
Igor Dyachenko
For those who don’t know, Studyum is a learning experience platform that combines a veritable smorgasbord of technologies, including artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and NFTfi trading — all on the blockchain.

The ed-tech startup is launching an IDO (initial dex offering) at the end of May this year. So that’s the what and when out of the way, but who is the driving force behind Studyum? And why is he hellbent on becoming a linchpin architect of the future of education?

FATHER
Born in Kiev, in 1981, Igor was a prototypical Soviet kid with two hard-working parents, both of which were engineers. Whilst Igor’s early relationship with his mother was “disconnected”, his father, a computer scientist in the Soviet space program, was a stoic role model to the child. In the 90s, as the Soviet Union collapsed, Igor’s father became an entrepreneur, eventually growing his business to become the second-largest hardware & software company in Ukraine.

Papa Dyachenko was also a keen martial artist specializing in Judo. In fact, from the early 1960s, a huge wave of Soviets developed an interest in martial arts — Judo and Karate in particular. Many practitioners, however, adopted a rather DIY approach and thus lacked an understanding of the core spiritual pillars of Karate. Soviets took to using Karate in brutal street fights, and since the USSR was all about policing its citizens, all martial arts, including Karate, were banned and unbanned several times over three decades.