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Active Transaction Graphs: A New Scientific Framework for Transactional Interactive Systems

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A new scientific paper by Oleksandr Vityaz, "Active Transaction Graphs: A Formal Framework for Transactional Interactive Systems" has been published on ResearchGate.

The paper introduces Active Transaction Graphs (ATGs) — a formal framework for interactive systems where state, interaction, execution traceability, and accounting consequences must be modeled together. In ATGs, system participants are modeled as actors, graph edges act as computational mediators of transactions, and system behavior is observed through the semantic triple (result, trace, ledger).

Within the formal core, the paper proves several results including a noise projection theorem, an embedding of Petri nets into ATGs, and a representation of CHAM-style systems as quotients of ATGs. The framework is intended as a semantic foundation for transactional interactive systems such as workflow engines, enterprise platforms, and human–AI operational environments.

Publication details:

Title: Active Transaction Graphs: A Formal Framework for Transactional Interactive Systems

Author: Oleksandr Vityaz · corezoid.com · March 2026

Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/401697820_Active_Transaction_Graphs_A_Formal_Framework_for_Transactional_Interactive_Systems

The Science of Effective Control: New Research Publication

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

We are proud to announce that our team is pushing the boundaries of cybernetics and AI. A new scientific paper by Alexander Vityaz (Oleksandr Vityaz), titled On the Necessity of Noise Suppression for Minimal Good Regulators: Factorization Theorems and a Closure Conjecture has been published on ResearchGate.

In simple terms, the research mathematically proves a fundamental truth: no management system—be it an IT architecture or a business process—can be truly effective if it cannot suppress "informational noise." In an era of data overload, this work establishes the critical necessity of filtering out the irrelevant to ensure precise decision-making. We are honored to see our theoretical frameworks grounded in fundamental science, helping us build smarter and more resilient digital products.

Publication details:

Title: On the Necessity of Noise Suppression for Minimal Good Regulators: Factorization Theorems and a Closure Conjecture

Author: Oleksandr Vityaz · corezoid.com, Dnipro, Ukraine · January 2026

Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400615896_On_the_Necessity_of_Noise_Suppression_for_Minimal_Good_Regulators_Factorization_Theorems_and_a_Closure_Conjecture/

Why chatbots, as a separate kind of software, do not exist - Alexander Vityaz`s interview for Gagadget

Thu, 04 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Founder Corezoid Inc. and Simulator.Company Alexander Vityaz spoke with Gagadget.com

Sergii Mitiaiev, Editor-in-Chief Gagadget said about this interview: "This time, we started (in fact, it was the topic of the conversation) with chatbots and ended with the dismissal of javascripters in his company, who were replaced by ChatGPT, the future of AI, and... energy communism".

Read the interview by the link: https://gagadget.com/en/interview/240628-alexander-vityaz-corezoid-chatbots-as-a-separate-kind-of-software-do-not-exist/

Sigma Software helps a large electronics retailer streamline contact center with modern digital platform

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

ІТ company Sigma Software at the request of large retailer Eldorado.ua has developed and implemented an automated client communications system. The system enables chatbot integration with the contact center that receives up to 30 thousand client requests every day. The development and launch were completed in extremely short terms - just a few weeks - with a minimum team, including digitalization specialists from Sigma Software as well as requirements clarification and integration experts from the retailer Eldorado.ua. The speed of system digitalization was enabled by the low-code platform Corezoid. As a result, the contact center's workload decreased by a third.

Every year, Ukrainian consumer electronics retailer Eldorado.ua serves over 10 million clients through its 120 brick-and-mortar stores and an online shop, which translates into thousands of client requests via voice calls and emails to their contact center every day. In order to provide their clients with a multi-channel experience, ensure quick connection and detailed information during ordering, the company initiated a deep transformation and digitalization strategy, starting with a digital solution to automate their contact center operations and add new communication channels, including a website widget and chatbots.

Online chat solutions and automated workplaces have proven to be highly effective in improving client experience, minimizing operator time per request, and reducing operator stress and workload. However, implementing a solution at a large and distributed company like Eldorado.ua requires careful consideration. Seeking an extremely flexible and cost-efficient solution, Eldorado.ua turned to Sigma Software, a company with a proven track record of successful IT consulting.

“Our first step in automating Eldorado.ua’s client communication channels was to create a digital workplace for support operators, their group leaders, and analysts, complete with a live chat popup on the company’s website. We then integrated this solution with instant messengers’ chatbots, mobile apps, and other interfaces used by the company to communicate with its clients. Using the low-code hyperautomation engine Corezoid and Simulator.company technology created by Middleware Inc., we were able to launch fully-fledged communication orchestrator in just several weeks, significantly reducing development time and costs by at least 50%. Our solution provides opportunities for further improvements, automation, statistics, and analytics,” says Hanna Khrystianovych, Digitalization Program Manager at Sigma Software.

In addition to Sigma Software’s expertise in business process automation and IT consulting, the solution leverages the Corezoid platform, which was created by Middleware Inc. Corezoid provides a flexible and cost-effective solution for communication orchestration and business logic, reducing development time by at least 50% and resulting in significant cost savings. The Middleware consultants also played a role in the implementation process, providing support and expertise to ensure a successful launch. Corezoid platform continues to evolve and add new features, providing Eldorado with ongoing benefits and opportunities to further optimize their client communications.

“Eldorado.ua is continuously expanding its team of operators working with the new client communications system, and the first months of its use have already shown great results in both client experience and request processing time. Thanks to the flexibility of the Corezoid-backed system, our engineers were able to quickly react to changing requirements, while Sigma Software’s expertise in building automated contact centers allowed us to provide guidance on optimal architectural and business logic decisions. Our system provides monitoring and reporting tools for client request processing and operator workload to ensure further improvements. We continue to support and maintain the system, helping Eldorado.ua specialists to master all its features and leverage analytical data to improve their client service,” adds Eugene Ustimenkov, Corezoid Program Manager at Sigma Software.

“The contact center chats became the next step in our large-scale transformation program aiming to create a new working experience across all channels. For our clients, it means increased request processing and additional comfort due to integration with the whole information system landscape and access to all clients’ data. Corezoid platform opens a cost-efficient concept and integration of various information systems in our future development,” tells Andriy Romanenko, Director of Business Digital Transformation at Eldorado.ua.

Sigma Software – IT service company with 2000+ specialists and a large portfolio of low-code and no-code products that allow solving complex digitalization tasks for large and middle-size businesses with a minimum team of tech specialists. The company’s experts have developed a chatbot for Kharkiv residents to check their premises’ state, a solution for Diia.Business Kharkiv processes automation, and are engaged in projects for world-known brands, such as IATA, Volvo, AstraZeneca, Scania, Fortum.

Eldorado.ua is a comfortable omnichannel provider of equipment and electronics in Ukraine. The network includes 95 shops, an online store, and a handy mobile app with various delivery options. It provides work for 3.2 thousand people.

The company has been operating in the Ukrainian market since 1999. During this time, over three million Ukrainians became regular buyers of equipment and electronics in eldorado.ua, meeting the needs of their families.

Since February 2022, the company has furnished equipment and electronics for a total amount of more than UAH 10 million for the Ukrainian Defence Forces and provides a constant 10% discount for the Ukrainian military.

In 2022, they have started a social initiative ‘A brick for a family’ – everyone can buy ‘a brick’ at the price of 23 UAH in a shop or online. All costs are forwarded to build module houses for families, whose homes were destroyed by the war. The first house has already been made for the family of a military serviceman from the Chernigiv Region.

Source: sigma.software

Anastasiya Kireeva, Spilno.School founder: “Simulator.Company is a technology to create the maps of learning”

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT


Anastasiya Kireeva, founder of the non-profit and self-sustainable project "Spilno.School"

Anastasiya, please, tell us what vision you pursued when creating the Spilno.School?

I was deeply concerned about the following issue: if the school we know does not suit and is not liked by either children, parents, teachers, business, or society, then what should a new school format be in order to meet the challenges of tomorrow? The old Soviet classroom system was similar to a bus. Pupils are loaded at station A. And they need to be taken to graduation in the 11th grade at station B. Pupils must take a certain route of 5 lessons a day, with clear stops at the end of the quarter, vacations and exams.

Everyone travels the same route. Everything is controlled by the teacher-driver, and the students are just passive passengers. The driver (teacher) is actually a robot in this situation, because he’s just driving in accordance with a program compiled by someone else and issued to the teacher without the right for any changes. A large proportion of all schools in Ukraine continue to pursue the tasks of mass education and operate according to the class-lesson model.

In the old school, students are "objects" on which "the learning process is carried out." Also, students are objects of control by teachers and parents (through grades, diaries, etc.).

But when a student gets the "A" score in math, for example, what does that really mean? What is "A"?

Any scales or ratings can still only tell us whether the student remembers what he was told, or whether he practiced doing what he was shown as a model. But we understand that this in no way brings us closer to a holistic perception of a person who is studying, as well as to an understanding of whether the child is ready to act in a modern world.

International organizations (UNESCO, Organizations of International Cooperation) and research groups at the level of states in various countries during the last decades have been purposefully searching for new goals and meaning of education and continue this work until now. But the two decisions reached somewhere in the late 70s and early 80s remain the main vectors directing global changes in education to this day.

The key principles are lifetime learning and competencies as the goal of working with educational content (goal-oriented education). That is, as a result of certain educational activities, a student must not only know something, but also be able to apply knowledge to solve problems and have such an attitude to life that would motivate him to constantly adapt his competences to changing contexts in the future.

If we apply these fundamental conclusions to the school, it means that in order to achieve such results, instead of “transferring the knowledge”, we create a complex educational environment.

We need to create a simulator or training ground, which allows students to make real decisions within the scope of their responsibility. Namely, decisions about all educational events that happen to them at school.

We need to create a simulator or training ground, which allows students to make real decisions within the scope of their responsibility.

Therefore, we need to make sure that the educational environment is rich in significant specialists, useful information, social connections, and various spaces that encourage curiosity. It is not enough for a graduate to remember, say, the Pythagorean theorem, when in the future he needs to calculate how many tiles to buy for the roof.

Instead of believing the first thing you hear, you should be able to distinguish possible falsehoods, check information from different sources and draw appropriate conclusions, as well as be able to act to achieve your goal, and not be a hostage to manipulation.

I will continue the tourist metaphor. A modern school should create such opportunities so that the student can follow his own path of learning. Only in this way can he learn to be an Actor of self-education during his whole life. The school in this format will provide him with maps and convenient navigation for orientation: "Where am I?", "What are the route options?", "Where should I go next?".

Only in this way can he learn to be an Actor of self-education during his whole life.

Spilno.School started in 2015 with 10 students. We were growing step by step, so that the form did not overtake the quality. But at each stage there was a vision and a strategic plan of development towards a fully-fledged school of a new generation, a school that is valuable to children, parents, teachers and also contributes to the good of society. Every year we almost doubled the number of students. Last September, 160 students started their education in a building designed by us and built for us, capable of accommodating 300 students and 100 preschoolers.

Imagine the amount of input data and the various processes that need to be coordinated in a clear and structured way, while keeping the necessary amount of flexibility for choices by all participants under the rapidly changing circumstances. Different ages, number of groups of children, compulsory classes and optional courses, self-organized events, dozens of teachers and their working mood. Add to this educational projects, individual profile of each student and personal information about students’ actions, behavior in the learning process – both online and offline...

By the time we reached 80 students, we knew we had reached the limit of what we could orchestrate with Google tools, messengers, email, and the standard BaseCamp project management software. That’s why we began to actively look for IT-solutions tailored to the needs of schools.

We searched, but found nothing relevant. There were several such attempts, and each time we encountered the fact that the existing platforms and LMS solutions had their own vision of education embedded in the software. Unfortunately, this logic often represented the old-school framework of the class-lesson model. All the possibilities of changes were limited to minor tweaks here and there.

The implementation of any of such services would mean that Spilno.School needed to bind to the "Procrustean bed" of someone else’s vision.

Google Classroom, Human, School today didn’t fit our needs. These services do not think in terms of maps or matrixes of competencies. By default they have features of marks and assessments, and don’t provide any meaningful autonomy for students.

At the same time, they offer a bunch of unnecessary functionality with calendar plans, hardcoded schedules, slots for lessons, grades, an electronic diary, so that parents could control their children. What was important for us was not there. And they do not make any drastic changes in their ready-made solutions.

Last year, we tried to work with a service that provides universal tools for managing companies in various fields and was ready to develop the functionality for us – JSolutions. But in the end, we refused to cooperate: every detail required a clear technical description from our side. And that’s not always possible.

Even if we were able to come up with a technical description, then we needed to wait for programmers to do the job, wait for testing and bug-fixing, wait for the next release. This is not the speed and flexibility we like to pursue in the Spilno.School.

The war made significant adjustments to this year's plans. We have already understood that the most valuable and effective learning of children takes place in direct contact with other people and the environment. Education is always a "chemistry" between people, which occurs through the interaction between people. And Spilno School has everything necessary for the learning process to take place “in real time”. We didn't understand exactly what was going to happen when September started, but we expected Spilno.School to become an even more adaptive educational environment. After all, we had to take into account the distance that emerged between students and teachers in some cases.

So in summer 2022, before the start of the educational year, the task was to combine offline training with online and remote learning. We wanted the educational process to be enhanced with technology. Depending on the case, we arrange online or on-site educational activities.

We do our best on-premises and online. So it wasn't about two separate realities, offline and online. We aimed to create a single hybrid educational environment, the possibilities of which would be expanded due to technology. We were not aiming to create two separate flows: online and offline. We wanted to create an augmented, hybrid, comprehensive educational environment enhanced with technology.

We wanted to create an augmented, hybrid, comprehensive educational environment enhanced with technology.

When I chose Simulator technology, it was important for me to realize that we’d be able to use the tool for our needs, and not vice versa – adapt our valuable unique processes to someone’s tools. We wanted to create a "navigation system", something like “knowledge maps”, which would be simple enough for students to understand, but at the same time closely related to the learning material. So we decided to start using a readily available online content management system and at the same time use Corezoid and Simulator technology for the rest of the digital tasks at Spilno.School.

With Corezoid we get a builder that allows us to develop the learning concepts based on our own educational architecture, and with the ability to quickly and conveniently experiment with the various IT-innovations that constantly emerge.

How do you currently use Corezoid and Simulator technologies?

We have passed only the first stage of their implementation into the Spilno.School processes. However, we discovered a new horizon of possibilities for using Corezoid and Simulator technologies, which was not even seen at first.

We needed technology to build “the learning maps”. Based on Simulator, we developed the prototype of IT-solution, that constantly gives the student the answer to the questions I mentioned above: “Where am I? Where do I start? What do I have in front of me? Where could I go next?”

So far, we have implemented the first two versions of the student workspace and connected it to the Finnish content management system Claned.

Claned allows to create courses, and within courses – provide students with YouTube videos, PDF files, quizzes to solve etc. However, during the work with Claned we found out that a lot of indicators needed for us to track the progress of students (and also to allow students to track their own progress) the platform can’t display.

We were looking for the type of technology that could allow a student to answer the questions: “What possible trajectories do I have? What trajectories are closed for now, but can possibly open in future? How well do I perform? What should be my next step?” Unfortunately, the Claned platform wasn’t able to help us build the solution we needed.

Neither Learning Management System can match the possibilities offered by Corezoid and Simulator technologies. As soon as we realized the limitations of the Claned platform, Corezoid and Simulator developers offered us to implement the whole solution we wanted based on their technology stack.

Neither Learning Management System can match the possibilities offered by Corezoid and Simulator technologies.

So, as of now, we need to deploy a combination of LMS and educational platform for creating and managing courses/learning content, which will perform the following tasks:

Deliver information to Actors who need it, and when they need it (to the student - "what's my next step?", to the teacher - "how is everyone doing?", to the school – if there are any issues).
Convenient tools for creating and navigating educational material. Spilno School creates its own integrated content, which is constantly updated and adapted to a specific group of children, and specific educational tasks.
Dashboards with data for analysis, including for self-analysis by students and teachers.

Tell us more about the learning processes, how they are arranged now and about the problems you plan to solve with Corezoid and Simulator technologies

The mobility of modern families increased drastically in the course of last year. Therefore, Spilno School accepts new children throughout the calendar year. We also provide the opportunity to change the form of education during the year. Someone can start the year onsite, then go remote for 3 months. Or the student can leave the country to study at another school for a year. The war increased this tendency by an order of magnitude.

At Spilno.School we highlight for students the points of entry into the learning process and provide them with understanding where to go next. Students can choose the speed, the way they move, select from various learning trajectories. Talking about the issues, we face the difficulties with orchestrating the communication between all the stakeholders, the speed of data collection and analysis, and the most important – delivering information to the people who most need it.

At Spilno.School we highlight for students the points of entry into the learning process and provide them with understanding where to go next.

We know what motivates and encourages learning most – and that is the instant and multi-layered feedback. Great integration capabilities, the ability to build learning maps, high level of flexibility – that is what we want to see in the technology stack we’d love to use.

Great integration capabilities, the ability to build learning maps, high level of flexibility – that is what we want to see in the technology stack we’d love to use.

Thanks to Simulator.Company, we already built a personal workplace — a place where every student of the school can enter and view basic information about himself and the status of ongoing educational tasks.

I’d like to tell a brief story. In 2015, when the Spilno.School was still very small, I first heard about Corezoid technology and its fantastic capabilities. The father of one of our students shared with great excitement that he needed just one manager to move hundreds of sea containers around Ukraine. And his company was the second largest container operator in the country. He then quickly explained to me how it worked and shared that all of this was orchestrated with Corezoid. I remember thinking at the time: when our School will grow big, I'm going to start using Corezoid to help our school if not with the movement of containers, then with the movement of educational components – just as easily and efficiently.

Spilno.School is a licensed educational institution that operates under the regulation and must deliver the mandatory expected result according to state educational standards, specifically described in terms of competencies. At the regulatory level, Ukraine is no way behind developed countries, and in some aspects we even have such legislative capabilities that overtake conservative Europe.

The situation when a child periodically has gaps in education is common. Clarity is especially needed with those who have joined the school recently or returned after a long break. Someone could also be sick or unable to understand some educational material. It is still necessary to take into account the complicated circumstances in the work of schools: quarantines due to the pandemic, the realities of wartime – air raids, power outages, etc.

We also see how strongly a child's emotional state affects thinking processes and motivation. If a student has a gap or a block in what he knows, the typical reaction is "I don't understand anything" or "I'm stupid, nothing works, so I won't even try."

A periodic "review" is needed to find out what the child needs to repeat or improve in order to gain confidence in his knowledge and abilities. We have our own methods aimed at achieving these goals. In particular, we have matrices that work as a graphic representation of knowledge and competences for the entire period of study according to the main disciplines: mathematics, language, science, social studies, English and the SEL (social-emotional learning) course.


On-site lesson at Spilno.School


Celebration of the end of School year, June 2022


Spilno.School has a lot of space for games and self-education


Margaryta Lubomudrova (9-th grade student) logs in to her “Personal account” in Simulator.Company


Mathematics competencies matrix for each grade of the Spilno School

Do you prefer online or on-site education at the Spilno.School?

We do blended learning, or rather, hybrid learning. We don't just mix online and offline in certain proportions. Our task is to create an ecosystem and a comprehensive educational environment. There are processes that are best done on the online platform. This can speed up, say, assessment or access to content. But there are things that happen more efficiently through direct contact between the teacher and a group of children, or students working in pairs or in teams, etc.

Spilno.School space looks quite unusual. More like Google office. Why is that so?

There is a saying that there are actually three "teachers" in a school: the teacher, other students and the space in which the learning process takes place. We designed the school based on an innovative educational concept. Therefore, we needed multifunctional spaces that could be flexibly used for the teacher's work with the children and for the children themselves.

We also have classrooms, but activities that take place there contribute to not more than 10% of all educational processes. At Spilno.School students have their own communities, places for individual work and work in groups of different sizes – from 8 to 70 children. That is a comfortable approach to work in a SCRUM mode.

By the way, we have adapted the SCRUM methodology and have been using it as an educational framework since 2017. Physical space, as well as virtual space, are all components of the environment that creates a certain integrity. The quality of children's education depends on the quality of this environment. And everything is important in it, because everything is interconnected. With the help of Simulator and Corezoid, we plan to collect data from various sources so that the students, parents and team can clearly see the whole picture at any time.

With the help of Simulator and Corezoid, we plan to collect data from various sources so that the students, parents and team can clearly see the whole picture at any time.

Spilno.Schol was built from scratch to create the space aimed at developing certain skills and competencies. Photo: Khmarochosy

Science workshop


Egor Smyrnov (8-th grade student) logs in to his personal Account at Simulator.Company platform


Margaryta Lubomudrova takes online courses

Tatiana Mazur (Spilno.School Tutor): the trajectory of the student's movement "in the digital world" is very important for the teacher. Understanding this trajectory allows you to track student progress and constantly improve content.


Margaryta Lubomudrova (9-th grade student) and Tetiana Mazur (Spilno.School Tutor).

Margaryta Lubomudrova: My first memory when we started integrating the new technologies at Spilno.School is that I started to type more, than to write.

Of course, it is convenient when everything is based on one digital platform. Previously, students were constantly carrying around different pieces of paper. If a piece of paper gets lost, you need to go and print a new one. Sometimes we did a task on paper, then took a photo of it and sent the photo to the teacher. It's not convenient. It's good when you have everything in digital form. And of course, it's convenient to see the whole picture of where you are.


Margaryta doing the individual task

Do all the students have devices?

Margaryta: Yes. All the students at Spilno.School have their own devices. Laptops or tablets. Also we have the Wi-Fi coverage everywhere.

Anastasia Kyreeva: We are talking with you right now, but in fact, the school is under a full black-out. The city is not able to supply us with electricity. To solve this issue we have installed a fully automated smart system that covers our critical energy consumption needs. It includes several powerful batteries, an inverter and solar panels on the roof. Even now, during the winter period, 3 hours of sunlight a day is enough for us to continue our studies.


At Spilno.School we have a lot of cozy places, where pupils can read books, watch online videos and complete individual tasks

Do parents have access to the student's "Personal account"?

Anastasia Kyreeva: At the end of each academic cycle (it is approximately 6 academic weeks) – we send parents a letter with information about how the child is performing, about his progress both on digital platforms and offline.

And this is another advantage of Simulator technology. In other platforms, the default settings are that parents can login at any time and see what the child is doing, what grades he has.

But the philosophy of the Spilno.School is that the student is an Actor in the process of his own learning, so he has a certain autonomy. The student moves on his own trajectory within the educational environment that we have created.

If parents have absolute access to all data about the child's education, then the responsibility for education gets transferred from the child to the parents, who begin to control the kid, push him and try to manage. If the student's private boundaries are constantly violated, this reduces independence. The student ceases to be an Actor and starts being an object of control.

But at the same time, it is the parents who are responsible for their child, so they should be informed. We removed the ongoing parental control from the equation, but we left the monitoring component. The child has enough time and space to act independently: to push the boundaries, experiment, and apply various approaches to problem solving.

At Spilno.School we believe that the school from the 1st to the 9th grade is exactly needed for the child to achieve a certain autonomy. After all, at the end of secondary school - and this is approximately at the age of 16 - the child receives a passport and becomes a full-fledged Actor of the civil society. And it doesn't happen automatically. The student needs to make his portion of mistakes. The task of the school is to create this sort of environment, safe on the one hand, and welcoming experiments, on the other hand. Crossing the boundaries of what is allowed in adult life can have bad consequences.


In order to complete the learning mission, a student needs maps, playground and the autonomy

Using Simulator, we can flexibly configure the necessary access rules and give children a sense of independence during their educational process. The student has the opportunity to move, achieve some intermediate result, talk with parents, teachers, and then move again at his own pace. If we talk about the development of competencies, “learning maps” are important for us. "Competence" is not only "I know", but also "I can".

For example, such a competence as "critical thinking" is well developed through the Science course. I mean such skills as "to compare", "to analyze", “to interpret data sets".

Sometimes it is difficult to use the concept of "Subject", when we talk about the lessons. During the “Science” course we learn about optics, biology, physics, and chemistry at the same time. Integrated courses do not exist in paper textbooks. Unique educational content is created by the teachers of the Spilno.School. These are video, audio, texts of varying complexity, project evaluation criteria and invitations to work with experiments, quizzes, cahoots, videos, and interactive tests where, for example, you need to match certain definitions and concepts.

Integrated courses do not exist in paper textbooks


Workshop, where the Science courses take place

Ideally, educational content should look like longreads in modern online media: here is some text, here is a video with a built-in test, here are open questions for self-study, here are tasks for offline plus a self-test.

The end-goal of the Spilno.School is to create such an integrated environment for education. We want to provide students with a broad scope of educational content. Someone will move faster, others – slower. It is normal.


Anastasiya Kireeva: "At the end of secondary school at the age of 16, a child receives a passport and becomes a full-fledged Actor of the civil society."

It is not easy to explain why Spilno.School works in this way and how all this blending of various processes and tasks work (I explain some things in detail in my book “Children, Parents, School: Metamorphoses. Download here.) Everything that we usually know from our own experience about school does not fit. Education is undergoing a paradigm shift. At the same time, it is embedded in changes in social phenomena and structures. And it all started because of the rapid development of technologies. We're really innovating in education, and it's not about technical capabilities at all.

But now we want to combine our innovative mindset with innovation in technology as well. That is why we were not satisfied with any of the available software solutions for educational institutions and children's education. Therefore, here and now, together with Corezoid and Simulator.Company, we are starting a new page in our history.

Corezoid and Samsung announce the beginning of cooperation

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

3 October 2022. – Corezoid and Samsung announced the beginning of cooperation. Samsung will use Control.Events, developed by Corezoid Inc. (USA), to provide customer support in online chats

Control.Events allows Samsung clients to ask questions using a widget on their web-site or on two popular messengers: Viber and Telegram. A live agent from the Samsung contact-center gets connected to provide customer care. There is also an option to use the self-service mode and select the necessary item from the chatbot’s menu.

At the end of the conversation, the customer gets a form with a satisfaction survey to provide feedback. The Reward of the live agent depends on the quality of the provided assistance. All conversation history is stored for future analysis. There is an option to analyze the conversation topic, the time a customer spent in a queue, the duration of the chat – this information allows to constantly improve business processes.

Control.Events allows to automatically distribute queued customers between free operators, track operators’ KPIs, create skill-groups, and set up templates with answers to frequently asked questions.

Corezoid supports integrations with Apple Messages for Business, Google Business Messages, Viber, Telegram, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, Control.Events and any other platform with an open API. Working with messengers is a good first step on the way to create a “digital core” based on Corezoid’s technologies.

Replacing sales consultants: Epicentr K has launched a unique Help-bot

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

The Help-bot by Epicentr K is a personal assistant that works in convenient messengers (Viber, Telegram). As the developers explain, with the bot’s help, an Epicentr K chain customer will be able to manage their online orders, search for a product or check its price, view the purchase history, get high-quality customer support on any issue, and much more.

Before launching the bot, the company decided to test it together with regular customers at its outlets. For a day, the chain sales consultants have been working with visitors and collecting reactions, and comments from them. All the feedback was taken into account in the final version of the service.

"Our client will have the opportunity to open the support service chat using a messenger to get a quick answer and a solution to any issue. We aim to respond to customers within 1 minute. The service will also provide personalized valuable recommendations tailored to the customer's profile and needs", says Yuriy Kudlyk, Director of the Online Sales and Customer Service Department of the Epicentr K chain.

The Help-bot significantly expands services for offline customers of the chain, and, in addition to contacting the customer support service and receiving professional advice on goods and services from experts, a customer will be able to:

contact an information desk of any Epicentr K shopping center;
view the current schedule of shopping centers, find the nearest shopping centers, and build a route to a shopping center;
scan an item in a sales hall using the chatbot without waiting for a free seller to find out the item price and specifications, view product reviews;
find out the shopping centers, in which the product is available;
get a Vygoda card or link an existing card to the chatbot in just 1 click, as well as use the card for code scanning at the checkout;
receive a notification on the time an order will be completed and prepared for delivery;
register in an electronic queue to receive an online order at an order picking center without waiting in line;
extend the period of online order storage at an order picking center;

The Support the Armed Forces of Ukraine option was implemented in the chatbot, which allows you to donate your points from the Vygoda card to support the army. The donated points will be converted into cash by the Epicentr K company and transferred to help our defenders.

The proprietary Middleware Corezoid Actors Engine technology was used to create the Epicentr help bot. The chatbot was developed using the Corezoid cloud operating system. The Corezoid platform made it possible to combine complex processes of the Epicentr's internal IT systems and transform them into convenient digital services for a customer. For the development of the Epicentr K Help-bot, more than 50 integrations with Epicentr internal IT systems were made.

“Corezoid supports Apple Messages, Google Business Messages, Viber, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp for Business, Line, WeChat, Control.events, and any other platform with an open API. Working with messengers is a good first step on the way to building a "digital core" based on Corezoid", said Olga Hudik, Head of the Business Development Department at Corezoid Inc.

Links to the Epicentr K Help-bot:

Ukrainian Railways have launched ticket payment in the Apple Messages chatbot via Apple Pay

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Ticket purchasing using Apple Pay is now available in the official Ukrzaliznytsia chatbot in Apple Messages. After making a payment, you can add your ticket to your Apple Passkit wallet. Online chat with the support service is also available through Apple Messages. As of today, the Ukrzaliznytsia chatbot has more than 264,000 registered users.

"It is important to us that passengers can pay for tickets in all possible convenient ways. That’s why we have enabled a one-click payment option through the Apple Pay system in Apple Messages which itself makes interaction with Ukrzaliznytsia as easy as chatting with friends or relatives, and is the most common for Apple users", noted Yevgeny Yentis, Deputy Head of the Ukrzaliznytsia Passenger Company for Business Development.

To launch Apple Messages, just click on the Messages icon on the Ukrzaliznytsia website. A dialog box for buying tickets with Apple Pay, or talking to a support operator, will open instantly.

Apple Messages is available to users and businesses on 1.65 billion Apple devices worldwide, and is integrated with the Messages app, as well as with native iOS features and services.

The project was implemented using the Corezoid Process Engine technology in cooperation with Ukrzaliznytsia's technological partner, Middleware Inc. (USA), and with the support of Visa, a payment partner. Corezoid is certified by Apple as a Messages Service Provider (MSP) for registering businesses on Apple Messages for Business.

“In addition to Apple Messages, our Corezoid Communications Orchestrator supports Google Business Messages, Viber, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp for Business, Line, WeChat, Control.events, and any other platform with an open API. Working with messengers is a good first step on the way to building a "digital core" based on Corezoid", says Olga Hudik, Head of Business Development at Middleware.

Kostyantyn Karpushin, Codebridge founder: “How we migrated from Integromat to Corezoid, saving on time and money”

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT


Kostyantyn Karpushin, Codebridge founder

Codebridge is a boutique digital transformation consultancy and software development company that provides cutting edge engineering solutions, helping Fortune 500 companies.

How did you start using Integromat?

Using Integromat was easy for us. With it, it was easy to do integrations. Just choose a service and you’ll get it integrated in three clicks. However, once we’ve started adding new logic, stumbling blocks started to appear in Integromat. And each new stumbling block was increasing the total cost of ownership of the solution. I realized that this solution was about to become too expensive. If you compare the total cost of ownership, Corezoid is far less expensive. To complete my tasks, the $160 a month subscription plan is enough.

At the initial project stage, I had 4 algorithms in Integromat, 10-15 steps each. For the same price in Corezoid, it became possible for me to launch several million steps each month.


This is what a Corezoid processes looks like

Was the cost of ownership the main reason for the transition from Integromat to Corezoid?

It wasn’t the only reason. I wanted to choose a reliable platform, on which I would be able to scale in the future, and not jump from one platform to another aimlessly.

The integrations that we’ve made using Corezoid turned out to be quite deep logic-wise. We’ve built an entire recruitment funnel and set up integrations with Huntflow, Zoom, Calendly, sms services (BSG), and Sendgrid on Corezoid. When we move a candidate through the recruitment funnel, an email with a link the candidate can use to book an interview slot is sent automatically. We send a notification to Calendly with all the fields filled out: first name, last name, etc.

In many of our notifications we address the candidate by name. When the candidate fills out a questionnaire they specify their name in different languages. Using an API, we automatically transliterate the name from Ukrainian to a language the person chose as their preferred language.


In many of our emails we address the candidate by name

Gradually, we are making our business logic more complex. We have about 20 different procedures in our Corezoid account. State diagrams are very convenient for storing a candidate's intermediate states as they move through the funnel. Recently I was thinking whether it would be possible to do this in Integromat? Not sure if it is. In any case, an implementation in Integromat would not look as elegant as the one in Corezoid.

We’ve taken a deep dive into the subject recently. In Corezoid, when we use a Call Process node to call another process, the data sent to that process depends on four parameters in four other sources. I’m not sure if you can implement a logic so complex in Integromat.

Can a business person work with Corezoid?

Yes. The main thing is to have logical thinking.

Is it the same person who started building cases in Integromat and then switched to Corezoid?

Yes. That’s me. I did everything by myself. My major is not computer science. I did a bit of programming in school. I just decided to sit down and figure it all out by myself. Also, the Corezoid support team helped. They work very well. They don’t just refer you to documentation, they answer your technical questions well, and even suggest architectural solutions.

How much time did it take you to build the first basic version of a Corezoid process?

One week. Writing text for email templates took me more time.

What was the hardest part of your project from a technical point of view?

Setting up correct authorization in various APIs.

Did you use OAuth 2.0 for this?

I also mastered OAuth 2.0 when I was doing a Google translate integration last week. However, I did most API integrations with authorization keys.

How many job applications do you process a month?

We started working 6 months ago. 12,000 applications have passed through us, which amounts to about 2,000 applications a month. And each application goes through many different selection stages. Every day we have about 60,000 logic steps taken inside our algorithms on Corezoid.

Is it the same as one connection in Integromat, right?

Yes. Working with Corezoid we use the $160 per month subscription. For Integromat, it would have been significantly more expensive.

What is the maximum load that the architecture you built on Corezoid is capable of handling? Can you process 20,000 or 200,000 applications with the same architecture?

In Corezoid - yes. When scaling up, the bottleneck will be not Corezoid itself but the connections to other services. Take, for example, Huntflow which can handle only 5 applications per second. Or Zoho Survey, which we use to manage questionnaires.

What else was missing in Integromat?

Convenient procedure calls. In Corezoid, I can easily create procedure processes, and I can call other processes using the Call Process node, passing their required input parameters. Working with code in Corezoid is convenient for me. I can easily write JavaScript code in a dedicated Code node.

What do you need the Code node for in your business processes?

To compute some complex function. And parse a data array according to some rules.

What is “requests per second” in your case?

For example, a person fills out a form on a site and clicks the “Send” button. Each such click is a request to the Corezoid API. For our medium subscription plan, we get up to 10 requests per second.

Also, our subscription plan provides 10 million steps a month. Take a look at, for instance, our statistics for the last 30 days – we’ve consumed 1,234,550 steps. Therefore, going with this subscription plan we can grow 10 times.English test. The key parameters were automatically inserted into the letter.

I’m not sure I could do this with Integromat. If I were now asked to choose between Corezoid, Integromat, or Zoho Flow I would definitely favor Corezoid.

Frankly speaking, I’m glad I figured all of this out. Actually, it’s kinda cool.


“As we speak, the system continues to send emails automatically” – K.Karpushin, Codebridge founder.

It was an insight for me that a businessperson could figure out all of this.

It was hard, but interesting for me. I like to figure things out. I really enjoy doing this.

Do you create one big scenario and then realize it has some processes that you can single out and implement separately? Why can’t you create one really big scenario? After all, when you call other processes from a process the system load and your bill go up?

In Integromat, when you add another step, the price may double. In Corezoid, I have a thousand such steps. And adding a few steps does not change the price in practice. 10 million steps a month in my subscription plan is a big number. I stopped worrying about the number of steps left in my Corezoid process. It is much more important to me to have similar procedures stored separately.

If I’m fixing a process, then I’m modifying it in only one place. If anything fails, then I know where to look for the cause. It is exactly in one process.

On top of that we’ve set up escalations: notifications about something that failed in a process. If it were implemented in one process we would need to configure escalations everywhere. Instead, we catch errors only in final nodes.

In the beginning, I was building large Corezoid processes. Business logic, communication rules, etc. were all in a single process. Then I thought about it. And transferred it all into separate procedures. In addition, there are states (state machines) available. So I started to store finite states in a state machine.

So you first made a draft, and then went on honing it down, discarding the unnecessary parts, optimizing it, and splitting it into different scenarios? And you got almost every logic unit to be used separately and independently? So that you see errors and statistics related to a unit separately?

Yes. I have dedicated processes for sending texts, emails, encode URLs, etc. Here is the process that cleans out redundant characters in URLs. For instance, someone sent us a URL and put quotation marks or any other service characters in it, which need to be cleaned. In Integromat, you would have trouble doing that, but in Corezoid we have a dedicated “cleaner” process which can be called by anyone who needs it.


Encode URL process which performs URL cleaning

Besides that, unlike in Integromat, a task in a Corezoid process can be stored for quite a long time – up to 6 months. You can direct a task to a Delay node and store it there. There is no such thing in Integromat. You can’t store a task there even for a few days. As for surveys that we send, they all have communication trails. So we send reminders of a person who has not yet completed the survey, etc. And Corezoid forwards communications after 2, 7 days. Integromat does not have this functionality. There you need to write data to a database and then request it when the time comes.

Interviewed by Maksym Slobodianiuk,
Founder Databro.pro

Middleware and Epicentr K companies have announced their partnership

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Middleware (USA) and Epicenter K companies announced the start of cooperation on digital transformation projects. As a first step, Epicenter K utilizes the proprietary Middleware Corezoid Process Engine (Corezoid.com) technology to launch chat bots in Telegram, Viber and to conduct NPS surveys on the quality of service in Epicenter K shopping centers.

NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a service quality metric developed by Fred Reicheld. At all points of contact where the customer most often interacts with the service (cash desks, info desks, service departments, etc.), QR codes are posted, with the help of which the client can leave feedback and complete an NPS survey by answering a simple question: "Please, rate how likely it is that you'd recommend purchasing at Epicenter?".

Buyers who gave 9-10 rates are considered "promoters", 7-8 - "neutral", 6 and less - detractors. Accordingly, the business has the opportunity to quickly respond to situations when customers are unhappy with something, and constantly improve the quality of service. Understanding loyalty and disloyalty drivers paves the way for continuous business process improvement.

In 2021, scientists from the United Kingdom and Ireland published a study entitled "The use of Net Promoter Score (NPS) to predict sales growth: insights from an empirical investigation" in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. As a result of empirical analysis, a relationship was found between the growth of NPS and the increase in sales. One point increase in NPS turned out to predict 1.46% sales growth in the next business quarter.

Yuri Kudlyk, Director of online sales and customer service department of the e-commerce direction at Epicenter K, shared the results of the first joint project with Middleware: “The Middleware Corezoid Process Engine (Corezoid.com) technology enables us to solve a set of customer service tasks:

collecting feedback from customers at service points in Epicenter K shopping centers
maintaining correct routing of feedback from customers to the support service and to the management of the Epicenter K shopping center, which allows us to quickly respond to requests and efficiently close the loop with the customer
quick setup of integration with messenger APIs and with the Epicenter K internal systems, including the CRM system
displaying NPS statistics on dashboards in real time
sending operational summary reports to retail managers once a day

We are currently working on a number of digital transformation projects and building a customer experience management ecosystem”.

Corezoid Bot Platform is integrated with Viber, Telegram, Apple Business Chat, Google Business Messages, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp for Business, Line, WeChat, Sender and other platforms with open APIs. Working with instant messengers is a firm first step towards building the “digital core” of a company.

Ilya Morozov, the Head of Corezoid excellence center at the FUIB Bank: “We no longer afraid of the words “API”, “JSON”, “Pagination”

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT


Ilya Morozov, the Head of Corezoid excellence center at the FUIB Bank

How did you start working at FUIB?

One day in 2017, I received a call from a friend. And he said: “Ilya, I think I know that you need it. There is a job to be done. And You are a good fit. I think You will enjoy it.”

I had to meet with 2 people from FUIB, one of them was Yura Palchikovsky (Deputy CTO). We met in a cafe, Yura opened his laptop and showed me Corezoid. And somehow everything came together in my head right away: why Corezoid was needed, for what tasks, what future it has. We ended up talking for 2-3 hours. I asked more questions than they asked me: “Is Corezoid really able to do this? I think it should also be able to X. And I also think it can do Y.” The decision to start working at FUIB was fast. I came to the greenfield: the emergence of the Corezoid-development culture in FUIB.

We met in a cafe, Yura opened his laptop and showed me Corezoid

What were your first steps in 2017?

On the one hand, Corezoid has already started working in FUIB. People in business departments with the support of Middleware were building stuff. It worked well. But on the other hand we in the IT department had the question: what are we going to do with Corezoid next?

It was necessary to bring the use of Corezoid into some formal framework. That is, describe the processes of how such a large organization as FUIB will develop products on the basis of Corezoid. What is our vision? What is the development strategy? Are we missing anything important?

All these topics became my first challenges. It was necessary to form a team for the Corezoid excellence center. And we started with 3 people. First, we worked out the rules, principles, concepts of how Corezoid-based development should work.

It was necessary to form a team for the Corezoid excellence center

Your team was called the “Corezoid excellence center” from the very beginning?

Yes. From the very beginning, there was an idea that there should be a division that would connect IT and Business. Corezoid is all about business, flexibility, prototypes, pilots, quick launches. In those years, our IT was still somewhat wary of such things. We used to work with monoliths and not empower business units with the development tools much. With the introduction of Corezoid we needed to change the culture of product development in the bank.

Corezoid is all about business, flexibility, prototypes, pilots, quick launches


Middleware and FUIB meeting: Corezoid certification of the employees of the Corezoid excellence center in FUIB

What were the first challenges of the Corezoid Excellence Center?

It was necessary that IT better understood the business needs, contributed to the experimentation mood, helped business units to launch into production fast.

At first, everyone had a vision that Corezoid is a platform for business. We have tried to preserve this concept to a large extent. It all started with the fact that about 20 people in different FUIB business units tried to build some solutions on Corezoid.

In the Corezoid excellence center, we identified some points of possible risks associated with Corezoid development and began to manage these risks. We all understood that business units wanted to go to market fast, but still there are some principles of software development, data storage, and information security.

We have identified the stages where the help of the Corezoid Excellence Center was needed in the flow of launching processes to production. Corezoid is all about working with events, building API-driven processes. The first thing we did was standardize the processes for calling external services from Corezoid. After all, Corezoid is powerful, and with its requests it can harm the work of other IT systems if they are not ready.

Corezoid is all about working with events, building API-driven processes

We created a library of wrappers based on Corezoid. These are some standardized patterns for calling external services. Together with the IT team in the course of the first six months of our work we created 100 wrappers approximately. It became possible to call 100 various banking services from Corezoid. Nowadays it is possible to call approximately 1000 services. Of course, a lot of work needed to be done by the IT team.

Nowadays it is possible to call approximately 1000 services

And so business units received the opportunity to try, experiment, make mistakes, test assumptions fast, but they didn’t need to think about what parameters are under the hood, how to correctly make API requests etc. Corezoid Excellence Center created the infrastructure so that business units could easily develop the products.

Corezoid Excellence Center created the infrastructure so that business units could easily develop the products

Another important topic here is the Change management procedures. At that time, FUIB was running the Change management express system. It was rather clumsy, with a lot of stages like business analysis, systems analysis, getting the green light from Compliance, Information security, Risk departments. And Corezoid was all about speed, the ability to launch something quickly. Therefore, we have developed a separate “Corezoid change management flow”. Based on Jira, we created a flow reduced to the minimum required steps: development, testing, approval, release, stabilization, scaling.

Therefore, we have developed a separate “Corezoid change management flow”

Such a simplified flow for Corezoid development greatly accelerated the work. In fact, carriers of business competencies began to design processes in Corezoid themselves, doing the work of business analysts. And the role of “system analysis” was already performed by the Corezoid Excellence Center. We suggested best practices, and helped to integrate Corezoid processes with other systems in the bank. Business units have stopped just drawing PowerPoint slides and then waiting for a long time.

During the first two years, the Corezoid Excellence Center managed to create an infrastructure and a change management system for Corezoid development. The number of people in business departments who work with Corezoid has grown to 100 people.

The number of people in business departments who work with Corezoid has grown to 100 people

Can you give examples of processes that were launched quickly in FUIB?

There were cases when new processes were launched into production in 1 week. For example, things related to the communication calendar, rules for routing and delivering messages to clients, features in the FUIB chatbot.

At the beginning of Corezoid work at FUIB, people from business units who liked the technology began to develop products. And they started to receive good business results and make good carriers. Other employees, of course, wanted to learn also.

Corezoid workshops and training has become another task of the Corezoid Excellence Center. We developed a training program, began to gather Corezoid developers on a monthly basis, show best practices, and talk about new features.

We developed a training program, began to gather Corezoid developers on a monthly basis, show best practices, and talk about new features

In 2017, a lot of FUIB employees visited Middleware HQ to get trained. I believe we had dozens of workshops back then. Gradually, our Corezoid Excellence Center became also able to train people on Corezoid development. Nowadays I meet some people from business units, who started as Corezoid developers – and they have reached the level of mature IT professionals.

How the use of Corezoid in FUIB has grown since 2017?

In 2017 we started with one instance of Corezoid. We now have eight of them. For different products we have separate dedicated instances. Separately for a mobile application, communication calendar, branch interfaces, chat bots, etc.

Corezoid instance, which is responsible for the operation of the mobile application, manages the highest volume of data. About 4 billion events per month are processed there. Also the high-load is experienced on the instances for communication and cross-sell. We learned how to customize Corezoid for different objectives. A lot of Corezoid processes can and should be reused.

Corezoid instance, which is responsible for the operation of the mobile application, manages the highest volume of data. About 4 billion events per month are processed there.

Do you also build chatbots on Corezoid?

Yes. We have over 800,000 subscribers in the chatbot on Viber, and there is also our internal bot “PUMBik”, as we call it. Functionality is also actively developing there: booking places in offices, information about insurance, vacations, approvals from information security, notifications for the branches. 7,000 employees work in the bank, and we need to organize communication with these people somehow.

7,000 employees work in the bank, and we need to organize communication with these people somehow

What are your plans for the development of the Corezoid Excellence Center?

We have put Corezoid on a serious foundation. The system is constantly working under high load, with clear control and monitoring processes. How to accelerate the speed to market with Corezoid is no longer a secret for us. Now it is important for us to ensure maximum stability. It is important to be able to work steadily, regardless of load fluctuations, on paydays, during the high season, on Black Friday, and so on, while maintaining the benefits of development flexibility.

FUIB is actively transforming under the Agile philosophy of product development. 4 tribes were created last year. Business in FUIB has already merged with IT. Sometimes a person stands in front of me, tells me a business idea, but it turns out that in parallel he has already begun developing some prototypes. Tribes have a fairly high degree of self-sufficiency. And here the role of the Corezoid Excellence Center is no longer so much to teach people about Corezoid development, but to collect and distribute best practices, maintain platform stability. As a result, in addition to our “Corezoid change management flow”, we act as the owners of the Corezoid platform for the operation of our tribes.

Business in FUIB has already merged with IT.

I'm glad the business units are learning so fast. Previously, the Corezoid Excellence Center had to be an interpreter from the language of IT into the language of business. Now the words “API”, “json”, “pagination” no longer scare anyone.

Our “achievements” do not go unnoticed, more and more often our partners come to us for experience sharing. Together with Middleware we have done dozens of reference meetings. The IT market is global, and if it is good for the world, we are always open for cooperation.

The IT market is global, and if it is good for the world, we are always open for cooperation


FUIB software development team

Ilya, do you have a hobby?

I used to go in for athletics, running, football. Now there is not much sport in my life. In FUIB we have an annual football championship. Due to quarantine, however, the last time it was not held. But in general, this is a really big championship, there are many participating teams, many fields engaged.


Sport contest in FUIB

Now my main hobby is music. In my youth, I even had a band. We even performed publicly on stage. It's a pity there is not always time for a hobby, but I have a guitar, a synthesizer, microphones at home. The whole studio.

Mykyta Pidgainy, Bot&Partners co-founder, founder of No-code community: “We develop the community of legal engineers in Ukraine”

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT


Mykyta Pidgainy, co-founder of Bot&Partners, founder of No-code community in Ukraine

How was the company Bot&Partners founded?

In 2017 we had the idea of creating a chatbot that would provide legal services. We have developed such a bot. It could generate documents from templates, for example, NDA, Service Agreement etc. Also the bot provided consultations: how to get permission for carrying the weapons, what to do in case Your apartment was flooded, how to create a rental agreement.

How did You come up with the name “Bot&Partners” for the company?

At that time, our company was providing legal services. In the legal world, there is a tradition of naming the company after the leader, the so-called "title" Partner. And the rest of the lawyers were “hiding” under that umbrella-name. We wanted to follow the tradition on the one hand, but on the other hand we wanted to use the word “Bot” in the name of the company. In such a way we showed that “the Bot” is the main leading power here!

What were the first steps in the development of Bot&Partners company?

In the first iteration, we worked entirely on our product, the chatbot. We had only lawyers in our team, and not a single programmer. Gradually we learned the power of no-code, though noone was using that name back at that time.

New clients started asking us if we could create the chatbot for them of automate some legal processes. At first, we refused. And then we realized that it could be our niche – the automation of legal processes.

Can you tell us about any projects from that period?

We developed an algorithm that took data from HRM systems, data from contracts and checked it against the open data. That algorithm could see if the person had any debts, if the person was wanted, or if there were any suspicious court proceedings. This was useful, in particular, for hiring people for working professions. In cases where there is no particular CV, we do not make any long lasting rounds of approval of the worker's candidacy, but it is important that the person does not have problems with the law.

We have also developed chatbots that automate document workflow. For example, the manager sends basic data to the bot, and the bot generates a document, saves it in the folder on Google drive and sends the link to the signee.

What documents, for example?

NDA, service contracts, invoices, acts. Probably, these 4 documents cover 90% of all documents, the creation of which we have automated. There are also templates for responses to government authorities, power of attorney etc.

We also started working with the law firm Sayenko, Kharenko and Partners. They have a digital service, which allows to call for an advocate in one click in the chatbot. We have improved the service and developed a module that uses Corezoid and Opendatabot to identify risks before a person needs a lawyer. Our solution monitors state registers for litigation, real estate issues, and other potential risks. The system is able to signal to lawyers that the Client may have a problem, even before the Client finds out about it.

What projects are you working on now?

We have integrated the WOG gas station APIs with the infrastructure of the company that owns a fleet of cars and wants to know how its drivers use fuel cards. We use Corezoid to call WOG APIs every minute, check if there are any new transactions, and if there are, then we see which fuel card was used and we can build further business logic. In parallel, we record this information in our database for analysis.

I know that you have also launched a number of solutions for contact centers. Can you tell us more?

Contact centers are not the main specialization of Bot&Partners company. We do such projects only if chat with a live agent is an interesting extra-component for the bot. First, the user communicates with the bot, and when he needs the live agent, we connect the Sender Communication Engine, and configure the live agent workplace. People get the opportunity to communicate with customer support through messengers. And then, when it is no longer needed, return to the bot.

How did you start using Corezoid at Bot&Partners?

There are 3 stages in the history of Bot&Partners company. First we made a chatbot, which could prepare contracts. The first version was based on Corezoid. Then we became a service company and began to provide services for the automation of legal business processes. Now we move on to the third stage of development of the company as both the service and product company. We experiment with our own products. For example, we have created our own Notion space template, which we can provide to the client, and then connect our programs to it, that deploy the necessary folders, generate documents, monitor what managers have done in Notion, alerts about deadlines etc.

In 2016-2017, a whole bunch of no-code services appeared, and now we use Corezoid as a service that integrates various APIs. For example, we monitor our CRM and open data services, and if something happens, we notify the person in charge via chatbot, e-mail or set a task directly in Microsoft SharePoint.

Corezoid plays the role of middleware in our architecture. There are also a lot of other services in our stack, which we pick up specifically for the tasks. We use Corezoid when we need a reliable solution, a process that will be triggered by external events and perform the necessary actions, perhaps, involving other services.

The second common case when we use Corezoid is when we need to deploy something like an API microservice and expect another service to send a request. We will receive information about state changes in a database, and then run some processes in other programs : email clients, engage task trackers, send notifications to chatbots, monitor open data services, etc.

I know that in Bot&Partners you often use the term "legal engineer". What does it mean?

"Legal engineer" is a concept that is well known in the United States, the UK and Europe. If you google legal engineer vacancies in the United States, you will see hundreds of them. And for the Ukrainian market, unfortunately, this is a fairly new term. Probably, Bot&Partners has the largest team of legal engineers in Ukraine.

After all, who are legal engineers?

A legal engineer is a specialist who knows how to automate legal processes. In Ukraine it turned so that legal engineers are lawyers who have figured out how to work with no-code services or started programming. And now such specialists are at the crossroads between the worlds of IT and law. Most often, they work on the automation of document flow, on the tasks of generating, approval of documents, monitoring open data, checking risks, contractors. There is also work with court documents, state registers.

How did You come with an idea of No-code community?

We have been working with no-code for about 5 years. And we feel that the interest in no-code, low code solutions is growing rapidly. The number of potential customers' requests for automation services is increasing. During the lockdown, people switched to the use of online services, there are plenty of tasks to integrate some services with others, monitor data, transfer data between systems. Of course, such tasks can be done with regular code, but taking into account the salaries of programmers – it will be more expensive, longer and more difficult. And most common process automation tasks can be easily solved with no-code services.

Therefore, we are interested in more people who know how to work with no-code, we are interested in training such people. I want them to study with less pain than we experienced in the beginning. In Projector we have already conducted several courses about no-code. And now it's time to create a No-code community. Among other things, the community offers a database of templates that people can copy and easily deploy as a simple solution.

We also have a chat in Telegram, where we all talk. I want to attract as many people as possible. We are developing the No-code community together with Andriy Udovychenko, Notion's Ambassador to Ukraine.

In general, this trend of "user empowerment" is global. Once upon a time, in the middle of the XX century, when you wanted to do "calculations", you called people who did "computing". And now there are just "computers" for calculations, and you can compute what you want.

In the 2000s, when we had to build a website, create a knowledge base or launch a chatbot, we called programmers. And now with the help of no-code solutions you can do such tasks yourself.

Of course, with the help of classical programming you can solve much more complex problems, and no-code copes only with simple ones. But in 90% of cases this will be enough.

Now there is a lot of hype around no-code technologies. But I would not like no-code to be perceived as a silver bullet. No-code specialists can automate simple things, and for everything else we’ll always need programmers. And that's great. This is a completely complementary story.

At Bot&Partners you spend a lot of time on "legal design". Please, explain what this is?

The topic of "legal design" is very close to the projects that Andriy Udovychenko is involved in. Before automating processes, we must ask ourselves, "Why does this process even exist?"

Sometimes we are approached by a client, start the discovery phase and understand that no one needs that process at all. Why automate it? People manually create documents that no one has needed for years, and they want to generate such documents automatically. What's the point? The law that required such documents has not existed for 10 years, and people still f*ck with these documents. And such things in projects make me angry. We do not want to automate all kinds of junk.

The legal designer deals with the meaning of legal documents and their effectiveness. Legal designers make processes "human-centric". Andriy and I are developing a community that fights against the “legashit” in Ukraine.

Can you give some examples?

Easy. For example, “legashit” is when the Ukrainian agreement between Ukrainian companies, which is written in Ukrainian, states explicitly that this agreement is made in Ukrainian language.

Why is it cool to work at Bot & Partnes?

We don’t do try not to do x*nya :). And we don’t work on projects that we do not understand or do not like. If we do not like the project, we refuse, because we will not be able to do it well.

Would you please recommend a few books, movies, and computer games?

Computer games are deeply rooted in the culture of Bot & Partners. During job interviews, we ask what games a person plays. Personally, I like Rim World and Factorio the most. The principle is simple: you build processes, infrastructure, automate systems. As for books, I was strongly impressed by the Azimov “Foundation”.

Bogdan Veliev, Callab.ua CTO: “In 3 months we developed Corezoid-based CRM from scratch”

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT


Bogdan Veliev, Collab.ua CTO

Bogdan, what problem does the Callab company solve?

Callab is a mobile laboratory. We do Covid-19 tests and blood tests 24\7 in any location that is convenient for the customer. The result can be obtained as the official document within 6 hours.

What have you built based on Corezoid?

Based on Corezoid we built a CRM from scratch. First, we created a directory of medical tests with a search by code, title and other parameters. Each analysis has a lot of parameters: cost, preparation time, list laboratories that can do the analysis, the work schedule of these laboratories.


List of medical tests and their statuses

Are these regular classic laboratories?

Yes. You can request the mobile lab or sign up for an appointment to the classic laboratory. In our CRM, we work with such a thing as “Application”. After we receive a new application from the client, the life cycle of the application begins. We need to plan the route of the mobile laboratory in such a way as to conduct medical tests as quickly as possible.

We ask the client the address, calculate how long the collection takes for the selected type of analysis, take into account traffic jams and create the route of the mobile laboratory.

Now we are finishing to work on the feature that will allow clients to make future appointment reservations. This is necessary for cases when we do not know who exactly will be tested (for example, 2 tourists in a hotel), but we only know the address, the number of people and the type of analysis. CRM administrators have the ability to create new client records in the database or check information about existing clients and their past medical tests.


Client profile with medical tests history

Is there an online payment option for the clients?

Yes. Using Corezoid, we made integrations with Liqpay and WayForPay for foreign payment systems such as American Express. When the client selects the type of analysis and its price from the directory, discount rules are applied, and a link is sent to the client to process the payment. When the analysis is paid, the status of paid orders automatically gets into CRM. It is also possible to issue the invoice to the Business partner in the end of the month.


Application details page, example

What other payment methods do You support?

We have learned how to prepare invoices for payment via Checkbox. Each customer has Checkbox login associated with his ID. And we immediately create this payment order in the terminal, with all the pre-filled information. Customer doesn’t need to enter anything manually into the Checkbox terminal. System administrators can see orders in the “Order” menu section. When the client makes a payment, we immediately see for which order the payment was received. Next, we can attach a barcode number to the order, which is passed to the laboratory.

Our mobile laboratory works around the clock. If you need to do a blood test from 2:00 to 2:30 am at night, you can do it.

Our mobile laboratory works around the clock. If you need to do a blood test from 2:00 to 2:30 am at night, you can do it. We are the only company that has an “urgent PCR” test that we can do within 6 hours. This is the minimum time in Kyiv for which a PCR test can be done. As soon as the test results are ready, the client receives an automatic notification.


Payment details page

How can customers call for a mobile lab?

Customers can request the mobile lab through the website or by contacting the call-center. We also have a chatbot where the client can fill out his application and send the data directly to our CRM.

How long did it take Callab to create such a CRM?

Three people have built a CRM on Corezoid in 3 months.

Could You describe, please, in more detail?

Previously, we had something like a CRM based on 1C. But the problem was that the old system could not be connected to anything.

Accountants entered all the data manually, there was no association of payments with the types of medical tests. 1C was clumsy, buggy and did not work properly. Also there are features for the work of field nurses, that needed to be tailored to the smartphone screen.

Now in the smartphone, the nurse sees the planned route, the list of requested medical tests, the list of payments, and any data updates.

In the chatbot there is a “driver” role with its own set of functions. The driver sees planned routes for the day, changes in routes, orders completed during the day, comments on orders. Location coordinates are immediately displayed in Waze navigator.

When the driver has finished the last trip, he just needs to press the “Finish” button and close his shift.

What CRM functionality is available to the laboratory?

The laboratory is responsible for doing the medical tests. They have a barcode scanner and Corezoid helps to match data from various sources.

When the scanner reads a barcode, Corezoid instantly finds a client in the database, displaying his name, year of birth, address, and order status. System administrators can also view the archive, history of orders.

What technology are You using to build the CRM front-end? All those beautiful buttons, text input fields, checkboxes?

We are using the CDU component of Control.Events. This is a web forms builder. We stopped using 1C solution and cut the cost of maintenance 6x. Also Callab got the opportunity to grow in the number of orders without sharing the profit margin of every order. Besides, Corezoid works faster and allows for a more flexible experimentation.

We stopped using 1C solution and cut the cost of maintenance 6x

Callab mobile laboratory is a startup. Thanks to Corezoid, we were able to launch CRM from scratch in 3 months. We didn’t pursue the old traditional approach to the software development cycle. Instead we built Corezoid-based MVP, launched into production, and from the very first days began non-stop debugging and improving the system.

Thanks to Corezoid, we were able to launch CRM from scratch in 3 months

What are your plans for the development of CRM?

We add more features for the contact center, work on various kinds of notifications throughout the customer's life cycle, and improve route planning algorithms. We also make a number of improvements for accounting: automatic processing of bills from Checkbox, Liqpay and other sources.

We also work on dashboards and various types of reports: the number of tests per day, the number of routes traveled, a breakdown by employees, for example, to understand how much money nurses earn.

One of the new projects is payment for medical tests through iBox terminals. Customer will approach the terminal, place an order, receive a barcode – and immediately go to the nurse to do the medical test. No need to communicate with a human administrator.

Our goal is to fully automate as many business processes as possible on Corezoid so that they do not require manual work at all.

Project team: Savely Evdomashchenko, Vyacheslav Dyadchenko, Bogdan Veliyev.

Fintech Farm nabs $7.4M to launch neobanks in Nigeria and other emerging markets

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT


Fintech Farm

Fintech Farm, a newly launched fintech startup based in the U.K. that creates digital banks in emerging markets, confirmed to TechCrunch today that it has raised $7.4 million in seed funding.

The company said it plans to use the investment to launch neobanks in eight countries over the next 24 months. Flyer One Ventures and Solid led the seed round. TA Ventures, Jiji, u.ventures and AVentures Capital also participated.

Digital banks, neobanks, challenger banks or whatever you may call them, are among the biggest recipients of VC investments in fintech. Globally, hundreds have sprung forth the past few years to challenge incumbents in their respective markets.

In Eastern Europe, for instance, Ukrainian neobank Monobank, in just the years of operations, has amassed over 4.5 million customers and more than $100 million in operating income, as claimed by the company last year.

After helping to scale Monobank in Europe, Dmytro Dubilet, one of its co-founders, aims to do the same in emerging markets via his new company. He started Fintech Farm with Nick Bezkrovnyy, a former director at KPMG U.K. and Middleware founder and CEO Alexander Vityaz.

In November 2021, Fintech Farm launched in its first market, Azerbaijan. It took a credit-led neobank approach by providing loans to customers with thin credit histories via cards and a mobile app.

On a call with TechCrunch, Dubilet said Fintech Farm’s operational model in Azerbaijan and prospective markets is to launch its app via partnerships with local banks.

“Usually, it’s 50-50 partnership with a local bank,” he remarked when asked how this partnership works. According to him, Fintech Farm is responsible for the business side of things — the app and credit decision making processes. The partner bank holds local knowledge, license and capital as both parties co-invest in the business equally.

As a U.K.-based fintech, Fintech Farm takes a different approach from the conventional model used by neobanks in the country (Monzo, Starling Bank, Revolut) who prefer to hold their banking license and offer the full range of financial services themselves.

But considering its operational approach, that is, providing financial services to emerging markets, it makes sense to have a different business model. Fintech Farm uses a different name in each country it launches, but the same design and mascot — a funny-looking lion with a lilac mane.

Three months into its launch in Azerbaijan as Leobank, Fintech Farm has issued over 100,000 cards; by the end of the year, it hopes to get this number up to a million.

And in the next two years, Fintech Farm plans to enter eight emerging markets spread across Africa and Asia, the first of which is Nigeria.

“We have a plan to launch similar businesses in around eight other markets that are slightly bigger than Azerbaijan, of course,” said Dubilet. “Our next market is going to be Nigeria, we have visited Nigeria a couple of times already and it is one of our favourite countries,” said Dubilet, adding that the launch will likely take place in the first quarter of 2022.

Meanwhile, despite its original plan to use partner banks, Fintech Farm has done the opposite in Nigeria so far. Right now, the company says it has gotten a “co-operative license.” Should Fintech Farm acquire up to 200,000 customers, the founders said it would partner with a bank to scale further.

According to Bezkrovnyy, a determining factor for choosing a partner bank, asides from licensing and infrastructural support, will be how fast they can move to capture millions of customers and issue hundreds of millions (dollars) in loans.

Fintech Farm’s key product is a card that functions as a debit card where users can withdraw funds from deposits and a credit card with a loan facility attached in the customer’s name. A savings account, deposits and transfers are some of the app’s features.

Nigeria’s population is hungry for credit. Fintech Farm’s credit-led approach will serve to meet the demand (most of its revenues comes from offering loans) companies such as FairMoney and Carbon have done for years. However, unlike these indigenous neobanks, Fintech Farm wants to use credit cards to provide cheaper and more accessible credit.

“In terms of the credit product, we see an opportunity for a “mass credit card” in Nigeria. Currently, credit cards issued by traditional banks are limited to the upper-middle class,” Bezkrovnyy said in a statement. “At the same time, APRs of credit offerings from neobanks and alternative lenders may well be over 100%. We are going to fill this gap and accept those customers neglected by traditional banks and offer them fair interest rates.”

Unlike most developed countries, the West African nation lacks an advanced credit bureau system to detail people’s credit histories, so there’s some scepticism to how Fintech Farm will use credit cards to operate. But Dubilet is pretty confident; he cites the company’s data science teams which he describes “as one of the best in the world”, to work some magic.

As part of this financing round, Vladimir Mnogoletniy, co-founder of Genesis, the parent company of African online classifieds platform Jiji, will join Fintech Farm’s board. He is also a partner at co-lead investor Flyer One.

The founders believe the expertise and understanding of Mnogoletniy and his Jiji team will be pivotal to Fintech Farm’s growth.

In a statement, Mnogoletniy said Jiji, having built one of the largest e-commerce platforms on a GMV basis, was looking for the right partner to enter the neobanking space. Investing in Fintech Farm was a strategic investment to that end.

As Fintech Farm carries out its expansion plans, it also intends to spend heavily on marketing and hiring talent, especially engineers and data scientists.

Original source: https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/13/fintech-farm-nabs-7-4m-to-launch-neobanks-in-nigeria-and-other-emerging-markets/

Codebridge founder Konstantin Karpushin: “Based on Corezoid I created the system of search for abnormally talented employees”

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT


Konstantin Karpushin, Codebridge founder

How was the idea of the product born?

Until March 2021, I was a Partner at KPMG. I managed the practice of transfer pricing and tax dispute resolution. The idea was born there.

What is transfer pricing?

Imagine that there are several companies that are somehow related to each other, for example, through the owner. Thanks to the transfer pricing rules, they can agree among themselves so as to redistribute the profits of these companies (i.e. the group) in favor of entities who work in jurisdictions with more favorable taxation. The Tax Service usually doesn't like this. And companies are required to prepare detailed explanations for their distribution models in order to avoid fines and additional charges. Such explanations are prepared with the help of highly paid professionals.

Sounds complicated.

Yes. Transfer pricing specialists are expensive. But we found a way at KPMG to find abnormally talented interns.

What have You invented?

We came up with the idea of an Olympiad contest. In fact, it was a huge “engagement funnel” that allowed us to attract the attention of 3,000 participants (students and graduates of economic universities), and then select the best from them.

We promised the winners of the Contest three iPhones of the latest model and an invitation to a paid internship at KPMG. At the final stage of the contest, I could not help smiling. These students were geniuses. They were able to answer super-difficult questions and also learn fast. We hired a few interns as the result of the contest and in a couple of weeks we already were able to allow those students to communicate directly with the clients.

At the final stage of the contest, I could not help smiling. These students were geniuses.

They were smart young people with a phenomenal memory. They grasped complex transfer pricing information on the fly.

So the secret sauce is to learn how to quickly process a lot of candidates through the funnel?

Yes. Now at Codebridge we fill our own vacancies for IT developers with the help of such automated funnels based on Corezoid. For example, recently we automatically reviewed 2670 candidates for the position of UI\UX designer and invited 17 people to the final interview. They are extraordinarily talented specialists.


Example of the CV funnel from different sources

Can you please share the details of how it works?

We chose Huntflow as the front-end. Back-end processes we built on the Corezoid platform.

At the beginning of the funnel I get candidates from 20 sources like Work.ua, Rabota.ua, Headhunter, Jooble, Dou, Djinni and other job boards. At the first stage, we are not interested in the person's resume at all. We thank the candidate for his or her interest in the vacancy and suggest subscribing to Codebridge on social networks (and become our followers).

In the next step of the funnel, we do a “CV swap”. In order to be able to work with properly structured data, we send the candidate a letter with a link to a web form that must be filled out.

In this web form, the candidate answers a number of key questions: city of residence, work experience, whether he or she wants to work in an office or remotely, the desired salary, willingness to complete a test task (paid or free).

We receive all this data in Corezoid and customize the further processing of the data. For example, if the candidate does not speak English, then we immediately send a polite e-mail with a refusal. Also a red flag is the situation when junior specialist doesn’t want to complete the test task. I believe that an experienced designer can show good portfolio, but beginners should accept the challenge and do a test task.

What is a “red flag” in terms of a funnel?

We calculate such an indicator as the "relevance index". This parameter can be changed in the settings depending on the position. Each stage has its own “relevance index”, which is based on combinations of certain conditions. If a person's “relevance index” falls below a predefined level at some stages of the funnel, such a candidate does not go further.

What happens if a person at some stage of the funnel forgets, for example, to fill out a questionnaire?

We send a series of automatic reminders to e-mail, sms.

What other stages does your funnel have?

There is a stage of automatic testing for knowledge of the English language. A link to the online test is sent to the candidate, and we receive the test result in Corezoid.

If the person is doing well with English, the next step is to invite the candidate to do the test task. As soon as the test task is completed, we automatically send it to an experienced specialist to check it.

Please note that up to this point, a recruiter never interacts with a candidate. Until this point, all e-mails, sms, instructions, reminders, etc. are sent automatically.


Example of the questionnaire with basic questions

What happens after You check the test assignment?

Codebridge professional goes through the checklist with 10 items. If everything looks good, the candidate moves on to the next stage of the funnel. If there are problems with the test assignment, then our expert marks the relevant check-boxes, for example, “bad colour selection”, “uneven indents”, “poor fonts selection”.


Example of the letter to the recruiter with a request to check a test task

All these reasons for rejection are inserted into an accurate email template and sent to the candidate. In total, we have created 80 personalized templates that are sent to candidates at different stages of the funnel.

What happens in the last stages of the funnel?

At the last stage of the funnel, I get engaged as the head of the company. We built a Corezoid integration with Calendly and a candidate who has reached the end of the funnel can sign up for a free slot for an interview with me and HR.

What statistics is available?

All statistics for each stage of the funnel is available in real time in Corezoid. Corezoid also makes it easy to change the business logic at any stage of the funnel.


Corezoid-dashboards with real-time statistics

How can companies start using your solution?

You can contact me personally, for example, on social networks and agree on a pilot project. The solution is deployed quite quickly in the Corezoid.com cloud or on the client's accounts in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, in their own data center.


Example of Corezoid processes that are used to manage the funnel

I am confident the solution will be useful for fulfilling the so-called "Mass hire positions". For example, if we talk about “Big 4”, then this solution is ideal for recruiting auditors, consultants, interns, etc. Wherever you need to quickly go through a large number of candidates to select a few of the most talented.

I believe that in today's business, the companies that attract the most talented people gain a competitive advantage. As the founder of Codebridge, I spend 80% of my working time looking for such abnormally talented employees.

As the founder of Codebridge, I spend 80% of my working time looking for such abnormally talented employees

Ivan Romanov, Director of the Contact-center of the State Tax Service of Ukraine: “Based on Corezoid and Sender we provide consultations in messengers”

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT


Ivan Romanov, Director of the Contact-center of the State Tax Service of Ukraine

How was the Contact-center of the State Tax Service of Ukraine created?

On September 4, 2003 Ukraine signed the Agreement with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which included a number of projects aimed at modernisation of the State Tax Service of Ukraine. This agreement was ratified by Ukrainian law #1317-IV on November 23, 2003 titled “On financing of the project of modernization of the State Tax Service of Ukraine”.

On August 15, 2007 the Government of Ukraine issued the resolution #1049 titled “On the creation of the Contact-Center of the State Tax Service of Ukraine. The Contact-center was established as an independent legal entity within the structure of the State Tax Service of Ukraine.

Have You been the leader of the Contact-center from the day of its creation?

In 2007, I worked as the Head of the State Tax Service in Khmelnytsky region, and I was invited to become a Director of the newly created Contact-center. At first I hesitated, but then the desire to implement a large and ambitious project of creation of the "Contact Center" prevailed.

Initially the Contact-center was aiming to have 196 full-time employees. Of course, from the moment when the Contact-center was officially established in September 2007 until the New Year, it was impossible to hire that many people. So we hired 96 employees at the first stage and 100 employees on the second stage after the New Year.


Official meeting in the Contact-center of the State Tax Service of Ukraine

When the Contact-center accepted the first phone call?

On March 31, 2008. We purchased the necessary hardware and software and Incom company helped us to configure everything. Anyhow, we didn’t have enough time to build the server room. When the first phone calls came through, we still had servers on the desks cooled with fans.

When the first phone calls came through, we still had servers on the desks cooled with fans.

Like in a real startup launch!

Yes. What is important is that people started to trust the Contact-center. We put together a great team. Everything was created from scratch: the accounting department, the HR department, the operators team, the quality control department.

What challenges did you face from the very beginning?

People call the Contact-center with their questions. And we need to answer these questions. Where do we get the answers from? It turned out that we needed to create a knowledge base from scratch. Nowadays we have a knowledge base that consists of 15,000 answers to various questions.


Remote Zoom focus group

And so the number of the calls to the Contact-center started to grow?

At first there were not so many calls. We were practising. We arranged random checks and various stressful situations calling each other. We had a large TV-screen hanging in the office. And all the departments saw real-time dashboards and could compete with each other. During the first months of our work we were receiving approximately 10,000 calls per month. Nowadays we get 100,000 calls per month, 3,000-8,000 emails and thousands of incoming requests in chat.

Nowadays we get 100,000 calls per month, 3,000-8,000 emails and thousands of incoming requests in chat.

During the launch of the Contact-center we also conducted a large-scale advertising campaign. There were promo-videos in the subway, press-conferences, publications in printed media.

I couldn’t believe journalists were actually interested in this topic. Now I see the example of “Diia” mobile application and I understand that journalists will always be interested in technological innovations in the public sector.

How did You start using Corezoid and Sender technologies?

According to the strategy of implementing innovative technologies in the State Tax Service of Ukraine we started to provide consultations to people in popular messengers: Viber and Telegram. This project was launched together with a technology partner of the State Tax Service of Ukraine – Middleware Inc. company based on Corezoid Process Engine and Sender Communication Engine platforms. This project was initiated and launched by one of my deputies – Andriy Kushnir.


Andriy Kushnir, Deputy director of the Contact-center of the State Tax Service of Ukraine

Middleware technologies allow to build chatbots for messengers, as well as configure the operator workplace for consultations in Viber, Telegram, Facebook, Apple Business Chat, Google Business Messages, widgets on web-sites and any other channels that are convenient for citizens. Middleware solutions are used by the Government Contact Center, the Ministry of Digital Transformation (for the “Diia” online support team), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Kyiv City State Administration, Ukrainian Railways and other state-owned companies.

I like how the Contact-center works with messengers.

I like how the Contact-center works with messengers. We created a separate department that works with chats in the Khmelnytsky region. Nowadays a lot of people spend much time in gadgets, tablets, smartphones. It is comfortable to ask a question in chat instead of calling. Also the employee in chat has the time to think and better prepare the answer. Taxpayers can be different, some of them are nervous and stressful. It is easier to handle the communication in chat.

What are the main topics of the questions that people ask?

The most popular subjects in the chat are the personal income tax and social tax. There are also a lot of questions regarding the VAT and single tax.

What is the average duration of a chat consultation?

3-4 minutes. We have set time limits for the responses. Also we ask clients to give feedback at the end of every dialogue.

Do operators get a lot of negative feedback?

For the most part, the feedback is positive. Sometimes people are not satisfied with the operator’s answer. However, the operator answers correctly and in accordance with the law. Definitely, we don’t put any fines on the operator in such cases.


Contact-center at work

Do the salaries of the operators include bonuses for the consultations?

Yes. The bonus depends on the number of quality consultations provided, the correctness of the answers, compliance with the Rules of communication. We have a department of quality control. Every month we see detailed statistics on the quality of work of each employee.

Do call-center operators and chat staff use the same knowledge base?

Yes. Everyone is using the same knowledge base. This knowledge base is used not only by the Contact-center employees, but the entire State Tax Service of Ukraine. All managers tell employees that before giving an answer, you need to check with the knowledge base. You can't speak for yourself. And there can be no "individual approach", otherwise taxpayers will receive different answers to the same questions, which is wrong.


The Department of Methodology of the Contact-center

How did the pandemic affect your work?

Our Contact-center has always been active and energetic. When other organizations closed, we kept working. Some people were transferred to remote work. Although people sometimes find it difficult to adjust: children, noise, the dog barks. Also the spirit of teamwork gets lost a little bit. But now it has been decided that all state employees should be vaccinated. We are gradually returning to normal work.

Please, tell us about your team?

The staff of the Contact-center today is 280 full-time employees. The team has been formed since 2007. For me it is important that the employee is a good person, strong professional and a team player.

Me and my deputies, the heads of departments, managed to assemble the team that understands the cause and our mission. If You look at the work of Contact centers in other countries, not many people work there for more than 2-3 years. In our Contact-center we have people who have been working with us since 2007.

Why should young people join the Contact-center of the State Tax Service of Ukraine?

The Contact-center of the State Tax Service of Ukraine is exactly the place where the employee communicates directly with the taxpayer, feels what the client needs and grows as a professional. We have such an approach to young specialists: we train them and then give them the opportunity to move to other structures of the State Tax Service or other governmental bodies, gaining some knowledge of tax law, the skills of communication with taxpayers.


Contact-center at work

How can candidates join the State Tax Service of Ukraine?

You can easily start working for the State after getting through the competition. Public organisations publish their vacancies on the "Single Portal of Vacancies". Usually the requirements for the position are described in such publications, as well as the salary. Also state employees get bonuses for the years of service, bonuses for the rank, 30 days of paid vacation per year. After 5 years at service one more vacation day is added to the basic level. The public service gives good prospects for the young people and provides a stable source of income.

Would you please recommend to our readers some interesting books, movies, TV series?

I recommend “Dune Chronicles” by Frank Herbert, in particular, the novel “God-Emperor of Dune”.


Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

Based on Corezoid “Ukrainian Railways” launched tickets sale in Apple Messages for Business and Facebook messenger

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Kyiv, December 15, 2021. Ukrainian Railways has launched its official chatbot for ticket sales and travel notifications in Apple Messages for Business and Facebook Messenger – in addition to the previously launched Viber and Telegram chatbots.

Facebook users can easily access the chatbot directly from the main Facebook page of “Ukrainian Railways”. To run Apple Messages for Business, you need to click the "Messages" icon on the “Ukrainian Railways” website using iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch. A dialog box for buying tickets or communicating with a support operator will open instantly. To start talking with the operator, you need to click the relevant menu item.

“Ukrainian Railways” together with its partner Visa will give 10% cashback to the passengers for every ticket purchased in the chatbot. This promo-campaign starts on December 15, 2021 and will last until January 15, 2022. Passengers who buy railway tickets for long-distance trains and fast trains via the official Ukrainian Railways chatbot will be able to participate in this promo. An important rule: it is necessary to pay for the purchase with a Visa hryvnia card, having previously agreed to save its token in the chatbot. Cashback will be credited to the card from which the payment was made within 10 banking days.

"There are very few state owned companies in Ukraine that officially support their customers in Apple Messages for Business, so today Ukrainian Railways is taking a somewhat unexpected step becoming one of the pioneers in this direction," – says Oleksandr Pertsovsky, CEO of the Ukrainian Railways Passenger Company. – Passengers will also be able to buy a ticket and lunchbox using Facebook Messenger. According to Statista.com, there are currently 15 million active Facebook Messenger users in Ukraine, so we are glad to offer chatbot functionality to these users as well.”

Using Apple Messages for Business and Facebook Messenger, “Ukrainian Railways” passengers can now buy tickets for all long-distance trains and Intercity+ fast trains, return previously purchased tickets, view schedules and online tableau to check which platform the train arrives on.

Also “Ukrainian Railways” passengers can add purchased tickets to their Apple Passkit and Google Pay wallets.

The project was implemented based on Corezoid Process Engine technology together with Ukrainian Railways technology partner Middleware Inc. with the support of the payment partner – Visa.

“Corezoid bot platform supports Apple Messages for Business, Viber, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Google Business Messages, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, Sender and any other platforms with open APIs. Working with messengers is a good first step for building Corezoid-based “digital core,” – said Olga Hudik, Chief Business Development Officer of Middleware.

Marina Kvashnina, Edenlab founder: “We need curious, hungry for knowledge and energetic people”

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT


Marina Kvashnina, Edenlab Founder

Marina, let's start from the very beginning. Where did you study?

I graduated from Kharkiv Polytechnic University, Faculty of Economics. My specialty is manufacturing management.

What did You do after graduating?

Graduating from the University, I thought that I would be an economist. During my second year at the university, I began working as a chief accountant, and in 1999 I won the USAID competition and went on an internship to the United States. At that time, many companies were switching to international financial reporting standards, and as a young specialist, I was interested in the western experience.

Where did you go?

I went to the middle of nowhere, Ohio state. I was completing an internship at Procter & Gamble in the central office. I remember two such tall towers and locals joking that sometimes it seems Mr. Procter and Mr. Gamble are still sitting there. I lived in the family of one of the corporate directors. I remember deers walking in the garden full of cherry blossoms. I had a deep dive into American life.

What technologies were You working with in P&G?

P&G had its own internally designed systems, and of course SAP and Excel. Now we have a lot of SAP stuff in Naftogaz too. That is my karma :)

How did your career evolve after returning to Ukraine?

I got promoted and became a Chief Financial Officer. There was a funny story. My boss brought an excellent book “Seven Notes of Management” and said: “Look, there is such a position called “CFO”. And so I became a CFO.

I continued my career as an economist for another 10 years. But I was always interested in how business works. Nowadays this profession is called "business operations".

Finance is a language that I understand. I know many leaders who understand the “HR language”. Or there are executives who have grown out of lawyers – they speak the language of documents. My native language is the language of numbers.

How was the Edenlab company founded?

From Kharkiv I moved to Kyiv and worked as the financial director of Bayadera. And then I got into Glencore – they are #34 in the Fortune 500 list Fortune 500 list. In Ukraine Glencore had a big business related to agriculture. In particular, they developed the elevator business.

Imagine, on the one hand, I have elevators in the hinterland – Lyubashivka, Popasna, where accountants have hardly learned how to balance debit with credit. On the other hand, I was responsible to the head of the financial direction in Rotterdam, who demanded international reporting standards and whose global balance sheet of the group might not converge by one figure across the entire Ukrainian business.

Then the revolution of 2004 happened and I went into politics and public administration. I became an advisor to the Minister of Infrastructure responsible for IT. We needed to take care of the IT-infrastructure of giant state companies: Ukrainian Railways, Ukrainian Post, Ukrtelecom. We started working with major consultants and for me that was a deep dive into the world of state enterprises.

We needed to take care of the IT-infrastructure of giant state companies: Ukrainian Railways, Ukrainian Post, Ukrtelecom

Then there were many different projects where I was either the Product owner or performed another leadership role. There was a project in insurance medicine, a project with payment terminals, which was later sold to Ukrsibbank.

It was around this time that I fell in love with the British Boots drogerie concept. There was nothing like it in Ukraine, only “DC”, which later became Watsons. I wanted to launch something like that in Ukraine. And I did. “Dobrogo dnya” pharmacy is my project. As the TOP manager I designed this business from scratch: from the first letter on the sign and then scaling to a chain of 150 pharmacies all over the country. I have been working on the project for 3-4 years, and now it is one of the largest private pharmaceutical chains in Ukraine (more than 400 branches), with a big distribution network, various collaborations, private labels, delivery service.

“Dobrogo Dnya” pharmacy project became a great school of retail business for me. I had an opportunity to work with amazing people. For example, we had an independent director who used to work at Boston Consulting Group. Two years of working with him gave me almost a second executive education.

He shared tons of tools, methodologies, material for reading. And then we were applying that knowledge in practice. By the way, then I first got acquainted with the institute of independent directors, and in fact, boards of directors. Now I work as an independent member of the supervisory board in several companies, including banks, and oversee the digital projects.

After the “Dobrogo dnya” project I worked at PrivatBank. CEO Alexander Dubilet wanted to find new approaches to the further development of a growing business. In fact, we were discussing the idea known as “industrial expertise” sharing, when people from the non-banking environment help to design and customize banking products.

Someone recommended me to PrivatBank as the expert in pharmacy business. I traveled to PrivatBank to have a talk and stayed there for the next 3 years.

I had exciting work in connection with the Center of Electronic Business founded by Alexander Vityaz. I believe we managed to launch a certain amount of interesting products. I had both IT and business development resources. Alexander Vityaz always generated an infinite amount of great ideas. And I was managing the execution, pre-sale and sale, customer support and even products customisation based on customer feedback.

Alexander Vityaz always generated an infinite amount of great ideas

After PrivatBank I worked as deputy chairman at Deltabank. We organized the IT department in accordance with the PrivatBank model. The IT was divided into Support and R&D divisions. The Support division was responsible for day to day operations, SLA, infrastructure availability. In the R&D division other skills were important: curiosity, ability to work in a sandbox, close interaction with business and product owners.

I was personally responsible for the R&D Department. For example, such a large bank as Delta was a leader in consumer finance, but the bank didn’t have any business in payments. The whole transactional business emerged in my department and then became a separate line of business.

Eventually we’ve migrated 1,5 mln cards to our own processing system. In Delta bank I was also responsible for the cards back-end, strategic marketing, business development, customer analytics (these days they call it “Big Data”), marketing communications and everything around it: the work of mathematicians, testing the assumptions, remote sales etc.

We encouraged the startup spirit inside the bank. One of such startups was Pay2You p2p money transfer service. Edenlab emerged from this project later on.

How did You come up with the name Edenlab for the company?

Thanks to Alexander Vityaz. He shared a book about the interpretation of the Torah by Pinchas Polonsky "Two stories of the World creation”. There was an idea that just struck me: you can try to view the Garden of Eden as a laboratory for humanity, where God conducted experiments. Some experiments were successful, others not that good. But the very idea of an endless experiment amazed me a lot.

Thanks to Alexander Vityaz. He shared a book about the interpretation of the Torah by Pinchas Polonsky "Two stories of the World creation”. There was an idea that just struck me: you can try to view the Garden of Eden as a laboratory for humanity, where God conducted experiments.

I like the constant search, testing of new ideas, the beauty of the code, and the beauty of the engineering solution.


Pinchas Polonsky "Two stories of the World creation”

What were the first steps in the life of the Edenlab team?

After Delta Bank, I had a corporate position related to the creation of a fintech competence center in the international investment fund Finstar. The fund's portfolio included various credit companies, payment providers, and banks.

Then the war between Russia and Ukraine started. All those projects stopped. And I had a choice: either to deal with the operational efficiency of the existing small banking business or try to start my own company. I remember it was Christmas time, we went skiing with some of my teammates. I’ve already made a decision for myself. However, I decided to wait until the beginning of January with the announcement.

I suggested to the team that we start Edenlab company and see if we’re worth anything outside of the corporate world. We agreed that we would give ourselves six months to try to build something cool. And so Edenlab was born. Mastercard became one of our first clients.

Was it a big project with Mastercard?

No. But important. I want to express my gratitude to Mastercard. We have been partners for many years. Edenlab is an authorised developer for Mastercard. For example, together with Mastercard we co-developed such a product as money transfers in Viber chat. We worked with Mastercard Europe and also had R&D project with Mastercard USA.

How many salespeople did Edenlab have in the beginning?

We didn't have any salesmen at all. TOP-managers were selling the projects. I was selling. Everyone who started Edenlab is still onboard. Two Edenlab co-founders are my former deputies from Delta Bank. Some people with non-banking background joined Edenlab later and already received promotions to junior Partners.

Does Edenlab specialize in FinTech?

Edenlab has one more specialization: healthcare. At some point we embarked on a business adventure and became the developers of the central component of the E-health system in Ukraine. E-health is a digital platform where all the processes of digital medicine are implemented in Ukraine.


https://ehealth.gov.ua/

Still few people believe that some small company delivered a national-wide project worth millions of dollars. Why? Because in the beginning there were no millions of dollars. There was a team of enthusiasts who were just starting to think about grant money and were looking for an IT company that would make an MVP of E-Health for free. And if international donors liked the MVP, they would pay for the project.

Good analysts and engineers were needed to work on E-health project. The healthcare domain is close to fintech: you need to work with personal data, highload etc. Since the beginning of the E-health project a lot of teams have changed from the other side. Our “family” lived through difficult times: we had quarrels, fights, divorces, then made up again. But here’s the fact: Edenlab company keeps developing the E-health platform for 5 years in a row. Most of what You see in the E-health (central component) was done by Edenlab.


Edenlab team

What is the technology stack that You are using in Edenlab?

We fell in love with elixir. And we switched to elixir in many projects. We do a lot of Go programming, and also C#. A new toy in the house is rust. I think we hired all the rust developers in Ukraine that we could find. It may seem not wise to narrow yourself to a niche stak. However, such an approach allows Edenlab to find highly skilled engineers.

A new toy in the house is rust. I think we hired all the rust developers in Ukraine that we could find.

Most likely, the rare programming language is not the first and not even the second choice of the developer. This is the kind of people we need: curious and hungry for knowledge. Such people are hard to find. But when You do – their work is amazing.

How did Edenlab start using Corezoid?

We have known about Corezoid technology for a long time. Periodically some people with Corezoid knowledge joined the Edenlab team. I believe that every client needs a specific solution relevant to their situation. We decided to use Corezoid in a project with Raiffeisen Bank International.

We decided to use Corezoid in a project with Raiffeisen Bank International

That was a very difficult project. Perhaps, fintech companies haven’t seen anything revolutionary for the industry in this project. However, the project was quite revolutionary for the Raiffeisen group itself.

Raiffeisen is a banking group that operates under strict compliance and regulation rules. At the same time there is a huge pressure from competitors, both from the banking and fintech world. After meeting with the Edenlab team, Raiffeisen realized that it is worth trying to hire people with a distinct startup culture and clear dedication to the principles of agile development, but who also know how the enterprise world operates. And try to create a digital solution outside of the traditional bank, meaning not on the basis of any of the local banks of the group. And that is what Raiffeisen did together with Edenlab.

The first project was the launch of online lending in Poland?

Yes. But Raiffeisen didn’t approach Edenlab with a requirement to launch a specific product in a specific country. Rather, they had a description of the prototype of the future digital organization. The mastermind behind the idea was Andrey Stepanenko – Member of the Management Board responsible for Retail and Digital. Also I realized, that Andrey Stepanenko had the full support from CEO of Raiffeisen Bank International Mr. Johann Strobl, a great strategist with a clear vision of what the bank needs today and tomorrow.

What was the vision of Raiffeisen?

Raiffeisen firmly decided that they wanted to have a startup culture, they wanted to work with people like Edenlab and they wanted to build such an “edenlab” inside the Raiffeisen. It was a huge challenge for Edenlab to build something for Raiffeisen.


Raiffeisen Digital

The press release about the launch of the project in Poland says that you launched in 6 months. How did you achieve such remarkable speed?

We offered RBI to create a "lego-architecture" in which we would use lite solutions of vendors existing on the market. At the time of launch, it may be one set of vendors; at the time of increasing feature-set and loads, the set of vendors may change.

Why program everything inside the organisation for the next twelve years? There are people who developed competence in certain domains, who have built a business around this, and they also have a startup culture. Let's try to put them together on one platform. In Edenlab we designed the whole architecture so that it was flexible, reliable, consistent.

It is clear that there were challenges to be dealt with: components needed to be replaceable. There must be a “plan b” for each vendor. We needed to understand how the technology roadmap would evolve, taking into account the growth of the business. I believe that Edenlab created a very strong architecture, but RBI made an unprecedentedly bold decision to accept such an architecture.

At which point did you decide that you would start with a mobile application for digital lending in Poland?

It did not matter. There could be Poland, and there could be the Balkan countries. The RBI business team determined where it was possible to start faster, what were the license requirements, compliance and regulation rules. Much of the complexity of a project was the challenge to integrate the solution with the software that already existed in the bank. Even a small mistake on the side owned by Raiffeisen would mean penalties and problems for the entire group.

How will Edenlab work with Raiffeisen in the future?

Edenlab helped the RBI a lot. I hope RBI thinks so too. Andrey Stepanenko recently made a recommendation to us on Clutch. Edenlab solution architect Petro Lymych is proud of the quote from the CTO of RBI, who accepted architecture and called it “State of the Art”.

Edenlab solution architect Petro Lymych is proud of the quote from the CTO of RBI, who accepted architecture and called it “State of the Art”.

One of our commitments during the negotiations with Raiffeisen was to create the R&D team for RBI in Kyiv. And we did it. Raiffeisen Bank Laboratory (RDL) sits two doors from me in the Creative States. Now there are more than 60 people there. Some of the people moved to RDL from Edenlab. These are the people who participated in the project and wanted to switch to work for RBI. Someone was recruited by Natalia Polyakova, the newly appointed head of RBI Retail Innovation. By the way, she was also my deputy since working in Bayadera, and then Glencore.

Also Edenlab committed to completely remove the vendor lock at the end of the project. And we did it. A complete knowledge transfer from Edenlab to Raiffeisen took place. Initially the objective of Edenlab was to go through the whole cycle: from grooming the idea to drafting the solution architecture, development and launch phase. And we delivered.

A complete knowledge transfer from Edenlab to Raiffeisen took place. Initially the objective of Edenlab was to go through the whole cycle: from grooming the idea to drafting the solution architecture, development and launch phase. And we delivered.

How do you see the development of Edenlab business in the healthcare sector?

I see the same trends in healthcare that I saw in fintech 20 years ago. The amount of data generated in the healthcare industry is growing exponentially. Suddenly in the middle of the pandemic everyone realised how vitally important it is to work with medical data correctly.

For example, in the USA there is a new regulation that is enforcing the companies who work in the field of healthcare to switch to the FHIR standard. In Edenlab we chose FHIR as our fundamental standard 3,5 years ago. The same trends we see in the Gulf countries, where Edenlab runs projects aimed at building the national digital healthcare systems.

We see many technical pain points in how the healthcare industry operates. There are services aimed at collection and processing of medical data, but they are based on legacy technologies. Data exchange between legacy systems is a nightmare. At the same time people have high expectations regarding the speed and quality of medical data processing.

Did You create your own medtech product at Edenlab?

Yes, it's called Kodjin. Kodjin is a FHIR server that allows to integrate with legacy systems and ensure interoperability.


https://kodjin.com/

Why is it important? Could You give an example?

For example, in the process of clinical trials, there is a need to exchange information between hospital groups. Imagine testing a new molecule. And this process involves thousands or tens of thousands of clinics. A specific test protocol is sent to clinics. And then the test data is collected back. And all this often happens in Excel, with manual post-processing of data. Automating this process means savings of tens, hundreds of millions of dollars.

Another example. Let's take companies that operate at the intersection of different markets. For example, insurance, hospital, doctors. I have very good medical insurance in Ukraine. And now I come to Dobrobut, and my doctor picks up the phone, starts calling the insurance company and loudly asks what restrictions are in my insurance, and what he may or may not prescribe to me. It shouldn’t work that way.

I think “Dobrobut” has Doctor Eleks MIS, right?

Yes. This is one of such old legacy systems on the market. And this is one of the reasons why we are so willing to be not only a service company, but also create our own products and work in the midst of healthcare digitization.

How do you see the future of Kodjin? Will you apply to Y Combinator?

Unlikely. So far, we have a lot of personal approach in our sales. In order for a boutique company of engineers from Ukraine to suddenly receive the Raiffeisen Bank International contract or a global health project, you need to have personal contacts and reputation. It is necessary that the decision maker believes you, checks your credentials, trusts your vision and your ability to implement what you suggest.

Is Kodjin a Ukrainian startup?

Yes. We are Ukrainians. Although we’re incorporated in Estonia, the bank accounts are there, we are going through the audit in Estonia etc. But often we can’t say during the meetings that we are a Ukrainian startup company. For example, recently we’ve become TIBCO partners. And they have a direct ban on working with Ukrainian companies.

In general, there is a huge shortage of specialists in the world of medtech. Now there is no problem selling the contract at all. There is a problem with people who understand medtech.

Does Edenlab have many open positions?

Yes, there are many open vacancies. Edenlab is constantly growing. The beauty of Edenlab is that we choose technology stacks that allow a small group of senior engineers to do projects of incredible complexity in an amazingly short time. The E-health project, even at its peak, was developed by no more than 30 people. Usually systems of this complexity are developed by hundreds of people.

The beauty of Edenlab is that we choose technology stacks that allow a small group of senior engineers to do projects of incredible complexity in an amazingly short time


Edenlab team

In Edenlab we use a design & analytics driven development process. Probably, up to a third of Edenlab employees are business and system analysts, who are in great demand for us.

Why Edenlab likes Corezoid? Because if you have a good analyst, then such a person can quickly prototype a process of any complexity. No other system created for enterprise software development can match Corezoid capabilities.

Why Edenlab likes Corezoid? Because if you have a good analyst, then such a person can quickly prototype a process of any complexity. No other system created for enterprise software development can match Corezoid capabilities.

Sometimes, while you complete the process building, your initial requirements have already changed 2 times. You need to change the process accordingly. It also affects other processes. And you have a deadline, agreement obligations etc. Corezoid is absolutely the right solution for such complex projects.

Nikita Izmailov, N1 founder: “Asquad was created to make payment integrations in 1-2 days. We use Corezoid”

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT


Nikita Izmailov, N1 group founder

Nikita, let's start from the beginning. Where did you study?

I studied at the Academy of Banking, the Department of Accounting and Auditing. I am an auditor by profession.

Why did you choose this profession?

I have a mathematical mindset. At the same time, I wanted to have a profession related to business. Now, as an investor, I can look at one slide, see 3 indicators and say: "Guys, you made a mistake."

When did You create Your first business?

During my sophomore year at the University, I created a satirical newspaper "Sumka". We had a circulation of 10,000 copies, issued every three weeks, 15 pages printed in color. It was even profitable at some point. However, I realized quickly that I couldn’t make a fortune out of a student newspaper.

My second business was related to the distribution of plastic windows. By the way, a professor from the University will come visit me today. This professor was also the owner of the factory that produced plastic windows. He supported my first business endeavors. Back then the professor hired a group of students who advertised the installation of plastic windows.

After graduation from University, I moved to Kyiv and for six months tried to get a job in the Big Four. I went to dozens of interviews with KPMG, Deloitte. At the same time I was selling furniture. I worked as a representative of a vine furniture factory and sold rocking chairs to Epicenter. I was making good money.

But most importantly, during this period I studied international accounting and auditing standards, which allowed me to eventually get a job at KPMG. I started climbing the career ladder very fast. It took me only 3 years to become a senior auditor. Usually people reach this point in 5-6 years.

Why would You give up running Your own business and join KPMG?

I had a lack of knowledge of how large business should work. I saw how business works in Sumy and in Kyiv. It didn't impress me at all. The option of working for a large international company seemed like a good next step.

What companies did you like as businesses?

Everyone was talking about Mars, Procter & Gamble.

Did You want to start working for one of such Fortune 500 companies after a career in KPMG?

Yes. I realized that my skills would be a good fit for such companies. Eventually, I even got my position in Parimatch thanks to my background with KPMG. Parimatch was paying attention to potential candidates who went through the KPMG school.

How did you start working for Parimatch?

I was invited to the position of CFO. At that time, Parimatch had already been in business for more than 18 years. In fact, Parimatch was reinventing the company and young blood was needed.

What happened? Did You just get a call and the invitation to join Parimatch all of a sudden?

Sort of. Sergey Portnov and I had a mutual friend who worked at Parimatch. It turned out that we had common values and shared a similar vision.

So You gave up Your career at KPMG?

Yes. At KPMG my colleagues were cheering me up: “You are going to become one of the youngest Partners in the world”. On the other hand there were Parimatch founders, who put their faith in me. Such an approach and the credit of trust from Parimatch persuaded me to leave the bureaucratic world of KPMG.

What did you learn during Your work at Parimatch?

I learned how to create large legal and financial structures from scratch. When I came to Parimatch, the company had a single legal entity in Ukraine and one expired license. There was no way to accept or send payments online. The web-site existed more like an information panel. Yes, it was possible to make the bets online, but you needed to use money previously deposited as cash in the offline branch.

What have You accomplished over the years?

After 6 years of my work Parimatch is a structure that consists of 70 companies, operates 5-6 licences, works with 15-20 banks, supports 50 payment systems in more than 20 countries. Also Parimatch is an official partner of several great football teams.

How was the N1 company created?

At some point I realised that my expertise related to finance, payments, banking etc. needed to be separated from Parimatch. There are a lot of companies in the world who need similar to Parimatch payment solutions.

I agreed with my partners to make a spin off. And I started a separate business venture with fintech projects. It became clear that to manage such fintech projects, you need to create a managing company. This is how N1 company was created.

What does the name N1 mean?

This is my motivation to be number one. If I call the company number one, it means I need to work hard and live up to it.

Was Asquad the first company in the N1 group?

No. Sportbank appeared first in 2018. Then Asquad did.

Alexey Kulik, the founder of Asquad, volunteered to solve the payments challenges of Parimatch. We had a vision that Asquad should become a technology company that would create fast and high-quality integrations in the field of payment solutions for the entire market.

Asquad was born from a seemingly unsolvable challenge to integrate payment solutions in 1-2 days and quickly conquer new markets.

We had a vision that Asquad should become a technology company that would create fast and high-quality integrations in the field of payment solutions for the entire market.

What technology stack do N1 companies use?

For me, the main thing is not the names of technology providers. I appreciate the commitment of my team to deliver the result. If Aleksey Kulik says that with Corezoid he can build integrations fast – this is what important.

Does N1 have plans to expand into global markets?

I believe that fintech can and should be profitable in Ukraine. But it is difficult for Ukrainian fintech companies to be sold for high prices. It is unrealistic to sell with a 10x multiplier to income, if you have Ukrainian clients on board, the management is located in Ukraine. Therefore, the only positive scenario for the Ukrainian fintech business is to be profitable and bring dividends. Therefore, for the next 2-3 years, N1 will have the following strategy: make money and invest profit into the further development of the company.

What factors play in favour of Ukraine?

The Ukrainian market is of little interest to global players. There are reasons why companies such as N26, Revolut have not yet embraced Ukraine. However, Kaspi announced it would start working in Ukraine. Kaspi opened a small Pandora's box. It means that the Ukrainian market will automatically receive the acceptance of the London Stock Exchange. That is, the country's risk will be accepted by LSE players (unless, of course, Kaspi shares price goes down).

If Kaspi manages not to lose its positions after entering the Ukrainian market, then this will be a good signal for investors. Serious investors might get interested in Ukraine.

Anyhow, in order to be a part of the big global game, You need to earn the capital first. Operating globally with small capital is not practical. I think investor should have at least $100 mln. to play big games on the global market.

What markets do you like?

I like the markets of the post-Soviet space, because I understand all the risks associated with them. I look curiously at the countries of Eastern Europe. They are located in the Eurozone, the population purchasing power is much higher than in Ukraine. At the same time, such major players as Revolut, N26, Monzo have not yet penetrated those markets. The quality of banking service is low there. Banks have a lot of legacy software issues, while customer expectations are high.

Would you consider emigrating somewhere to Eastern Europe?

There is no such need. Ukraine is the place where I want to spend most of my time.

What countries do You like for travel?

I like Italy. In winter I want to ski, in summer I want to swim, somewhere in the off-season - to walk near the lake, to meditate.

How do you like California, Silicon Valley?

Unfortunately, I am still far from California. I have not yet appreciated California either from an entrepreneurial or a technological point of view. I even set myself a certain barrier, a ban on serious thinking about California. It makes sense to go to Silicon Valley either to build a startup or work as an investor. For the latter You need to be at least an average size fish.

Who do you admire from modern entrepreneurs or funds?

Freedom Finance. They work in Kazakhstan, Russia, and they are opening a business in Ukraine now. Freedom Finance provides brokerage and forex services. The founder of the company Timur Turlov is a self-made man. Now he is in his 30s. Timur brought his company to NASDAQ. An ordinary hardworking Kazakh entrepreneur with a great vision. Freedom Finance is a motivating and stimulating example for me.

I don't want to mention some distant examples like Bezos, Musk. They are cool guys. But you have never talked to them. You do not understand what drives these people. Is it possible to call a person happy if he divorces for the second time in five years and has ten children with whom he does not even talk?

I admire one of the owners of ReFace – Sergey Tokarev. ReFace team invests a lot in the machine learning and artificial intelligence ecosystem in Ukraine. ReFace creates hubs, gathers people, arranges hackathons. This is not money driven, it is based on the desire to create something meaningful.

Do you have such a mission?

Yes. However, it is related not to fintech, but rather to healthy food and drinks. I have a company called Eat Easy. The company produces healthy organic drinks based on kombucha and tibicos. These drinks are practically sugar-free. If we compare it with cola, then there are about 10 tablespoons of sugar in cola. In our case, this sugar is almost completely processed by the mushroom. We are now producing 100.00 bottles per month. If we get close to 1 million bottles, we can compete with cola on price. My mission is to defeat the cola.

Imagine you look back at your life and think: “Wow! Good job. Thanks to my work people didn’t consume 1 billion tons of sugar”. Do You think that’s important?

Yes, absolutely.

How do you keep yourself fit? Do You go in for sports?

I dedicate 30% of my free time to sports. Usually I do a 3 hour workout every morning. The workout includes jogging, body weight work, stretching, and meditation. This is a daily complex that allows me to stay fit, and keep my brain working well.

Where do you workout?

At home. It doesn't matter what part of the world I am, what the temperature is outside. Every morning from 5 to 8 or 6 to 9 I do the workout. I run a marathon once a month. I don’t eat fish, meat, I don’t drink alcohol.

Every morning from 5 to 8 or 6 to 9 I do the workout. I run a marathon once a month. I don’t eat fish, meat, I don’t drink alcohol.

Alexey, a question for you. Asquad belongs to the N1 group of companies. It was Asquad who first started using Corezoid technology in the N1. How was the Asquad company created?


Founders of the Asquad.io payment system Aleksei Kulyk and Stanislav Strebul

Alexey: after 6 months of working with Nikita at N1 and talking to various projects from the fintech vertical I saw the same problem everywhere: the speed of integration of payment solutions. And I have known Corezoid for many years as a reliable and flexible technology.

At some point, I met with Stanislav for a coffee. I suggested to Stas that we create a new innovative payment system using the modern technology stack.

And I have known Corezoid for many years as a reliable and flexible technology.

Stanislav: Alexey said that we need to make a cool PSP (Payment Service Provider). I didn't want to get involved in such a project, because I knew that it was hard. For about half a year, we periodically communicated with Alexei. He asked me to help audit one of the PSPs.

In parallel, we discussed Corezoid as a technology. I remember the beginning of COVID pandemic. Everyone was terribly afraid of this virus, and got isolated. I went to the village, walked along the street, the dogs barked, and I called Alexei and said: “I’ve done some research. You can build fantastic things with Corezoid!”

I went to the village, walked along the street, the dogs barked, and I called Alexei and said: “I’ve done some research. You can build fantastic things with Corezoid!”

What customer problem does Asquad solve?

Alexey: speed.

Could You give more details, please?

Alexey: for seven years my experience has been associated with building projects in the fintech market. Based on this, I have reason to believe that I know where this market is heading. Most large companies have legacy code, monolithic systems. And at the same time there are ambitions to innovate, scale to new markets, accept payments in different ways.

New markets mean new integrations, which means having an army of developers inside the company. There are companies whose billing departments employ more people than niche payment companies. There are just departments that deal with integrations, analysis of payments, etc. and they have 50+ people. Each new integration is a pain because it affects the product, the business model, and sales.

How does Asquad solve this problem?

Alexey: all payment systems solve the same problem: you need to accept and send payments. The problem is the speed of reaction to the changes in the payments landscape.

We tell Asquad clients: “Focus on core business expertise. And we will provide you with a high-tech product for working with payments, which can be easily managed and quickly scaled.”

We tell Asquad clients: “Focus on core business expertise. And we will provide you with a high-tech product for working with payments, which can be easily managed and quickly scaled.”

Stanislav: Corezoid allows you to quickly capture new markets. According to the old approach to software engineering, You need a developer, who will study the documentation, write the code, test it, bring it to some pre-production environment, where someone else will test it again, and then the code goes to production.

Imagine suddenly it turns out that the bank API is not responding in the way we expected. Or a certain parameter of Visa or Mastercard card must be included in the payload for certain countries. And You need to start all over again.

Corezoid helps to speed up the solution of integration challenges.

Alexey: Large companies often have a list of 10-15 integrations that they cannot complete even with a large number of developers. Ideally, one integration takes 2-3 weeks, but there are flows that take 3-4 months, and this is a very painful process. I’m talking about constant iterations and rollbacks because of one little thing. Also remember that integration work is often performed by expensive niche payment specialists.

Asquad is a payment platform with a unique integration layer that is aimed at solving integration challenges. Thanks to Corezoid technology we reduce the time for any integrations for the client. For example, we made one of the last integrations with the bank in 12 hours.

This is what we strive for: any payment integration must be done in one day. We have a slogan inside Asquad: “One integration – one day!”

This is what we strive for: any payment integration must be done in one day. We have a slogan inside Asquad: “One integration – one day!”

What are your plans for the development of Asquad company?

Alexey: there are 2 areas that we want to develop on the basis of Corezoid - our own processing center, and the SaaS model for large and medium-sized companies.

Asquad customers are companies that want to accept payments online?

Alexey: Yes. Sometimes they already accept payments online. The question is, how do they do it. Many companies do not have the expertise to develop their own system and are looking for a white label solution to start using.

Are you starting with the Ukrainian market?

Alexey: Yes. We have already started working in Ukraine. The first customer is a company from the N1 Group. Recently, we have been testing Asquad's performance, checking the stability of the platform. Asquad has a modern technology stack under the hood, including Corezoid. I don’t think there is something like Asquad on the market today.

Asquad has a modern technology stack under the hood, including Corezoid. I don’t think there is something like Asquad on the market today.

Please give an example, when you quickly solved a problem using Corezoid?

Stanislav: recently we made an integration, launched it into production and a case happened that we could not take into account, since the information was missing in the documentation. I logged in to Corezoid and I saw that 400 transactions accumulated in a queue. I quickly figured out what was the matter, made another branch of logic and fixed the problem “on the fly”.

If we compare this case with the classic approach to software development, it would require preparation of stages, rolling a hotfix, involving a team of release engineers and testers, and this could have taken days to solve.

Based on Corezoid DEKA retail chain launched chatbot and integration with Apple Wallet, Google Pay

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

1 December 2021 – DEKA retail chain launched a chatbot and integration with Apple Wallet, Google Pay.

DEKA is a leader in the watch market in Ukraine. DEKA operates more than 50 stores in different parts of Ukraine and the online store deka.ua. DEKA retail network is the official distributor of more than 60 famous watch brands, including the Japanese CASIO, the Swiss Longines, Zenith, Tag Heuer. Also, in the DEKA online store and the DEKA boutiques, customers will find jewelry of such famous brands as Swarovski and Christina.

In November 2021, DEKA launched several new digital services for customers. From now on clients can add loyalty cards, gift certificates, discount coupons to Apple Wallet, Google Pay.

The company also launched a chat bot in Viber messenger with customer registration, personal account, loyalty program, product search by name or code, order and repair status tracking, promotions, referral program, online chat with an operator.

“Middleware professionals used Corezoid technology that allowed us to launch the project super fast. The further maintenance, development and adding of the new features to the solution will not require much resources from the IT specialists”, – said Alexander Kupa, DEKA Chief marketing officer.

Kyiv City Administration launched the chat-bot for 1551 hotline based on Corezoid

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

25 November 2021. Kyiv City Administration launched the chat-bot in Telegram messenger for the 1551 hotline based on Corezoid technology.


https://t.me/Kontaktny_centre_1551_bot

Chatbot allows to send a request to the Kyiv City Administration in one of the categories: utilities, transport, health, advertising, education, trade, sports, electronic services, social and pension security, veterinary medicine, construction and others. Citizens can attach a file or photo to each request to describe the problem in more detail.

Each application is assigned a unique number. As soon as Kyiv City Administration formulates a response to the application, the citizen receives relevant notification.

Middleware technologies – Corezoid Process Engine and Sender Communication Engine allow to build chatbots for messengers, as well as set up live agent workplace for consultations via messengers: Viber, Telegram, Facebook, Apple Business Chat, Google Business Messages, widgets on websites and other channels that are convenient for citizens to use. Middleware solutions are used by the Government Contact Center, the Ministry of Digital Transformation (for the "Diia" contact center), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Tax Service of Ukraine, Ukrainian Railways and other state-owned companies.