Mykhailo Barabash

Mykhailo Barabash is currently studying for a Bachelor's Degree in Artificial Intelligence at the Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU Linz).

Mykhailo was born in 2005 in Kryvyi Rih and grew up in Boryspil, Kyiv region, Ukraine. In 2022, he finished the Boryspil Secondary Specialised School named after K. Mohylko with merit (average grade of 12/12) and was awarded a gold medal.

While learning at school, Mykhailo was into STEM field studies. He attended advanced Mathematics and Physics courses for school learners at the Kharkiv National University in Ukraine.

Mykhailo took first and second places in three of four stages of all-Ukrainian science olympiads in Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry. Also, he successfully participated in the All-Ukrainian competition of research projects in Mathematics of the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

From 2016 to 2021 he studied applied IT subjects with a focus on Programming at the Junior Computer Academy STEP in Kyiv, Ukraine, and got a Diploma with merit.

Before finishing school, Mykhailo took an interest in Artificial Intelligence as the field of his future studies. As a result, since 2022 he has been studying Artificial Intelligence at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. After completing the first year of studies, he was awarded a merit scholarship for academic achievements.

Professionally, he is interested in doing scientific research to develop Artificial Intelligence. In 2022 and 2023, Mykhailo participated as part of a team of students at the semi-annual Cloudflight Coding Contest focused on solving problems in Computer Science. It is one of Europe's largest programming competitions and takes place simultaneously in many cities worldwide. His team made it into the top ten contestants in Linz. As a result, Mykhailo was invited to a summer internship as a Software Engineer, in 2023 and 2024 by the IT company Cloudflight Austria GmbH in Linz.

In April 2024, Mykhailo was awarded the IV-STEM Scholarship for high potentials from Ukraine. As part of this program, he will lead a course on AI for high school students.