The Endurance Mindset: What Ukrainian Civic Technology Teaches us about Entrepreneurial Thinking in Times of War
Written by Nia Elizabeth van der Velden
When you hear the word "entrepreneurship," it is easy to think of Silicon Valley startups, venture capital funding rounds, and disruptive commercial applications. Entrepreneurship, however, is fundamentally a mindset that goes beyond geographic boundaries. It is a lens through which we perceive the world, a framework that transforms challenges into opportunities, and a commitment to problem-solving. This mindset is not confined to building the next big social network; it is the same philosophy that underpins genuine efforts to support people who are faced into wartime conditions.
Nowhere is this entrepreneurial mindset more evident today than in Ukraine's civic technology landscape. Forced to face with a full-scale invasion, cyberattacks, and infrastructure strikes, Ukrainian technologists and city officials have had to completely re-imagine digital governance and crisis communication.
By examining platforms such as the cloud-based "city as a service" solution MISTO, alongside the municipal ecosystem of Kyiv Digital, we uncover lessons in adaptability, peoplce-centricity, and civic endurance.
For Anton Maksymenko, the Chief Operating Officer of MISTO, the full-scale invasion necessitated a complete operational shift. Before founding MISTO, Maksymenko served as the CEO of RokIT, an outsourcing company specialising in building city-specific solutions. His team recognised a critical new reality: Ukrainian cities suddenly lacked the time, financial resources, and dedicated IT teams required to build custom digital infrastructures. The wartime conditions completely rearranged municipal budget priorities.
Instead of sticking to their old business model, Maksymenko's team demonstrated entrepreneurial agility. They pivoted to create MISTO, a cloud-based "city as a service" platform. They realised that for a crisis-ready tech solution to succeed under wartime constraints, it had to be affordable, fast to deploy, and easy for municipal authorities to maintain without a large, dedicated IT department. By packaging essential civic tech as an all-in-one service that included necessary technical support, they ensured cities, such as Kyiv, could benefit from the platform within their very first month of use.
When asked to define this category of crisis technology, Maksymenko insists that it is not merely a software category, but a philosophy of civic responsibility. With this mindset, every city must become a "digital fortress" prepared to confront war, natural disasters, and cyberattacks, while simultaneously taking responsibility for the survival and happiness of its residents.
Kyiv's municipal leadership echoes this philosophical approach. Deputy Mayor Maryna Khonda notes that the war did not change the ultimate goals of city governance, but increased the stakes: "My role as Deputy Mayor is, above all, about caring for people," she explains. "This winter, our main mission has become to provide people with warmth, food, and a sense of security, things that may seem basic, but are so valuable. We are working to ensure that everyone who finds themselves in difficult circumstances feels the city's support".
During a crisis, the populations most at risk are often those with limited digital literacy, such as the elderly, internally displaced persons (IDPs), or low-income families.
To strip away bureaucratic friction and ensure rapid assistance, Kyiv digitised its social policy. Today, the Kyiv Services Portal offers over twenty online services specifically designed to help citizens avoid physical queues and unnecessary paperwork. IDPs and low-income residents can apply for one-off and monthly financial assistance online, with funds transferred directly into their personal accounts.
For veterans and their families, the city has digitised 14 key services, from medical treatment to free meals for children in nurseries. Demonstrating a focus on user experience, Deputy Mayor Khonda highlights that they are developing a 'single application' principle, "We're simplifying the processes as much as possible so that defenders can access a package of services with a single click".
But what about those who cannot use an app? In Kyiv, QR codes are placed in public areas so users can instantly open the city's offline emergency map without having to navigate the Kyiv Digital app. Emergency aid centres are equipped with Wi-Fi hotspots and independent power supplies to ensure citizens can charge their devices.
For those entirely without access to digital technologies, Khonda ensures that all municipal financial assistance can still be processed in person at administrative service centres. "Municipal payments are not just figures, but targeted assistance for those who need it most," Khonda asserts, emphasising a clear process that ensures delivery to those whose lives depend on it.
How do you design a digital communication tool for an environment with no electricity and no cellular network?
Both MISTO and Kyiv Digital tackled this constraint head-on. The developers of the Kyiv Digital app re-engineered their emergency locator map to utilise a dynamic three-layer architecture, mapping out civil defence shelters, fixed aid points, and mobile heating tents deployed by the State Emergency Service. Crucially, they bypassed the need for a live internet connection by allowing map datasets to be preloaded directly into the device's memory in the .mmpk format, ensuring offline access.
To further assist residents during the 10-hour daily power outages, offline access to power cut schedules was also provided. Users simply download the schedule for their address while connected, allowing them to verify their estimated times for power restoration even when completely disconnected from the web. Kyiv Digital also introduced a DTEK widget, bringing power supply status to the forefront of the user's screen to save time. To ensure reliability during blackouts, the core system of Kyiv Digital operates 24/7 on energy-efficient technical solutions, ensuring push notifications are sent without delay.
For Maksymenko, the single most crucial component of MISTO's architecture is establishing a trusted communication channel. This channel must facilitate verified news from authorities, resident surveys, and accurate emergency alerts. As Maksymenko notes, "sometimes it's better to hear the bad truth than to hear a good lie".
This two-way trust is maintained through active feedback loops. In Kyiv Digital, citizens can use the app to report closed or overcrowded shelters directly to the 1551 Contact Centre, allowing the city to rapidly verify information and address issues. By empowering citizens to act as on-the-ground auditors, the platform drives community engagement and continuous improvement.
In the civic tech space, fragmented systems lead to civic frustration. Therefore, MISTO acts as a digital umbrella that connects separate municipal IT systems into a single comprehensive situational awareness centre, enabling different utility providers and city departments to collaborate.
Rather than seeking to build a monopoly that would override the national government, both MISTO and Kyiv Digital actively integrate with Diia, Ukraine's national digital services platform. Deputy Mayor Khonda notes that Kyiv Digital uses Diia to securely verify users' identities and confirm their status for specific social services. This integration prevents fraud, ensures trusted feedback on city petitions, and simplifies the onboarding process. Maksymenko points out that there is no tension between the municipal platforms and the national one; Diia handles broad government services at the national level, while apps like MISTO handle thousands of hyper-local services specific to individual cities.
This ecosystem thinking extends to policy as well. The Kyiv City State Administration acts as an active partner with the national government. As Khonda explains, "The Kyiv City Administration adapts state strategies to the specific needs of the capital, and Kyiv often serves as a testing ground for new services, such as electronic case management, before their nationwide rollout". They are actively coordinating on joint projects, such as creating 'service offices' for veterans where city and state efforts combine to provide a single window of support. This model allows local authorities to help the state create a modern, transparent, and efficient social service.
The digital transformation of the city of Kyiv under the shadow of a full-scale invasion is a masterclass in agile thinking, people-centricity, and rapid innovation.
By treating civic stability not as a software product but as an uncompromising philosophy of care, Ukraine's civic technologists and city leaders have shown us that the entrepreneurial mindset is an essential tool for the ongoing work to protect vulnerable groups in times of crisis.
Cover Image: Photo by HD_Wallpapers from Freerange Stock
Nia Elizabeth van der Velden is an MSt Social Innovation student at the Judge Business School and is a member of Hughes Hall. She recently submitted her dissertation on Ukraine's digital transformation throughout the full-scale invasion. Before she started her studies at Cambridge, Nia worked as a strategic communications professional at a variety of organisations, including MTN, the World Bank Group, and TechSoup Europe.