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After building real-world communities across Europe and Ukraine, Valeria Chobotok is now tackling digital addiction from a browser extension to pause impulse scrolling to our broader digital habits.
I’m sure the creators of the internet never thought of a time when phrases like doomscrolling, social media addiction, and bed rot would be mainstream.
But here we are. If you’ve ever jolted yourself awake by dropping your phone on your face at 1am, or instinctively reached for it in a room full of strangers just to avoid discomfort, you’ve felt it too — that quiet, compulsive pull. What began as a tool for connection has, for many, become an unhealthy reflex.
Valeriia Chobotok is a solo founder whose path — from working inside Ukraine’s tech startup ecosystem to building communities that foster real-world connection — has culminated in a new mission: tackling the unintentional use of phones and laptops by building an ecosystem she calls Human.
For Chobotok, entrepreneurship was never a sudden decision — it felt inevitable.
“Honestly, I think it started when I was a baby,” she says. “I always wanted to become a businesswoman. I had big dreams about creating something of my own and running something myself.”
Her parents had day jobs but also an entrepreneurial drive.
“I grew up seeing them try different things,” she explains. “That stayed with me.”
Inside Ukraine’s startup engine and beyond
By 2020, she began moving closer to the startup world. Always active in volunteering and leadership programmes, she found herself drawn into entrepreneurial circles almost by accident.
“At America House, there was a startup incubator happening in the same building. During a break, I just started talking to people. I was 19. That was my first real networking session.”
One of those early networking conversations led to her first startup role at the beginning of 2020, supporting a New Jersey–based cookie company with customer service. Later that year, in autumn 2020, she joined the NGO Anti-Corruption Headquarters as a communications manager. The following year, she joined Unit City in Kyiv as an events & community manager at NEST Hub. At the time, Unit City was widely considered the epicentre of Ukraine’s startup ecosystem.
“It was like the Mecca of startups,” she says. “That’s where I really immersed myself. I saw companies grow from exhibition stage to scale.”
Among them was adtech Zeely, whose trajectory she witnessed from the beginning.
“Watching that growth was incredible,” she adds.
Even while supporting others, she knew she eventually wanted to build something herself. In 2022, she joined the infamous EWOR ideation Fellowship. Out of more than 35,000 applicants each year, EWOR accepts just 35 entrepreneurs (0.1 per cent) or a 1 in 1000 acceptance rate.
“It was insanely competitive to get in. I still don’t know how I was selected,” she admits.
“At first, I had major imposter syndrome. But then I realised — there’s a reason they chose me. I belong here.”
Beyond credentials, the fellowship gave her something deeper: community.
“Through that community, I met some of her closest friends.”
The power of the superconnector
Chobotok falls under the category of people you can call superconnectors.
I’ve witnessed her in action. Her energy and compassion for people are always front and centre.
When I visited Ukraine last year for TechChill Kyiv, she was tirelessly organising logistics, herding journalists (not easy, we are as difficult to corral as a herd of cats), connecting us with amazing social activities, and even making sure we were safely in our hotel bomb shelter when the air raids sounded in the middle of the night.
She admits:
“My strength has always been connecting people. People naturally came to me asking who they should meet, where they should go, especially across Europe. But I saw friction.
People aren’t always in the same place. You don’t always know who’s open to meeting, hosting, or showing someone around.”
In June 2023, after living in Spain for a while, she considered moving back to Ukraine.
“I realised I felt disconnected from the Ukrainian ecosystem. I was watching a documentary about Gorillas, the German delivery startup, and suddenly thought: what if we could visualise our connections?”
She opened Google Maps and manually plotted her network.“I wanted to see if it worked.
Chobotok admits, “When I moved back to Ukraine in October 2023, I had this very clear feeling: any moment I can die. That realisation changed everything. I didn’t want to delay my dreams anymore. I started taking small steps. Friends joined me. We built svoi.”
svoi hosted offline gatherings in Madrid, San Francisco, Kyiv, Lisbon, and Paris. More than 300 people formed deep friendships through, and some even relationships.
Chobotok recalled:
“Some even started relationships. We raised some funding through the ReactorX acceleration program, went to San Francisco, and met incredible people.
Why she walked away from monetising connection
Eventually, svoi evolved into a community — a machine that helps people feel they’re not alone, wherever they are. But over time, Chobotok decided that it would be a mistake to monetise the Svoi community.
She asserts:
“Happiness depends so much on personal relationships. There’s research about this. I didn’t want to charge for connection or make it transactional. That felt wrong. So I stepped back and asked: what do I really want to bring into the world?”
From connection to consciousness
The idea for human emerged when she intentionally went off Instagram for three months in 2025.
She admits, “It was the best decision for my mental health. I started observing my parents’ behaviour with their phones. My four-year-old nephew’s generation. My own anxiety when waiting for something and instinctively reaching for my phone. I realised this isn’t just Gen Z. It’s a humanity-level problem.”
Chobotok asserts that while social media was built to connect us, we’ve become disconnected from others and from ourselves.
“With AI agents becoming more powerful, we risk outsourcing our small daily decisions — our memory, our values, our beliefs. But those are the things that make us human. So I’m building an ecosystem called human.”
Inserting an intentional pause
Human focuses on behavioural change — helping people become intentional and conscious about their digital habits and build a healthy relationship with tech. It starts a Chrome extension designed to interrupt automatic social media use with a brief, reflective AI conversation.
When you try to open a platform like Instagram, instead of loading immediately, you’re met with a calm pause screen. You can then open the Mindful popup and have a short exchange with an AI that asks why you want to go there, reflects your reasoning back to you, and gently challenges impulsive motives like boredom or restlessness.
Instead of brute-force blocking apps or other means, I actually have a review of the Pavlok wearable device at home that can be programmed to give you an electric shock when you check social media too much — it uses a cognitive approach, grounded in evidence-based behavioural science.
The goal isn’t to block access, but to create awareness before you scroll.
Chobotok explained:
“For example, if you say you’re opening YouTube for 20 minutes of yoga, it helps you stay aligned with that intention. If you end up scrolling instead, it highlights that gap between intention and behaviour.”
But it’s not just about screen time:
“It’s about mindfulness. Coaching. Self-awareness. It’s uncomfortable work.”
She’s currently building an MVP — a Chrome extension with AI interaction and a “ghost mode” that helps track your stated intentions versus actual behaviour. She’s also creating social challenges around consciousness — encouraging people to track time offline, time outdoors, and real-life experiences.
“Because what actually matters isn’t showcasing how cool your life looks. It’s living it.”
And if that’s not enough, recognising that we will all have more time when we’re not on social media as much, Chobotok is also experimenting with a digital “town board”—a private-first board of local events and meetups, like the announcement boards we had as kids.
“That connects back to Svoi, which we’re using as a trusted test community,” she explained.
Chobotok admits:
“Closing Svoi as a business was one of the hardest moments in my life.
At the same time, there’s war at home. You don’t know if your family is safe. You’re questioning everything — what you want to do, who you are.
I’m 24. People say I’m at the beginning of my life. But I don’t want to waste a second of it.
So you just do it. No matter how little you slept. No matter how many explosions you heard that night. You connect. You build. You ship. The world has to see you.
As Ukrainians, we don’t give up. We pivot. We test again. We keep going.”