Former military man and now QA Expert at SoftServe, Vitaliy Kalinichenko, created the NGO "Ukrainian Veteran IT Association". The goal is to build a holistic ecosystem for veterans and employers in the IT sector. The NGO's activities began with the launch of the job search platform "Veteran+ JobPortal".
Former military man and now QA Expert at SoftServe, Vitaliy Kalinichenko, created the NGO "Ukrainian Veteran IT Association". The goal is to build a holistic ecosystem for veterans and employers in the IT sector. The NGO's activities began with the launch of the job search platform "Veteran+ JobPortal".
The NGO "Ukrainian Veteran IT Association" was founded by Vitaliy Kalinichenko in March 2026. Familiar veteran IT workers with similar ideas joined its creation. However, in fact, the activity began even earlier - with the launch of the Veteran+ JobPortal platform.
It all started with the fact that after returning to civilian life in 2025, I began to notice the problem with hiring veterans in general, and saw that this problem needed to be somehow closed, or somehow helped to solve it. That's how the Veteran+ JobPortal platform was initially born. There was a lot of skepticism from people because of this, distrust, devaluation. But nothing, we're moving on.
But every day, one of the veterans writes to me in private: “I want to go into the IT field, but I don’t know where or what to start with” or “Tell me what I need to learn.” I heard this so many times that I realized: this is not an individual problem. This is some kind of systemic gap, even with the large number of courses on the market now. And veterans often listen to veterans. I also noticed that many people are looking for veterans from the IT field who could help close some projects, etc. But there is no holistic veteran IT ecosystem.
Veterans return with iron discipline, the ability to think under pressure, and a team spirit that you can't learn in training. But between the army experience and the first day at an IT company, there's this emptiness. Without any direction, without a city, without context.
The NGO "Ukrainian Veteran IT Association" (UVITA) is building an IT ecosystem with its own community, infrastructure, and tools.
For whom:
Activity:
"Veteran+ JobPortal" is the first UVITA tool. The idea for the project grew out of a real request due to the lack of a convenient mechanism for interaction between veterans and the labor market.
"It is difficult for recruiters to find veterans who are actively looking for work. Veterans, in turn, have a hard time finding employers or recruiters who are open to cooperation and understanding the specifics of their experience. General job search sites do not take these features into account, and the format of Telegram channels does not always allow for an effective structure of the interaction process," Vitaliy explained.
After the launch, the platform received several updates. For this, Vitaliy consulted with Veteran Hub, Work.ua, and career consultants for veterans.
Currently, the main efforts of the public organization are aimed at building partnerships: the team is advised by experienced veteran NGOs, and IT companies are already showing interest in cooperation.
"We have just started creating our community, so we have few participants - up to ten people who take direct part in projects. At this stage of the launch, we are looking for those who want to join and help build a veteran IT ecosystem," said Vitaliy Kalinichenko.
