With the support of the Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) Global Ustym Buchko, Yurii Rozhankivskyi, Bohdan Zavadka, Ostap Shyika and Yurii Reshetnyk, third-year students majoring in the Internet of Things at Lviv Polytechnic, are implementing the TRIDENT project to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda.
Today we have spoken to the Agroos team.
– How did you meet and how did you come up with the idea?
– We met a long time ago, when we were studying in the same class at the Lviv Physics and Mathematics Lyceum. Since then we are friends. Working in a team is easy, and we always understand each other. In the first year of our study we made a team and started working on the project. The idea appeared under the influence of a full-scale invasion, and a great impetus for its implementation was provided by our mentor, Taras Klioba, who told us about the grant program on this topic.
– What is the idea of your project?
– Our idea is to create a tool to counter pro-Russian disinformation and propaganda by informing people about it. Currently, there is more fake information in the Ukrainian information space than ever before, which can really have a detrimental effect on Ukraine. That is why we decided to fight it.
– What problems arise during work?
– There were no serious problems within the team during our work, the fact that we have been working together for a long time and have already developed certain mechanisms for internal interaction and monitoring the progress of each participant helps a lot.
– Your motivation and intermediate results of work in the project?
– A significant motivating factor is the fact that our work is important not only for the commissioner or the grantor – it is directly related to helping Ukraine in the fight against invaders. The first results of the work are also very motivating: in the first month, we collected almost half a hundred thousand messages related to Russian disinformation, and we plan to increase this number.
– What are your plans?
– We plan to continue working on the project until the end of the grant period, and if we manage to make a really high-quality product, then we will continue to develop in this direction.
