Oleksii Mas was born in Kyiv in 1974, attended a physics and mathematics school, and later studied at the university's radio physics faculty. In the 1990s he worked at a research institute, then at Ukrainian Capital Bank. From September 1997 to March 2000 he was a leading specialist at the National Bank of Ukraine, handling payment processing. It was during these years that his interest in internet projects took shape—projects that were only just beginning to take root in Ukraine at the time.
In January 1999, together with classmate Ruslan Dmitrakovych, he launched the Ukrainian Banner Network. In 2000 came UAportal with investor Aleksandr Soroka, as well as 'Tree of Friends,' one of the first social networks on the Ukrainian portal. In 2006 Dmitrakovych sold his stake in the banner network, and in 2007 the holding bought UAportal.
Infostore and the first shutdown
Mas's most famous project was the photo hosting service Infostore. Forbes dates its launch to 2003 and names Aleksandr Olshansky as investor. Vector and 24 Kanal write of a start in May 2004. 24 Kanal describes the project thus: the service was launched in May 2004 'under Mas's leadership.' In December 2008, the militia seized the servers and the project closed. The official reason given was the distribution of pornography by users. Forbes and AIN give the seizure date as December 4, 2008, while a number of materials, including OBOZ, cite 2009.
24 Kanal then moved on to the history of and. These projects were made by other people. was created in 2009 by Ivan Savchenko, a native of Infostore, not Mas. Forbes explicitly notes that Mas did not create. Headlines in OBOZ and Novyny.live that called him 'the creator of ' are mistaken. The service gave users up to 50 GB, was among Ukraine's 11 most popular sites in 2016, and was twice—in 2012 and 2016—subject to attempts to shut it down. stored files for seven days. Both services should be kept separate from Mas's biography, otherwise it is easy to lose the real history of the Ukrainian internet.
24 Kanal also mentions the evening of October 8 as the time of death. However, Mas died on October 6, and the report of his death appeared on October 8.
From iForum to Kyivstar
In 2009 Mas became co-organizer of the first iForum, while Aleksandr Olshansky headed its organizing committee. That same year, together with Olshansky, he developed Mail.ua. The project was sold to Mail.ru for approximately $0.5 million. Forbes, LIGA and UP cite 2012. 24 Kanal says 2009, and this date diverges from the other sources.
In 2015 Mas became IT & Digital adviser to Kyivstar president Petr Chernyshov. Later he headed the company's Innovation lab. In April 2016 Kyivstar announced the telecom accelerator 'VDNKh-TECh-Kyivstar,' and in December of that year four startups from the program went into production. On July 31, 2019, Mas left Kyivstar.
Craft social networks and the syndicate
In August 2019 Mas launched 'Craft Social Networks.' Participation in the syndicate was available for $100. In November 2019 it had about 280 members. The number then grew: a special project by MC cited 315 participants, and in August 2021 Mas wrote of 411 investors and a sum of about $58,000. In November 2021 the syndicate had 'more than 400' members. Mas also ran iForum, but in March 2020 the organizers postponed iForum-2020 to the autumn because of COVID-19.
The project Mas began was continued by Bohdan Hnatiuk. On November 29, 2021, a dispute arose over the project's fate: one side declared it closed, while Hnatiuk continued to run the syndicate. On November 30 the project was renamed Craf, and eventually it became Chakloon. Maralles magazine, in which this text appears, is owned by Hnatiuk, and it is important to disclose this to the reader.
Mas's last interview, for the anniversary of his death, was republished by in October 2022.
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