The forum in question began as an internal meeting of the internet business. The first Ukrainian Forum of Internet Figures took place on April 1, 2009, to mark the tenth anniversary of the Ukrainian Banner Network, and it drew 1,280 participants. The network itself appeared in January 1999: Mas and his partner Ruslan Dmitrakovich launched it on Perl after three weeks of work and roughly $100 in expenses. The same interview text later appeared on.
A free stage and reserve slots
In 2013, more than seven thousand people attended iForum, and the building's Wi-Fi couldn't handle the load. For 2014, according to Mas, the stage already had reserved appearances by Roman Skrypin of Hromadske TV and Minister of Economic Development Pavlo Sheremeta. Talks were also underway with the U.S. ambassador.
Speakers appear for free, and you can't buy a spot in the program. The only "star" the organizers would like to invite for money is Richard Branson. Mas explained the empty slots in the schedule bluntly: "empty slots in the program are a reserve for the best speakers." Such an approach, by his logic, keeps the program from being filled just for the sake of a number of talks.
There would be almost no "Russian landing force" this time. Anton Nossik, who supported Euromaidan, would attend, while Igor Ashmanov, who in 2013 gave a talk on information wars, was not on the program. In the lobby, they promised to set up an IT tent, to be moved there from the Maidan. For a forum held in April 2014, this was a notable turn: the program was clearly built around the events in Kyiv.
Glasses that verify payments
Mas himself was preparing a talk titled "From the classical internet to Google Glass." Google's glasses with a built-in display had already been a topic at iForum: he had discussed Glass at the forum in May 2013. In 2014, he spoke about a project he had developed himself. It was a cross-platform banking app for iOS and Android, created for the U.S. In it, payments are confirmed via Google Glass, and Mas wore the glasses for two days, testing the project on himself. He separately noted that without 3G, mobile marketing remains theory for now.
On internet openness, Mas spoke without mincing words:
"I'm a liberal. I believe the internet should be open so that 'everyone's foolishness is visible.'"
Mas's path in the industry began long before the forum. In 2000, he headed UAPortal, and in 2008 he was the architect of Mail.ua, a project whose closed beta involved the Internet Invest group with investments of more than $1 million. In July and August 2012, Mail.ua went to Mail.ru Group, according to unofficial data for about $500,000. Mail.Ru Group vice president Anna Artamonova confirmed the purchase. Later, Mas became an advisor to Kyivstar on digital technologies.
The iForum program continued to grow: the seventh forum took place on April 16, 2015.
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