Michael Kowatschew

Initiator of NOVID20

Categories: Alumni, Social Entrepreneurs

***Alumnus of the Ashoka Visionary Program (CEE) 2020/21***

Michael is the initiator of NOVID20, which built the contact tracing App of Georgia in April 2020 and is now specialized on COVID-testing. He loves putting vision into action and showed this by starting NOVID20 just one day after the WHO announced the pandemic on March 11th. The team then grew to 80 people in seven departments within one week and open sourced the first European contact tracing app in April.

Michael is a former Austrian Karate champion, Kairos Fellow, business student and loves crazy challenges. You can speak to him in German, Bulgarian, English, Spanish and he might understand you in Russian as well.

While at university he also co-founded friendzone.at, which aimed to help universities, hostels and businesses build a better and stronger community. He is eager to found impact-driven businesses and gets inspired by like-minded people.

Other than that, Michael is passionate about public speaking, loves going for bike tours and likes to live outside of his comfort zone. That is why you can find him swimming in the Danube on January 1st.

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