Draft:Arsen Tomsky

Arsen Grigorievich Tomsky (Russian: Арсе́н Григóрьевич Тóмский; born 20 november 1973) — Russian entrepreneur, public figure, founder and CEO of the international ride-hailing service inDrive.

Early life
Arsen Tomsky was born on November 20, 1973 in the Russian city of Yakutsk, in the Republic of Saha.

In 1994, Tomsky began his first entrepreneurial activities, developing software; specifically, a system for analyzing the financial condition of banks, and then a program for automated accounting which had been commissioned by the local Ministry of Finance.

The following year he graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics at North-Eastern Federal University.

In 1999, Tomsky founded the company SakhaInternet, which later became the Sinet Group. , and launched the website Ykt.ru. After 20 years as CEO of the Sinet Group, Tomsky left the post, transferring the company’s shares to the team at Ykt.Ru.

Career
In 2013, Tomsky created the company inDriver (Independent Drivers). inDriver began work as a passenger transportation service, at the time the company also included freight transportation, intercity travel, couriers and city services.

Six years later, inDriver was recognized as a unicorn company in a $150 million round of investments. That year Tomsky attended the Stanford Executive Program at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Due to Russia's military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Tomsky decided to completely relocate the inDrive employees from the country before the end of the year. The company was renamed inDrive (Inner Drive).

In 2023, InDrive was the second most downloaded ride hailing app in the world and the fourth most downloaded travel app in the world. Tomsky spent about $5 million on the development of the application from his own funds which he had accumulated while developing the largest Internet company in Yakutia.

At the end of the same year, Arsen Tomsky announced that, at the invitation of the government of Kazakhstan, he would receive Kazakh citizenship. As a result, in May 2024, Tomsky took 10th place in Forbes magazine’s ranking as ‘The 75th richest businessmen in Kazakhstan’.

Non-profit activities
Since 2012, the non-profit educational project Beginit has been operating under the patronage of Tomsky. For the duration of the project, children from remote rural schools and orphanages have been taught the basics of programming in order to start a career in the IT field. As of 2022, the project covered more than 120 schools and orphanages in 13 countries.

The Sinet Spark project fund began operating in 2020. The fund's budget was supported by several sources, including Tomsky's personal contributions. In 2021, Sinet Spark provided financial assistance in extinguishing forest fires in Yakutia. Subsequently, the organization created a project to study the causes of such fires and to reduce the occurrence of forest fires, not only in Yakutia, but around the world.

Also in 2020, Tomsky launched the non-profit Star Team program, the goal of which is to help schoolchildren and students enter the best universities in the world. After a successful start with a group of high school students from Yakutia, the program has expanded and now operates across Russia and Kazakhstan.

In November 2021, the entrepreneur announced the launch of the Iskra non-profit football project. The project team looks for people who want to become coaches and helps them create football schools for children from small towns in the coaches local area. At present it is focused in Russia and Kazakhstan. All football lessons are free of charge, while the work of the trainer is funded by Iskra.

On Tomsky’s initiative, the international film award Alternativa Film Awards started in 2023 — a global non-profit initiative aimed at supporting emerging filmmakers from Asia. The award supports socially significant films; when evaluating works, the jury not only pays attention to the artistic aspects of the film, but also to its relevance to society.

Another of Tomsky’s initiatives is the creation of an innovative startup called FluentaAI to help people with a stutter. This software converts their whisper into natural speech without stuttering during online calls. FluentaAI has consequently been integrated with video conferencing apps

Category:Living people Category:Yakut people Category:1973 births Category:North-Eastern Federal University alumni Category:Russian computer scientists Category:Russian technology company founders Category:Russian chief executives Category:21st-century Russian businesspeople Category:Kazakhstani people Category:Kazakhstani businesspeople