 Ukrainians fought back. Ukrainians continue to fight back and they've done it so resolutely. We've all have even gotten used to basically become routine to see a lot of innovation and really amazing breakthroughs. On September 15, 2023, the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business hosted a gala dinner in order to preserve Ukrainian culture amidst the Russia-Ukraine war. Anastasia Fedek, an assistant professor of finance at the Haas School of Business and co-founder of Economist of Ukraine, interviewed with CalTV News to discuss the significance of the gala. So the purpose of the event tonight is to showcase some of the work that we've been doing and also to kind of mobilize further awareness and support. For the fact that over the last year and a half it's become very evident that what Russia does in Ukraine, what is not able to just smoothly take over and subjugate is destroy. Fedek then discussed the initiatives that bolster efforts to support Ukraine and their importance to the event. I am co-founder of Economist for Ukraine and the fiscal sponsor organization of Economist for Ukraine, the AI for Good Foundation. It's a non-profit that registered 501c3 that administers all of our programs. I'm actually the chief economist of the AI for Good Foundation. I'm so involved with their efforts as well, especially with their Ukraine initiatives. And then we have a lot of volunteers. So the club students are here helping set up. The students helping out are of course the members of the Ukrainian Club of Berkeley as well as some of the students who are working with me on policy-related research that relates to the Ukraine program, sanctions on Russia, as well as some macro-economic analysis and data collection. The GALA highlighted an exhibit of the speedock online diary platform, which has previously circulated from the U.S. Congress in 2022 and the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York in 2023. Its California debut stood along the event venue, taking center stage for guests to view. The Ukrainians to fight back worked to preserve that. The war is on the front lines, but also in the civil society. Speedock means witness in Ukrainian, underscoring voices of experience during the war. This is the largest archive of war experience from Ukraine. The initiatives that we're going to be showcasing today are really aimed at preserving that Ukrainian identity, Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian heritage by recording stories of the war. So we're going to showcase experiences by ordinary Ukrainians from Captain the Dietary with the largest archive of war stories, the speedock platform that we run in Ukraine in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, as well as some Ukrainian art, including a benefit option. That's what they've done today as well. It's getting that broad Ukrainian heritage supported and preserved. Fedek also highlighted the importance of every Ukrainian's unique experience living through the war. We see a lot of really dramatic events in the news and sometimes we get desensitized to that. But really every single Ukrainian has a story to share, and all of those stories are important. Sometimes people think, well, I'm not as unfortunate as somebody else, so maybe I'm not as important or it's not as important to preserve my stories. Maybe I don't see that much. I don't get out that much. We have people in occupation who don't get out of their houses. When you think about it, and Frank didn't get out of her hiding place for years, and yet her testimony was the one that proved so touching and was able to really get people to understand the horrors of World War II. So that's the angle that we're trying to highlight, is that every Ukrainian has a story that is worth trying to preserve that as much as possible, because after this war is hopefully won, that's when we're really going to have unpack to preserve, to learn from those experiences. The event was both a celebration of Ukrainian culture in Berkeley and a declaration of strength for Ukraine during the Russia-Ukraine War. This was Shayla Eslampour and Joe Moon for CalTV News.