From internship to CEO of a technology company in Årdal
Yuliia Bondar is the CEO of the company Vivatec, which currently has two employees. She came to Årdal from Ukraine in September 2023, together with her husband and three-year-old son.
Yegor and Yuliia in Vivatec.
We continue to share the results of the collaboration between SITEP and NAV Refugee Service in Årdal and Sogn.
Yuliia has a master's degree in economics and several years of work experience as an accountant. She is also self-taught in programming, and worked as a programmer in Ukraine when her family had to flee the war.
How did you come into contact with SITEP?
– In September, when we were about to start the introduction program in the municipality, I was in dialogue with Charlotte Skarsbø from the refugee service. I wanted to find work, since I have good English skills, says Yuliia.
Since the goal of the introductory program is to get you into work, Charlotte organized a meeting between Frank Øvstetun at SITEP and Yuliia in October 2023. Frank was positive, and she started the internship. Here, Yuliia used the time to learn a new programming language, Python.
How did Vivatec come about?
“Frank saw the potential in establishing a company that offers programming solutions for the industry,” says Yuliia. In December 2023, we started the process of registering the company Vivatec in Brønnøysund, and by the beginning of 2024 everything was in place.
At Vivatec, Yuliia is the CEO, responsible for administrative matters, as well as developing new software products. The company aims to develop advanced camera-based solutions for quality control in industry. The purpose is to replace manual work, detect and minimize errors in production lines, and automate production to a greater extent.
SITEP employees are great support players and act as advisors for Yuliia and Vivatec.
“Frank’s support is very important and crucial to the company. He is eager to share his experiences and give advice to make this a success,” she says.
Vivatec is a start-up company that has applied for financial support to continue its product development. The financial contributions come from Innovation Norway, Sparebank Vest, Biomidlar and Årdal Utvikling, in addition to wage subsidies from NAV for a period.
Several employees at Vivatec
In the spring of 2025, Yegor Bondar, brother-in-law and electronics engineer, joined the company. He works primarily with hardware development and designs solutions from the ground up. This has given the company new opportunities.
The future of Vivatec
– Going forward, we will further develop the project in new phases, which we know will take time. Working with three different software systems, and getting them to communicate well with each other, requires more tests and trials, explains Yuliia.
– We also have a new project that we will gradually start. Now the most important thing is to secure financing, so that we can further develop ourselves and stabilize operations to secure our jobs in the future, she concludes.
Follow us to get to know a new company that has grown out of the collaboration between SITEP and NAV.
