My name's Ilan Yashuk, 21. I was born in South Israel, Beersheba. I speak, read 'n write in: Hebrew, English and Russian.
I always loved to create. I iterated through Minecraft redstone, photography, filmmaking and even beginner level carpentry. Finally, at 7th class I got into programming. It felt like unlimited power in my hands and the potential seemed limitless. I still think programming & software might be the easiest way to influence people en masse and drive a good change.
I like stories. I like complicated subjects and interacting with people. I think a man can talk his way out to the biggest of leagues only because the power of stories. That's why I try to take every opportunity I have to meet with people, to talk with those who think differently than me, to go on hiking & travelling adventures.
My schedule's always full and even though it gets rough, happines comes from having a full todo list and not from striking a line through a written goal with a pencil. Happines is the list.
Highschool: Very high grades on 5-unit level tests on (Israel's way of dividing high school subject complexity) Math, Physics, English and 10-unit Computer Science.
Bonus: I was part of a 3-year Computer Science Program made for periphary high school teens. I learned and practiced OS systems, C++, Python, Assembly and tackled with a lot of self-learning exercises.
Sports is a huge part of my life. My mom sent me to sport circles since I can remember. Thanks to that, I grew to be good at a huge variaty of things. Also, it made sports become a part of my daily routine, without any link to motivation or mood. Going on a run for me is exactly like brushing my teeth twice a day.
Throughout the years I went through swimming, basketball, some soccer, tennis and finally: track & field. In 2017, my brother competed at the 20th Maccabiah games and I thought to myself: "why not me?". So I joined track and field.
I trained A LOT for the next 7 years. Sometimes close to 20 hours a week. I had some ups and downs. In 2019, when I was 14, I broke the national record at the 100mH (84cm) 5 times though none of them counted as the wind was blowing too fast (sometimes only 0.1 m/s above the allowed 2.0 m/s speed). In March of '20 I got injured and didn't fully recover until my '23 season. To be honest I think this full recovery is my biggest accomplishment. Picking yourself up after such a long time of being injured and just turning the wheel: that felt awesome! I went on and broke most of my personal records in the '23 season. I ran 11.21 in Nationals and jumped 6.75m (6.80w) finishing 7th.
To summarize, I gave sports my all while I was in middle to high school. I was a good student and well socialized so balancing everything was my biggest life lesson. I also gave Israel's track & field the site visuathlete.com.
My dreams and aspirations were bigger than what I've accomplished. I was national champion or medalist lots of times while being in different age groups but I always dreamt of being on big stages such as the European Championships. I dreamt of flying abroad regularly to do the thing I love so much: jumping to a sand pit.
At the end, enlisting to the army made everything harder and I just became too busy and too caught up to advance in a thing that requires all of you and not some of you.
I still hope to be on the biggest of stages, but doing another thing I love: innovation & creation.
I've done a lot in the past years when it comes to creating websites, apps and different projects of that sort. You can read about it in here.