Maiia

TOMSKAIA

Freezheat,
Founder and CEO

United States

Maiia Tomskaia comes from the world's coldest city, Yakutsk, where winter temperatures often drop below -50°F. However, due to ongoing global warming, Yakutsk started to experience unfamiliar challenges, like intense wildfires and thawing permafrost, endangering the livelihood of thousands of people. Beyond Yakutsk, climate change has far-reaching global impacts that become more detrimental with every rising degree. In her pursuit to advance environmental advocacy, education, and innovation, Maiia founded the platform FreezHeat. 

As part of her efforts with FreezHeat, Maiia traveled to four corners of the U.S.–Alaska, Maine, Florida, and California–researching the consequences of climate change and how we can work together to mitigate them. In Fall 2022, she debuted "The Carbon Time Machine" to raise awareness about the negative impact of global warming across the country. Maiia has also written articles for multiple online publications, including UNICEF Youth Voices, focused on the primary causes of permafrost thaw. On FreezHeat, she collates reliable resources, including documentaries and books, to encourage others to expand their knowledge of climate change. Given her contributions to environmental advocacy and education initiatives, Maiia was chosen as a co-director and speaker at the Young Pioneers Forum, part of Global Goals Week 2022. 

To work toward her goal of developing innovative sustainable technologies, Maiia created NFTs that are bought and sold based on the eco-friendly blockchain ‘the merge’, consuming 99.95% less energy than those exchanged with the traditional Ethereum blockchain. She continues to donate 100% of all profits to support the Pleistocene Park Foundation, which aims to mitigate climate change by restoring the mammoth steppe ecosystem.

By founding a student group at her school and working in her local community, Maiia hopes to continue expanding FreezHeat to educate more people about environmental challenges and develop new strategies to tackle climate change.