George Kononenko, who was prelingually deaf, was born in New Jersey, where he attended the Marie H. Katzenbach School for the Deaf for both elementary and high school education. Having an interest in sciences and engineering, Kononenko then entered NTID's mechanical technology program. Following his graduation, Kononenko enrolled in RIT's College of Engineering, where he graduated in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering technology.

In 1985, Kononenko was the Research and Development Project Leader for Personal Computer Instrumentation at Hewlett-Packard.