Currently in its pilot testing phase, this innovation is expected to eventually move into mass production, targeting devices like smartphones and drones.

Betavolt’s nuclear battery is designed to fulfill long-term power needs across various scenarios. It finds potential applications in aviation, AI technology, medical equipment, microprocessors, advanced sensors, small drones, and microrobots, as per the company’s announcement.

The battery functions by converting the energy released from decaying isotopes into electricity, a process first explored in the 20th century. While similar technologies were developed by Soviet and U.S. scientists for use in space crafts, submarines, and remote scientific stations, those thermoelectric batteries were both costly and cumbersome.

Betavolt’s inaugural nuclear battery, remarkably compact at 15x15x5 cubic millimeters, delivers 100 microwatts of power at 3 volts. The company aims to scale this up to 1 watt by 2025.

This technology could revolutionize mobile phones, enabling them to operate without needing to be recharged, and drones that could theoretically fly indefinitely.

Betavolt assures that its atomic energy battery is completely safe, with no external radiation, making it suitable even for medical devices such as pacemakers. Environmentally, the battery is deemed benign; after its decay period, its 63 isotopes transform into a stable, non-radioactive copper isotope, posing no environmental threat.

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Attendees were greeted by the EU Ambassador to Serbia, Emanuele Giaufret, and the EBRD’s Western Balkans Director, Matteo Colangeli.

Eight startups were chosen for the “Star Venture advisory support and mentorship program.” Those supported include View ECG and Hey Reach from North Macedonia; Gap App, Cloud City, Curious Sparrow, Neuroblast, and Inclusio from Serbia; and Cardo AI/Softics Data Science from Albania.

The EU Delegation reminded that the startup support program began in 2019, funded by Luxembourg, and was later supported by the EU in 2021 through the WBIF/EDIF program.

EU Ambassador Giaufret emphasized the EU’s recognition of the growing business needs in the Western Balkans. “The EU has invested over 90 million euros in projects for innovation, acceleration, and R&D in Serbia,” he noted, further highlighting the importance of startups as economic growth engines. Giaufret cited a recent European Commission report that new businesses are now the primary job growth drivers in Europe, providing about two million jobs in 2019 alone.

Colangeli stated that the EBRD’s main mission is to assist businesses and economies in progressing. “The Star Venture program’s goal is to identify fast-growing potential startups and offer them global expertise,” he added. So far, the program has supported 39 regional startups, already showing promising results in terms of revenue growth, new job creation, and access to new markets.

Among the business ideas presented were personalized books, a digital bank, a platform for recruiting young architects, an e-commerce solution integrated into banking services, LinkedIn communication automation, and a doctor recommendation platform.

To date, 35 high-potential startups from the region have joined the program, receiving various forms of support, including strategic planning, funding assistance, market research, and branding.

The EBRD Star Venture program aims to provide advisory support and mentorship to high-potential startups poised for rapid global growth, offering them technical expertise, mentorship, local advice, and strategic business development programs. The program prepares young businesses to attract investors or other funding sources through a mix of advisory services, consulting, and mentorship. It also includes practical workshops and meetings with international mentors, local consultants, and potential investors.

Photo: europa.rs

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The consortia from all four domains will now start working towards fulfilling their ambitious goals to set the foundations for accelerating the Serbian economy. The gaming pilot supercluster will focus on export growth and cross-sectoral cooperation, including fields like education, art, video production, and virtual reality.

The web3 and blockchain team has an ambitious goal to create a Free Zone in Serbia that will attract the most extraordinary engineering talents worldwide and establish Serbia as a hub for innovation. The agro-tech supercluster will incorporate cutting-edge technologies and digital transformation to increase yields and productivity in traditional agriculture. Finally, the most significant companies and organizations from the health-tech industry will focus on technology transfer and positioning Serbia as a regional center for clinical trials.

„We want Serbia’s talented workforce to contribute to developing Serbia’s economy by creating a highly innovative, technologically advanced ecosystem that cutting edge companies recognize as a smart place to work and do business. We want to help keep the country’s best and brightest here, while also attracting people who have succeeded abroad to come back to Serbia and invest. The Serbia Innovates project is a big step in the right direction and is applying a model which is new for Serbia – the supercluster model – to increase opportunity.  We have seen this approach work in other countries and we think it’s time to give it a shot here in Serbia,“ said US Ambassador Christopher Hill at the launch of the pilot super clusters.

“As we are a demand-driven project, the first step towards strengthening the innovation-driven Serbian economy was to identify the technological field with the most tremendous potential in the market. The next step was even more challenging – finding the right people, extraordinary talents, forward-thinking companies, and organizations that will know how to use this potential. We gathered all of them and worked together on developing solid strategies and setting market-oriented goals during the preceding period. I’m very proud to say that we succeeded in this mission. Now, we have more hard work ahead of us. The goal of each pilot supercluster will be to work together on the most significant challenges in their fields – on infrastructure, collaboration, and regulation, and to create new values and new opportunities. We wish them luck,” said Aleksandra Popović, the Serbia Innovates project director.

In February 2021, in partnership with USAID, the ICT Hub launched the Serbia Innovates Project. The project’s goal is to stimulate cooperation in the most promising domains of the national economy, spur technological innovation and thus foster the entire economy. The project is being implemented through the model of superclusters – a framework that has already yielded significant results worldwide. The emphasis is on the cooperation between individual elements of the system in creating a synergy effect and generating a sort of a technological innovation boom. This would also significantly improve the results of the entire national economy.

Based on the pilot superclusters phase results, the domain with the most significant individual potential will become the first Serbian supercluster in 2023. After that, the winning domain will receive support for the best possible positioning in the market, while the final goal is to make it entirely self-sustainable in 2025.

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Akey tenet of Indian entrepreneurship growth in the last few years has been to support and catalyse job-givers in the economy. Given India’s fast workforce, it is critical that new employment opportunities are created by risk-taking first-generation entrepreneurs, who dream of building strong global firms out of India. Technology start-ups have been at the forefront of this thinking. There are 500 unicorns around the world. These are technology start-ups with more than USD one billion in valuation. Forty-four of them are now in India – about nine per cent of the total.

Twelve of these unicorns got to the coveted valuation benchmark in 2020 – a year otherwise throttled by the global pandemic. This shows that the Indian start-up ecosystem is not just innovative but also robust. The ability to scale up and demonstrate viable business models has set Indian start-ups apart. The 44 technology unicorns have been valued at more than USD 106 billion.

To put this in perspective, the market capitalisation of the National Stock Exchange is USD 2.7 trillion. The top 44 technology firms are already valued worth four per cent of the old economy, some of them being global leaders in their own right. These 44 firms have also created about 1.5 million jobs in direct or indirect employment.

Many of these jobs have been in the Gig economy sector (a free market system in which temporary positions are common and independent workers are hired for short-term commitments), which directly benefits job seekers who may not have the best educational qualifications, but who are willing to work hard towards improving their and their family’s standard of living.

That the Indian start-up ecosystem has come this far should hardly be a surprise. India has always had the brainpower behind some of the biggest technology firms globally. This brainpower used to make a beeline for foreign shores a few years ago. Now, many individuals are searching for opportunities locally and finding them. The access to capital for Indian start-ups is also rapidly improving.

Start-ups are the engines of exponential growth, manifesting the power of innovation. Several big companies today are start-ups of yesterday

With the world awash with liquidity owing to loose monetary policies of global central banks, India has attracted large investments. This is reflected year after year in the burgeoning Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) figures, where India is one of the hottest destinations. The next stop for Indian technology start-ups is to expand globally, conquering new markets. Given India’s market, which is not just large but also diverse in terms of consumer behaviour characteristics – the global leap of faith may be a matter of when and not if.

To facilitate Indian start-ups getting a platform alongside similar firms elsewhere, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), which works under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, had organised Prarambh: Startup India International Summit in January 2021. This two-day summit was attended by several participants from BIMSTEC countries. BIMSTEC or Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is an economic platform that India has been actively participating in. This event attracted investors, scholars, policy makers and start-up professionals from various member nations in a firstofits- kind exchange of ideas. Such global platforms are significant in the region, as many countries share a similar economic trajectory as well as consumer traits. The experience obtained in a large country like India can be transferred relatively easily to other markets, where it may be possible to apply the Indian success. In fact, several Indian productivity applications are already being used in other countries in the region.

Especially in the areas of merchant automation, new-age mobility, and social commerce and networking, there are already enough proofs of concept that the mantra for commercial success in India and other countries in the region may not be too different. Such platforms thus provide the exploratory opportunities for Indian start-ups to expand geographically. In the recently-presented Union Budget, the government has allowed Indian firms to list themselves overseas without listing in India first. The Indian securities market regulator is also working to create a facilitative environment to ensure such firms that opt to raise capital outside won’t be subject to dual jurisdictions and regulations.

These steps are critical in ensuring that growing and promising Indian firms are not starved for resources. In the recent past, the technology start-ups have also diversified. While the initial wave of unicorns came from FinTech (finance and technology) and consumer apps in food and mobility aggregation businesses, the recent success stories go much beyond. Technology innovators are now making a dent in varied areas like commercial logistics, merchant automation, construction management and healthcare. This change is critical for Indian economy as a whole, too.

As new players enter the market and start challenging long-time incumbents, yesteryear leaders are forced to respond in kind. This leads to new investments in research and development, and employee upskilling, which, in turn, leads to greater economic productivity and, eventually, higher wages. In this sense, start-ups also play a critical role in uplifting and modernising old economy players they compete with, creating a virtuous economic cycle. With an educated workforce, well integrated in the global ways of working, and a young nation comfortable with using mobile-first technology, Indian start-ups are on a fast growth trajectory. Some of these players will eventually become national and global business leaders in their own right.

Aashish Chandorkar writes on public policy, politics and current affairs. He takes interest in business, sports and technology, and has authored a book on Devendra Fadnavis, the former chief minister of Maharashtra, titled The Fadnavis Years. He holds an MBA from IIM Calcutta and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Indore University

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In Japan, a start-up called Challenergy has designed a wind turbine that works in cyclonic conditions, which typically shut down most wind installations, turning them into a potential energy source.

While renewables in general are the fastest growing source of electricity generation globally, in Japan most new renewables capacity has been powered by the sun. Only in recent years has the government started trying to promote wind, especially offshore wind.

But with Japan experiencing on average 26 typhoons and tropical storms a year, and with meteorologists saying they are getting more frequent and more powerful with climate change, the path to development of wind power is generally viewed as tough.

“One of our goals is to turn typhoons into a strength,” said Atsushi Shimizu, who founded Challenergy three years after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster sent him on a quest to find a sustainable source of energy.

“If we can just partially leverage the vast energy brought by typhoons, we can consider typhoons not just as disasters, but as a source of energy,” he told Reuters during an online demonstration of the turbines.

Conventional wind turbines have giant propeller-like blades that are growing more vulnerable in cyclonic conditions as they get bigger with technological advances. Challenergy’s “Magnus Vertical Axis Wind Turbine” has ditched pointed blades, with their giant sweeping revolutions, for upright square ones that spin on a horizontal axis to the direction of the wind, which helps to more directly capture its energy and makes the structure sturdier.

In August, the company started a demonstration of a 10-kilowatt tower in Batanes, Philippines, and is aiming to incorporate solar power generation and storage batteries to provide more stable supplies of electricity in the area in the future.

Source: Reuters, weforum.org, Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman

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But, the fragmentation of the EU market is the greatest enemy of startups in Europe which is declining, but is not quick enough, due to the solid, consistent and consistent advocacy. There is a bit of hope to speed up the development in the European startup ecosystem due to ongoing pandemic.

Startups in Europe was struck hard over the first few months of Covid-19. By June 2020, almost half (49 percent) of European entrepreneurs had to resort to banks in recent months for government-backed loans. That was the difficult phase ever faced by the startup ecosystem in Europe. In this article, we have listed down the top 10 startups in Europe that are still functional amid the COvid-19 pandemic. Read the article till the end.

Startups in Europe

The European Union is the second strongest economy in the world followed by the United States. In 2018, the EU GDP was projected at $18.8 trillion (nominal), or nearly 22% of the world economy (Source). In the last two decades, Europe has the largest enrollment in tertiary education after North America and this enrollment ratio has risen exponentially. Now let us have an overview of the top 10 startups in Europe that are growing at a rapid pace.

Here are the Top 10 Startups in Europe to look after in 2021:

1. Delivery Hero

Co-Founders: Claude Ritter, Dave Bailey, Kolja Hebenstreit, Lukasz Gadowski, Markus Fuhrmann, Nikita Fahrenholz, Niklas Ostberg, Tracy Richardson
Industry: E-Commerce
Headquarter: Berlin, Germany

Delivery Hero SE has a headquarters in Berlin, Germany, as a European international online food service. The business works globally and with over 500,000 restaurants in over 40 countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Middle East. Over 666 million orders were delivered in 2019 by Delivery Hero. Delivery Hero is the largest local supply network in the world, working in Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa in over 40 countries. The business began distributing food in 2011 and is now operating its own sourcing platform on four continents.

Delivery Hero is also the founder of rapid trading, the new wave of e-commerce, targeted at delivering food and home commodities to consumers in less than 20 minutes. The business has more than 27,000 personnel and headquarters in Berlin, Germany. Since 2017 Distribution Hero has been listed on the Frankfurt bursary and became part of the leading DAX index in 2020.

2. Brainly

Co-Founders: Lukasz Haluch, Michał Borkowski, Tomasz Kraus
Industry: EdTech
Headquarter: Kraków, Poland

Brainly is for pupils, parents and teachers the world’s biggest peer-by-peer learning group. At brainly.com and its website community around the world, students are linked with homework issues and questions and get assistance with them. This is the rare opportunity for students to inquire honestly and build the confidence they need to support others and encourage them to learn in a shared environment that receives more than 350 million users per month.

Brainly is currently accessible in 35 countries with its USA headquarters in New York, United States. Present investors including General Catalyst Partners, Nine Capital, Runa Capital or Learn Capital are worth $150 million in overall financing.

3. Monzo

Co-Founders: Gary Dolman, Jason Bates, Jonas Huckestein, Paul Rippon, Tom Blomfield
Industry: FinTech
Headquarter: London, UK

Monzo is a smart banking option as an app-based mobile bank. It features a Debit Card for MasterCard that operates much like a standard current account, the only difference is that it all runs online. In 2015, Monzo Bank was initiated as Mondo for the first time. It gathered momentum as one of the most quickly expanding campaigns funded by the crowd in history, which raised a million dollars in minutes.

Today Monzo provides a new form of banking; a smartphone app handles and operates an account completely. Monzo provides features to boost your budget, help you learn, coordinate your finances and incorporate practicalities to handle your daily finances.

4. BlaBlaCar

Co-Founders: Francis Nappez, Frédéric Mazzella, Nicolas Brusson
Industry: Transportation
Headquarter: Paris, France

BlaBlaCar is the French online driving business with empty seats in their cars that mixes people commuting between cities. Many people drive on a long-distance drive from Switzerland to or around Germany. On the website, you post your path. You can link with them and fly to your destination at a charge if your journey is the same as them.

The creators Nicolas Brusson and Frederic Mazzella found it difficult to convince investors or consumers of the concept when it was founded in 2006. Today’s BlaBlaCar prominence and performance will regret any investor who turned BlaBlaCar down 10 years ago.

5. N26

Co-Founders: Maximilian Tayenthal, Valentin Stalf
Industry: FinTech
Headquarter: Berlin, Germany

N26 is a cost-free “deposit account” that you can open directly from your smartphone or desktop in less than 8 minutes. Any time, as many times as you choose, you can deposit cash or moves money from another account. You can also borrow cash from the account at an ATM, transfer cash to other accounts, or use the bank or direct debit card to buy cash.

With a conventional bank, the N26 bank account and Mastercard can do little but comfortably from both locations. Each account is secured in all countries where N26 is available by the German Bank’s Payout Scheme up to €100,000.

6. eToro

Co-Founders: David Ring, Ronen Assia, Yoni Assia
Industry: FinTech
Headquarter: London, UK

eToro will describe itself as a trading site that contains an investment social aspect. I will characterize them as trading Facebook. They first came into being in 2006 and now represent the world’s biggest investment network with 4.5 million subscribers. Possibly ‘CopyTrader’ is the special attribute of eToro.

This helps you to filter through other users and see clearly how much they have done or lost over a period of time. The ‘Famous Investors’ software is another huge plus. This pays customers on the basis of the monthly commission in the form of how many copiers they have.

7. Klarna

Co-Founders: Niklas Adalberth, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Victor Jacobsson
Industry: FinTech, E-Commerce
Headquarter: Stockholm, Sweden

In Stockholm, Sweden, in 2005, Klarna was formed. It offers 205,000 traders in 17 countries payment solutions. The business tells 85 million clients that it transactions one million a day. The business is one of the leading corporations in Europe and functions as a bank. Sequoia Money and Visa are among the developers.

It has the goal of transforming how customers pay for goods online. It’s financial services business. There is a “buy now, pay later” service which enables online retailers to buy without paying in advance. Consumers will either pay for their transactions every two weeks or the whole balance within 30 days in four interest rate installments. They will have six to 36 months to fund their acquisition. Klarna opened its headquarters in the North American office in Columbus, Ohio in 2014. New York and Los Angeles and big cities around Europe are other office sites.

8. Rapyd

Co-Founders: Arik Shtilman, Arkady Karpman, Omer Priel
Industry: FinTech
Headquarter: London, UK

Rapyd’s payments network provides fintech services in each app and makes local payment processes more dynamic. It helps e-commerce vendors, concert sites, challengers’ accounts, cash flows, internet lenders, and mainstream banks to break out of their old networks and constraints and build new mobile solutions. Company and customer transactions can take place in any market through the payment network of Rapyd and Fintech-as-a-Service.

With the 900+ payment methods integrating in over 100 countries, the Rapyd network unifies the fragmented payment networks. The company is funded by investors such as Stripe, General Catalyst, Oak FT, Coatue, Tiger National, Resilient Capital and TaL Capital.

9. Wise

Co-Founders: Kristo Käärmann & Taavet Hinrikus
Industry: FinTech
Headquarter: New York, NY

Wise is a cheap means of transferring money from the U.S. to nearly 80 countries. Any of the highest exchange rates you can find. You may use a bank account or a credit card to finance a payment, but the receiver needs to have a bank account. People who want low costs and a strong web interface internationally when they submit money.

People who want low costs and a strong web interface internationally when they submit money. For certain nations, the fixed cost is a mix of about $1 to less than 1 percent of the transfer volume. Higher credit card rates. In comparison to banks and other firms, TransferWise does not bill its transactions with exchange rate markups. The mid market average, fluctuating minute by minute, is aimed.

10. The Hut Group

Founder: Matthew Moulding
Industry: E-Commerce
Headquarter: London, UK

The Hut Group is an online marketplace that provides its own items for beauty and fitness, premium and other well-known brands. The vertically integrated model of this structure enables the company, which funds its “all-in-one growth platform,” called Ingenuity, to deal with everything from product design, production and online distribution and logistics.

The Hut Group raised £188 billion in the United Kingdom last week, when it started trading on the London Börse. A UK tech firm, with 376 273 998 shares in total, has been the largest freight company since 2015. Matthew Moulding and John Gallemore formed the collective in 2004.

Source: startuptalky.com, Photo: Unsplash

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Each house, Othalo wants to build requires around eight tonnes of plastic. But that’s not a problem, because almost everywhere in the world, there is enough plastic waste to make an Othalo house. Since 1950, billion tons of plastic have been produced globally, of which only 9% is recycled. Therefore, it helps to reduce plastic waste and is also a solution for regions where traditional building materials are scarce and expensive.

During the process, plastic waste is shredded and mixed with other elements including non-flammable materials. The mixture is used to produce building components such as walls, floors, and roofs. This can be used to build up to four floors, with a home of 60 square meters using eight tons of recycled plastic. A factory with one production line produces 2800 housing units annually.

The first factory for producing the building elements using recycled plastic will be built in Kenya next year. Architect Julien De Smedt has also joined the team to contribute to designing sustainable housing for all. The current visualization shows blocks of two-story buildings with balconies and covered terraces.

According to Othalo, the project’s initial focus will be the construction of affordable housing, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is currently estimated that almost one billion people live in housing vulnerability in the region. Today, the immediate need for low-cost housing is 160 million units. And that number, which is already very large, could increase to 360 million by 2050 due to rapid urbanization.

Since traditional construction methods cannot “bear” such a burden because they are neither efficient nor economical, nor sustainable enough, “upcycling” technology that enables waste reuse and mass production is essential for solving the housing problem.

Currently, the project is still under development. The construction of the first plastic houses is expected to start in 2022 in Africa. According to Othalo’s estimates, the amount of plastic waste available in the world is enough to build a billion homes based on their method. The company hopes to expand its product line to temperature-controlled mobile food and drug storage devices, refugee shelters, and larger modular buildings, such as schools and hospitals.

Source: inceptivemind.com

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The rapper – worth $1billion – and the world number one tennis player, who has a $220million fortune, are said to be investing in CLMBR which is a rival for fitness platform Peloton, who Jay-Z’s wife Beyonce has recently partnered with.

According to TMZ, CLMBR is about to launch two flagship products – vertical climbing machines – with the 99 Problems’ hitmakers longtime fitness consultant Marco Borges and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley also said to be investing.

CLMBR replicates virtual climbing and features world-first machines with touchscreen displays, and classes with instructors.

Jay-Z has proved to be a savvy businessman – his previous investments include a $70 million stake in Uber, a $100 million stake in streaming service Tidal and stakes in Armand de Brignac champagne and D’Usse cognac, valued at $410 million.

The reported investment comes as Beyonce joined forces with fitness platform Peloton to create a series of themed workouts for students during Homecoming season.

The 39-year-old music icon’s classes will celebrate Homecoming season – an celebration for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) which takes place in the Autumn and pays tribute to history and traditions.

The Crazy In Love hitmaker has helped create Homecoming-themed workouts such as indoor cycling, running, strength, yoga and meditation to ensure students do not miss out on the celebrations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyoncé said: ‘Peloton and I both believe that the power of music can help uplift, motivate and inspire those on their fitness journeys.

‘I’ve been a Peloton member for several years, and I’m excited to partner with a company that helps people, young and old, be the best versions of themselves, in an innovative and adaptable way.

I’m proud to celebrate the students at HBCUs with this donation, to encourage them to find and embrace their own wellness regimens.’

The Grammy-award winner will also work to create classes which incorporate areas which are important to her – such as music, movement, and fitness.

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

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According to the report, Serbia is positioned in the top five countries by the number of blockchain developers in the world.

This year’s Genome survey included nearly 300 startup ecosystems around the world, making it the most comprehensive to date. The new research gives a much more realistic picture of where Serbian entrepreneurial scene is in the world.

The report is available to the public and it shows that for the second time that Belgrade and Novi Sad ecosystem is the only one in the Western Balkans.

The post Startup Ecosystem Of Belgrade And Novi Sad Worth 502 Million Dollars appeared first on CorD Magazine.

Fresh Agriculture Technologies is a startup that develops advanced software solutions for the fruit growing industry.

For around two years now, they’ve been working on their first solution, MapMyApple, a mobile app specifically built for apple growers. The incentive to build such solution lies in the realization that expert’s help, i.e. agronomist’s or fruit specialist’s knowledge, is essential for most apple growers to succeed, yet often too expensive for them to afford it. Therefore, the application acts as a digital agronomist, offering growers all the expert’s knowledge they need and it is happily affordable for both, medium and small size apple growers.

Unlike other applications, MapMyApple provides customers with daily recommendations for spraying, irrigation and fertilization, specifically tailored to their orchard needs. It collects and processes a large amount of orchard data, from basic plantation information (variety, year of planting, tree thickness …) to chemical and mechanical soil properties and combines them with weather conditions to create timely and precise growing plans.

To ensure the use of the most accurate weather data, the software is easily integrated with the grower’s personal weather station, if there is one, or with the reliable virtual weather station otherwise. Ultimately, the goal is to give grower’s plantation the optimal treatment it requires while reducing the overall negative environmental impact.

Using the app is simple and intuitive, and if you have a smartphone, you are ready to go. The app is available for both Android and iPhone users and can be downloaded via Google Play or App Store. To this date, over 2,000 users have downloaded the application, most of them coming from Serbia and Macedonia.

Last season, Delta Agrar, one of the largest apple orchards in Serbia, has started actively using MapMyApple app for their orchard management, and since then, they have reported an increase in their productivity by more than 20%, and they continue to use the app today.

This season, MapMyApple team has partnered with Cornell University from New York that will test and prepare the algorithm for the USA market needs.

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At the opening of this centre within the Scientific and Technology Park in Čačak which exists since 2014, Brnabic said that young engineers are the future of Serbia, and their innovations are what will lead our country forward.

She recalled that an invitation has been announced today for all interested teams to apply for the positions at the start-up centre, where they will have state-of-the-art technological equipment and education for business development and protection of intellectual property rights.

Innovation will enable us to make up for the chances that we lost in previous years and will help Serbia become one of the winners in Europe in the creation of innovative technologies, the Prime Minister assessed.

The Prime Minister expressed her hope that the young people from that part of Serbia will stay there, develop their ideas and send them to the world.

She announced that by the end of her mandate, Serbia will have four science and technology parks, noting that two have already been opened.

One is the science-technology park in Čačak, and the park in Belgrade, which started operations in 2015, and today it comprises 70 companies which employ 700 engineers, Brnabić stated.

The Prime Minister explained that the other two science and technology parks are in construction in Novi Sad and Niš, adding that start-up centres will be developed in other cities because of the talent and potentials our young engineers.

Minister without portfolio in charge of Innovation and Technological Development Nenad Popović stressed that if Serbia wants to develop its economy, it has to invest in young talent and innovations and that adequate infrastructure is necessary.

Popović announced that eight more innovation start-up centres will be opened in Serbia by the end of the year, with the remark that this one in Čačak is the first of that kind.

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Even before taking responsibility for exercising authority, the current leadership of the Municipality of Rakovica had a clear development vision. Testifying to them taking advantage of their development potential in the best way is the opening of ‘Capitol Park Rakovica’ and as many as two Lidl superstores

The City of Belgrade included our future businesscommercial zone in the official ‘Investor Guide’ bilingual brochure, as one of five locations available in the capital for the building of industrial zones. We will be capable of utilising that, announces Kocić.

You’ve turned the Municipality of Rakovica into one of the most prosperous parts of Belgrade, which – judging by the plans – is only just developing. Have you had a vision from the start?

– Evening during the time before we came to power, we recognised the development potential of Rakovica, primarily its favourable strategic position, access to the Belgrade Bypass, the Ibar national road and international motorways, but also the lake in Resnik as unexploited tourism potential. We began working on realising our vision from the moment we assumed responsibility for exercising authority.

Today we have detailed regulatory plans adopted for the Lake in Resnik and the part of the Belgrade Bypass earmarked for the construction of a business-commercial zone. The businesscommercial zone would encompass an area of 140 hectares. The City of Belgrade has recognised the potential of this project, so this site was included in the official ‘Investor Guide’ bilingual brochure, as one of five locations available in the capital for the construction of business-commercial and industrial zones.

Prior to the arrival of any investor, we plan to enrich the area of the lake in Resnik with specific contents, such as a pedestrian walkway, rest spots and a jetty on the lake itself

The retail centre Capitol Park Rakovica sprouted up on the site of the defunct Rekorda, with a total of 30 million euros invested in making Rakovica the new shopping ‘mecca’ of Belgrade. How much has this improved the lives of Rakovica residents?

– The construction of Capitol Park Rakovica is the main evidence that Rakovica has created a favourable business environment for the implementation of such a large investment. The offer itself, which previously didn’t exist in Rakovica, includes a large number of small shops, major supermarkets, cinemas and other facilities, and that has really improved the quality of life of citizens.

The most important thing for us is that the construction of Capitol Park Rakovica has led to more than 400 people being employed, and also led to a large number of people from Rakovica, Čukarica and even Voždovac coming here to Rakovica instead of going into the city centre.

Otherwise, Rakovica is also one of the few Belgrade municipalities where Lidl has opened two supermarkets, which is something of we are also very proud.

Have conditions finally be created for the arrival of interested investors who would develop sporting fields and various other tourist facilities on the abandoned lake in Resnik?

– When it comes to the lake in Resnik, we have a great job behind us that was completed over the past few years. A detailed regulatory plan – as the basic document without which construction or the arrival of investors is unimaginable – was adopted by the Assembly of the City of Belgrade.

Prior to that, the Municipality of Rakovica conducted a feasibility study, while there is an existing project to clean the lake and mapping has been carried out, with which the conditions for it to be cleaned were created. We also prepared a conceptual solution for a sporting-recreational complex, which formed the basis of the detailed regulatory plan. We also plan to build a road link to the lake, but only after the construction of a sewage system, a project for which already exists.

There are several other jobs that need to be completed, but our vision of building a lakeside sporting-recreational centre in Resnik is moving ever closer to realisation.

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Knić is located near the airport, important roads and major cities – Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Čačak and Gornji Milanovac – making it ideal for all industries

The Mayor says that everyone is welcome – fruit growers, farmers, tourists, nature lovers, but also those who would like to start a business.

We are creating the conditions for a better life. We are developing the infrastructure ourselves because it is in our interest that companies operate successfully. Only in such circumstances can they create jobs for our workers and young professionals who should stay in their home towns and make their own families here.

Knić municipality has recorded excellent economic growth in recent years. You listen to the needs of fellow citizens, learn, prepare projects, what are your advantages, what can the municipality of Knić offer?

– Knić Municipality has an exceptional strategic position for the development of business and agriculture. We are the centre of Serbia, we are located near large cities, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Čačak and Gornji Milanovac, we have all the advantages of a city, but we have preserved the warmth and intimacy, family values and togetherness inherent to smaller communities.

Knić municipality is at a crossroads. Just 15 kilometres away lies the Morava airport, there are two motorways nearby, and the Kosovo Polje – Lapovo railway passes through Knić, which are enormous advantages because we can deliver raw materials and export products from the territory of our municipality quickly and cheaply.

Agriculture is the main activity here, but there are more and more small and medium enterprises, family businesses. The local government encourages the development of entrepreneurship, subsidises employment, procurement of equipment.

In 2018 exports of €23 million were realised, 51 per cent more than in 2017, and a surplus of €10 million, 2.7 times higher than in 2017. Foreign companies from Norway and Italy are already successfully operating on our territory, and we also have former industrial plants, some mini industrial zones suitable for fast start-up businesses.

We are creating conditions for young people in the Knić municipality to live in the town and work in the most developed regions of Europe

You are one of few municipalities that successfully brings young people back to the country, you pay special attention to families, especially women … What kind of benefits do you offer?

– Everything we do, we do for the young, so they can stay or return to their home town. We have renovated schools and kindergartens, we have introduced new educational profiles for high school students. In addition to the existing Business Faculty, we are opening a master programme for agro-economists with the University of Kragujevac. Farming is the primary sector, but there are more and more modern orchards as can be seen in the most famous fruit-growing regions. Together with our farmers, we develop farms and orchards. Over the last two years, we have subsidised more than 700 farms from the municipal budget. We invest significant funds in healthcare, social and population policies and we have seen an increase in the number of births. We are restoring the existing infrastructure and building new to improve living conditions and attract investors.

Knić municipality also has tourist potential. Do you plan to invest in this field?

– Our region has a true cultural and historical treasure. Excavations at the Grivac locality testify to life in this area 6,000 years ago during the Neolithic age, and we also have the two medieval towns Čestin and Borač, as well as the monastery Kamenac from the 15th century.

Knić is also known for its natural phenomenon, the Borački krš, the volcanic rocks in the middle of the Gruža valley, at the foot of which is a church from the 14th century. Every spring, an international photo safari is held here. Our Gruža lake has excellent conditions for hunting and fishing tourism and water sports. We are known for rural and ethno-tourism.

The post Export Grows, Surplus Grows appeared first on CorD Magazine.

“There is evidence in numerous reports that innovation comes mainly from startups, because they are small, flexible and unconstrained by large numbers of customers, legacy processes and rigid procedures”

The Digital Serbia Initiative will focus in the period ahead on even more intensive support and strengthening of the start-up ecosystem,” announces Nebojša Đurđević, CEO of the Digital Serbia Initiative. Your organisation claims that Serbia could become one of the leaders in the digital economy of the 21st century.

That sounds like an amazing but almost unobtainable goal. Is it realistic to aim so high?

– To start a digital business – meaning to create, distribute and sell digital products and services – expensive manufacturing facilities and infrastructure are not required, nor are expensive distribution channels. All you need is an idea, knowledge and a few laptops. You can reach global markets by distributing your products and services via the internet. Accordingly, Serbia and other smaller countries that have an innovative and highly skilled IT workforce can compete and become leaders in global markets.

What does Serbia have now as our best assets for the Industrial revolution 4.0? How can we best use them to benefit society as a whole?

– We have highly skilled and experienced people working in the IT sector, as well as big players with strong domain knowledge in the various industries in which they specialise – including financial services, artificial intelligence and insurance. Some of our global leaders would certainly provide evidence of our ability to produce world-class digital companies – we have Seven Bridges, Nordeus, Execom, Vega IT Sourcing, 3Lateral, HTEC and FishingBooker, to name just a few.

When we look at the exports generated by the Serbian IT sector – reaching almost 1.2 billion euros in 2018, with annual growth of 26% – we should understand that we are mainly talking about business generated by companies that provide IT services to international clients. We also have another, a smaller pool of IT companies that are developing and selling their own products and services. Both of these groups create great value for the economy – and we want them both to grow. However, we would like to have a better balance and increase the proportion of companies that own products and services.

Why is that important? Well, if you mainly provide IT services to clients, the majority of your employees are likely to be IT professionals. On the other hand, if you’re developing your own digital products and services, you need other professions and disciplines to a larger extent – you need more employees with backgrounds in business management, marketing, design and finance. So, there is a broader social impact with many more people included in the digital economy that brings high value-added jobs.

Moreover, it is very important to start applying digital technologies to improve business processes and models in traditional industries. For example, in agriculture, the automotive sector or food processing, you can identify specific segments of the business model or processes that can be transformed using innovative digital solutions. For this to take place, you need domain experts – an agricultural engineer or a biologist that can identify the “pain point” that can be improved through digital technologies. Domain experts who understand the digital world can provide requirements and guidance to programmers to develop digital solutions. Extending digital technology into traditional sectors will have a further positive social impact.

The Digital Serbia Initiative will focus on programmes for improving business skills and the knowledge needed to have a fundable start-up. Start-ups sometimes have a brilliant technical idea, but lack a good business model or go-to-market strategy

You view start-ups as the “main driving engine of the digital revolution in Serbia”. Why is that?

– Global reports have shown us that, in both developed and developing countries, more than 50% of new jobs are created by start-ups. There is also evidence in numerous reports showing that innovations come mainly from start-ups, because they are small, flexible and unconstrained by large numbers of customers, legacy processes and the rigid procedures that large corporations need in order to ensure the consistent quality of products and services – especially when they have a mature product and large customer base. That’s why start-ups are important; they come up with innovative ideas and, through cooperation with corporations that provide deep domain expertise and experience, can bring new solutions, products and services to the market. This benefits both sides.

To make the digital economy functional, we need experts that must be educated. You claim that coding skills are important for everyone, and not only those who will actually choose it as their profession?

– When it comes to coding, you need to start with the kind of algorithmic thinking that forms part of broader digital literacy. So, if you have a problem to be solved, you break it down into a finite number of steps that need to be executed. It is essential for all students to acquire that ability, that skill of algorithmic thinking, because – regardless of whether they’re going to become chemists, biologists, medical doctors or mechanical engineers – as domain experts they will need an understanding of this way of thinking in order to be able to identify opportunities to apply digital technology. We also need to improve business knowledge and develop skills that will help us shape digital products that are competitive in the global market.

What are the future priorities of the Digital Serbia Initiative and what will be your main point of focus in the next few months?

– Our priorities are quite closely tied to the development of the start-up ecosystem, as start-ups are recognised as the engine driving the development of the entire digital economy. We need to improve early stage start-up funding, including venture capital, business angels and crowd-investing platforms, as mechanisms. We have also identified the necessity of introducing tax breaks for both individuals and companies investing in start-ups.

We will also be focusing on programmes for improving business skills and the knowledge needed to have a fundable start-up. Start-ups sometimes have a brilliant technical idea but lack a good business model or the kind of go-to-market strategy that is crucial for success on the global market.

By simultaneously strengthening both early stage funding options and the business knowledge and maturity of start-ups, we will enable strong growth in terms of the number of start-ups in the ecosystem and overall investment.

The post Start-ups Drive the Digital Revolution appeared first on CorD Magazine.