"Ministry of Data" is an open data challenge that encourages creative potential and the use of ICT skills in using open data for the development of e-solutions such as apps, platforms, visualizations. The focuses of the challenge are solutions for improving the transparency, inclusiveness, and quality of life in cities of the Western Balkans. The teams can apply until December 6th, 2016.
It seems like Hungarian AutoHop has just entered Romanian, Croatian and Serbian market and it already changed its name - the ridesharing service has been acquired by BlaBlaCar, a well known platform from France, for an undisclosed amount.
StartLabs just announced newest addition to it's portfolio. Slovenian CarLock which specializes in vehicle monitoring, decided to join StartLabs' three month program. Over that time the team will move to Belgrade where they will spend some quality time perfecting their product and business strategy, we were told by StartLabs' founding member and partner, Nebojsa Lazic.
Serbian Minister of finance, Sasa Radulovic, announced today that beginning next year Serbia will start a 35 million euro co-fund intended for local startups. The government will co-invest from 20 to 40 percent with foreign investors, who are to be attracted to this South-East European country which is slowly but surely starting to forge a stable startup ecosystem.
"Good design means good business" - said Thomas J. Watson, CEO and chairman of IBM at the beginning of the previous century. Led by the similar mantra, a group of young entrepreneurs has founded one of the cornerstones for both designers and those in need of design called Green Design.
After the lunch break, conference room full of young entrepreneurs welcomed Balkans's most renowned startup names such as Vukasin Stojkov (Startit), Maxim Gurvits (Eleven) and Ivo Spigel (Zip). Together, they elaborated more on what is the driving force behind, now a very successful and vibrant startup ecosystem that didn't even exist three years ago.
The story of StartLabs, first Serbian startup accelerator that offers up to 50,000 dollars in seed investment in exchange for 10 to 15 percent equity, started a long time ago, during the ‘90s. At that time two engineers departed on a journey that took them to various places. A journey that changed both their lives and lives of people around them.
Appricot, a Belgrade based company from Serbia recently introduced the long-awaited Appidemia - social search network for your apps. Since this is not the first successful product this company has launched in the past few months, we were curious to find out just what exactly is going on in their offices, and what is fueling a dozen of young people that make such awesome apps.
Led by the problems personal trainers face on the Internet, Sinisa Komlenic from train'rs today finally unveiled its solution in the form of an app that creates personalized web pages for fitness trainers and manages their business for them. The accent is placed on the form and function of the website, so clients and personal trainers can use it regardless of the device and the screen size.
Although many have already taken a summer vacation, including your beloved netocrats, others are just now starting their holiday on one of the exotic Mediterranean beaches or some other location. While islands like Zakynthos and Lefkada are attracting a lot of tourists for years now (mainly because of word-of-mouth recommendations form friends who have already been there), some of the most beautiful beaches always remain hidden from the eyes of the tourists.
Croatian consulting company DC&T, specializing in creative, efficient, and humane office space design, is setting out to conquer the world markets. First step: Dubai.
