The Technical High School in Sisak has been under siege from parents of students finishing elementary schools in recent days. Calls are coming from all over Croatia, and the school estimates it could enrol at least five times as many students as it has positions available. The reason for all this interest in the newly-introduced studies programme – the video game developer, reports novac.hr on May 16, 2019.

“One mother even had an idea of bringing her third-grade high school student and enrolling him in the first grade of our school. The interest is huge, but in the next school year, we can have just one class with 24 students. I believe that we will be able to attract the best students from our county, but also other parts of Croatia,” said the Sisak Technical High School principal Davor Malović.

Croatian vocational schools will not offer many new studies for the next year, which is why the technician for the video games development programme in Sisak has attracted a lot of attention. On the other hand, it raises the question of why such programmes are not found more often in Croatian schools.

“We would not have it if the county had not launched a wider project. As is well-known, we have become the regional centre of competence and have received substantial European funds. The money will be used to equip several classrooms for students who will later work in the gaming industry,” said the principal.

The classrooms for the implementation of the new programme will include a professional audio and video studio, a motion capture camera, top gaming computers, VR glasses and gaming chairs. While it is difficult to estimate how much it will ultimately cost to invest in equipment and teacher education, the amount will undoubtedly reach a few million kuna.

The curriculum for the new programme has been developed by experts from Simora, the Sisak-Moslavina County development agency, which also educates teachers. In the first grade, students will have courses in basic programming, computer basics, graphics in video games, and video game development, while in the second grade they will switch to subjects such as operating systems, basic electrical engineering, intro to computer networks, designing graphics elements and team collaboration.

In the last two years of education, they will learn advanced video game development techniques, 3D modelling, texturing and animation, videogames project development, digital logic objects, production of competitive video games, visual effects in video games and, finally, marketing and monetization of video games.

In total, in four years of schooling, the program will offer 20 subjects related to the gaming industry, divided into five modules.

After this programme, the school plans to introduce six more related courses, one of which is space technology.

Translated from novac.hr (reported by Mirela Lilek).

More news about education in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, May 15, 2019 - Addressing a forum on cyber security in the Western Balkans, organised by the French Embassy in Zagreb on Tuesday, Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović said that cyber security had become a security priority and a decisive factor of a country's overall development.

"Cyber-attacks pose a major threat to the security, stability of economic prosperity of the European Union, its member-states, the private sector and the entire community and citizens themselves. It is becoming increasingly clear that adequate protection of business premises and systematic upgrading are the only way to protect our way of life in the current digital age. We therefore must approach the problem together and more seriously," said the minister.

He noted that state institutions had the initial role in defining and strengthening a modern and adequate response to security threats and cyber incidents and that it was of the utmost importance to align laws with the latest technological advances to enable identification and prosecution of cyber criminals and protect the system.

"Considering the global nature of the Internet and digital business connectivity, information systems in the EU are not isolated as a target and the issue of their protection goes beyond national borders because threats to that system have negative potential that can jeopardise the survival of the common European project and our common values," he stressed.

Božinović said that the Ministry of the Interior was working on strengthening the capacities, education and specialisation of police and judicial officials for the prevention of cybercrime and that Croatia, as the host of the international forum, was recognised as a country which had the tools, know-how and skills as well as experts to deal with cyber security challenges.

"With the recent arrest of the owner of the biggest international illegal Internet service we have shown to Europe that we are ready, capable, trained and equipped to fight the most sophisticated security threats and we continue to develop in that direction," said Božinović.

The Zagreb forum on cyber security in the Western Balkans brought together around 50 representatives from 14 countries of the EU and the region, including cyber security experts and business people.

More news about the Interior Ministry can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 23, 2019 - Ericsson Nikola Tesla and Rune Crow have signed a contract for the implementation of broadband optical network access in rural areas of Istria County and Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Ericsson Nikola Tesla said on Tuesday.

The "Rural Network Project (RUNE) is the first and currently the only international project at the European level which connects the territory of several member countries by a unique cross-border optical network," the company said in a press release.

"With the construction of the network in rural areas which are currently not covered by optical infrastructure and where existing Internet service providers have no commercial interest, RUNE will help local authorities to achieve the goals of the Digital Agenda for Europe 2020.

Moreover, this will contribute to the liberalization of the electronic communication service market. In the end, this guarantees all operators an equal approach to end users under equal conditions."

The project is financed by the Connecting Europe Broadband Fund (CEBF), as the first investment platform for the support of broadband infrastructure within the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI), the company said.

More IT industry news can be found in the Business section.

Filming locations are not the only connection between the Game of Thrones and Croatia. The global television sensation, which is currently broadcasting its eighth and final season, has another Croatian “touch” – the Five agency from Zagreb is the author of the latest update of the official app accompanying the TV series, entitled A World of Ice and Fire - A Game of Thrones App, reports Poslovni.hr on April 22, 2019.

The update was developed for one of the world's largest publishing houses, Penguin Random House. The Five agency has been working together with the publisher for years, and the update has been offered on the internet, at AppStore and GooglePlay, a few days before the start of the latest TV season.

The app is free, and for the first time, the latest version of the app is also available in Croatia, which has caused considerable joy among the fans.

“We only started working on the app a few months before the broadcast, but we have made a lot of improvements and created a much better user experience, a brand new user interface, with an added support for tablets and new devices, and added more than a hundred optimizations and upgrades,” said Perica Levatić, a project manager in the agency which has an office in New York as well.

The latest upgrade of the official Games of Thrones app has been selected as the best app update by AppStore, which gave an additional boost to the Five team, since they are, of course, great GoT fans.

They have also made the job easier for Penguin Random House to manage the app in the future. “It will now be a lot easier to add new content through the new Content Management System (CMS). It is easier to manage content from the books, and the app lets you explore all GoT's worlds through interactive maps,” said the Five agency.

Translated from Poslovni.hr (reported by Sergej Novosel Vučković).

More news about links between Croatia and the Game of Thrones can be found in the Lifestyle section.

Microblink, an R&D company from Zagreb, has developed the fastest mobile document scanner in the world, introducing a new product – BlinkCard. It is a scanner of credit and debit cards, which is sold as a software component for embedding into fintech mobile apps, which have become a hot topic in the last few months with the rise of mobile banking, reports Poslovni.hr on April 12, 2019.

Damir Sabol, the co-founder and co-owner of Microblink, said that BlinkCard is available as a test app for free at Google Play and Apple Store mobile app stores. He says BlinkCard is a sign of progress in the field of machine learning. "In the near future, we will be able to scan and recognise almost all personal documents in the world," says Sabol.

Microblink sells five software components that can be used to scan and instantly enter data from different documents, from invoices to official documents. The first product launched by the company was the BlinkID, a mobile document scanner with an extensive range of application. This product is used in the United States to scan US citizens’ identification documents at polling stations. US police also use it in several smaller towns to issue fines within three seconds.

In the United Kingdom, it is used by large insurers to enable their customers to arrange for the extension of the car insurance policies immediately via mobile phones by scanning driving licenses.

Damir Sabol says that the goal of their solutions is for users to be able to point the mobile phone cameras without any typing towards a document and gain data which can be entered into a form in less than a second. He adds that in the last six years the number of employees working on solving this problem has grown from seven to 90.

“Now we are working on the SecureVision project worth 7.9 million kuna, which we want to use to improve our technological solution further," Sabol explains.

Translated from Poslovni.hr (reported by Bernard Ivezić).

More IT industry news can be found in the Business section.

ZAGREB, April 12, 2019 - As many as 59% of Croatian companies think that the state of digitisation of the national economy is poor or very poor, a survey showed on Thursday.

The survey of the digital readiness of Croatian companies was carried out by the Apsolon business consulting firm, previously called Sense Consulting. It was conducted on a sample of 300 companies, including 65 large companies with over 250 employees and 235 medium-sized companies with between 50 and 249 employees, operating in different regions and industrial sectors.

The survey found that as few as 15% of Croatian companies have developed a digital transformation strategy, only 17% think they are completely ready for changes the digital transformation will bring, and 29.7% said that digital transformation is at the top of their list of priorities.

As many as 59% of the companies polled said that the state of digitisation of the Croatian economy is poor (47%) or very poor (12%), with large companies being more critical in their assessment.

On the scale of digital readiness, the Croatian economy was given a grade of 2 out of 5.

Apsolon's chief partner Vedran Antoljak said that the results of the survey were backed by the European Union's Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which included Croatia among less successful countries, ranking it 22nd of the 28 EU member states.

"One of the objectives of our survey is to use the results to improve the digital readiness of Croatian companies and of the economy as a whole. This can be achieved, among other things, by adjusting the regulatory framework to the contemporary digital age and introducing digitisation into industrial sectors," Antoljak said.

A comparison of the results of the survey for Croatia and a similar survey for Germany shows that only 4.5% of Croatian companies recognised the importance of digital transformation, as against 35% in Germany.

Only 9% of Croatian companies think that their employees are ready for this process, while in Germany 42% think so.

On the other hand, as many as 77% of Croatian companies said they are well-prepared for digital transformation, compared to 35% of German companies. "Considering economic circumstances, the Croatian estimate seems very optimistic," Apsolon said.

Apsolon noted that its international experience shows that companies that have undergone digital transformation have 35% higher revenues, while employee motivation and productivity is up to 40% higher.

More news about Croatia’s economy can be found in the Business section.

The Junior Engineer Academy programme was presented today at the Zagreb Innovation Centre. This is a project developed in the collaboration of Deutsche Telekom Stiftung, the Institute for Youth Development and Innovativity (IRIM) and Croatian Telecom (HT), the leader of the STEM revolution in Croatia. A vital feature of the programme is to establish and maintain close links with companies and universities that provide students with an early insight into the world of engineering in all areas of technology and science, reports tportal.hr on March 26, 2019.

In the first phase of the project, the IRIM selected 15 vocational schools to participate in the project implementation, donated advanced technology and funds to schools, and provided mentors with training to enable them to transfer the knowledge to students and work with them in the process of converting creative ideas into solutions using the IoT technology.

The second phase involves connecting the selected schools with related educational institutions and the business sector. Throughout the process of creating solutions, the IRIM provides continuous mentoring by its experts. The ultimate goal is to establish permanent co-operation between the educational and business sectors, which will result in stronger and more productive links between educational institutions and the labour market.

One of the main goals of the activities of Croatian Telecom, including through the STEM literacy programmes, is to bring technology into every corner of Croatia and thus create equal opportunities for everyone, and education is the starting point for bringing about such changes in the society.

In partnership with the IRIM, Croatian Telecom has equipped 160 schools in the last two year, while about 130 mentors and more than 2000 students have attended educational programmes to be prepared for the future created by the technological revolution. Young creators are achieving significant successes in global competition in creating innovative IoT solutions. The latest such success is the achievement of Vukovar high-schoolers who won the first prize at the worldwide competition marking the anniversary of Arduino - the technology which Croatian Telecom offers to a growing number of schools in Croatia.

“Getting the STEM knowledge to everyone is essential for young people to learn how to use technology to find solutions. That is why, for the third year in a row, we have completely changed the approach to learning in schools, and we are the leader of the STEM revolution in Croatia. We are proud that young people today have the opportunity to implement their ideas using the latest technology. Successes such as the one achieved by the high-schoolers from Vukovar prove that we are moving in the right direction and encourage us to continue developing such programmes,” said the director of HT corporate communications Nina Išek Međugorac.

“We will not stop until all schools accept the challenge and become part of the HT educational programme because that is the only way to create generations that will lead our society forward. We want these creative individuals with the competences of the future to motivate the whole society to join the wave of change that will result in simpler and better lives," Išek Međugorac said.

"With this project, we want to expand IRIM activities and strengthen high schools by providing them with cutting-edge technology, financial donations and continuous support through professional mentoring. Through the establishment of the Junior Engineer Academy network in Croatia, we want to foster cooperation between the educational and business sectors as well as the development of competencies that will prepare the young for the future," said IRIM president Nenad Bakić.

More news about IRIM can be found in the Business section.

Translated from tportal.hr.

At the very end of the Digital Takeover Conference, the Business Leaders awards were present to companies and startups which the 24sata daily has recognised as leaders in digital transformation. These are companies that define the digital market and determine how it will look tomorrow, reports 24sata.hr on March 13, 2019.

The award for the most substantial investment in the development of the gigabit network was given to Croatian Telecom, represented by Boris Drilo, a member of the board of directors and head of IT. “With this modernisation drive, we have upgraded 800 of the 2000 base stations, and we already offer the 5G functionality. If you have the latest generation of mobile phones, you can surf twice as fast as with our closest rivals in Croatia," Drilo said. This is a project worth more than one billion kuna, which will prepare the infrastructure for the introduction of 5G throughout Croatia by the end of 2019. The project is also the most significant investment in the development of the gigabit network in Croatia.

Head of corporate communications of the Croatian Post, Jo Kempen, has received the award presented to the Croatian Post for its contribution to employee development as the core of digital transformation. After a series of technological investments last year, the Post has continued to succeed this year, turning its focus actively towards the further development of its employees. The Croatian Post has launched the Academy, has held a series of training sessions to enable workers to operate new machines, and it has provided workers with many additional benefits, such as a closed voluntary pension fund. All postmen have also completed training for the Digital Postman project and are therefore fully ready to begin using new technologies. “In addition to investing in processes and progress, we are investing in people. I am glad our postmen will be even better in the future,” Kempen said.

The Business Leaders award for digital services focused on users was presented to Zagrebačka Banka, represented by Andrea Tiberi, customer experience manager, Iva Barbarić, marketing director, and Estera Ivanišević, card business director. Zaba said that the opinions of professionals and consumers are critical to them since everybody wants to shop in a fast, easy and safe way, which can be done by using a digital card in their m-wallet. The m-wallet is a modern and safe m-zaba functionality (no additional app, no extra download, no extra charges) that allows cell phone payments at contactless POS devices that accept Mastercard and Maestro cards. The service can be used to pay without the physical use of a card and without accessing the m-zaba app. All you have to do is unlock your cell phone display and put it on a POS device.

The award for innovators in the field of virtual reality was presented to the Orqa FPV startup from Osijek, represented by CEO Srđan Kovačević. “We are honoured to be in such a company as a small startup, and I hope we will fulfil the expectations,” Kovačević said. Orqa was also the winner of the Idea Knockout competition and won a place at this year's CES in Las Vegas. Orqa FPV.One are goggles for driving racing drones and other professional (industrial and civil) aircraft and remote-controlled vehicles. The FPV in the name stands for the first-person view, providing a particularly exciting experience to anyone who uses them. Osijek is thus on the verge of becoming the centre of production of googles for one of the most exciting sports of the future, and if everything goes as it should, this year drone pilots all over the world will see their experience improved. The only question is how the competition will react. At the CES fair in Las Vegas, the company has launched global sales of the googles.

The award for a socially responsible project was given to Locastic and OmoLab for the development of the OmoReader app. This is the first Croatian mobile app that facilitates, improves and encourages reading. The app is primarily intended for people with dyslexia and other reading difficulties, as well as for other reading fans. The app uses a specially designed OmoType font system with high readability and customisation options to individual user needs. OmoReader also offers a host of other features that facilitate reading and learning. This idea was developed at OmoLab – Visual Communication Laboratory and realised in partnership with Locastic, which has developed the mobile app. “I would like to thank 24sata for the award given to the team which worked on a project whose goal is not just making money,” said Antonio Perić Mažar from Locastic.

Translated from 24sata.hr (reported by Ivan Hruškovec).

More news about creative Croatians can be found in the Made in Croatia section.

I was carrying a broken car battery to a recycling yard and saw a Commodore 64 there on a pile of other electronics. I took it home and discovered it was still working. It was a moment that has changed my life, says Juraj Mucko, remembering how he became a collector of old computers from the 1970s and 1980s. His friend Tomislav Talan is a passionate collector of more than 1300 calculators, while Ivan Širić has filled up his cabinets with old computer books and journals, reports Večernji List on March 8, 2019.

Together with about a dozen enthusiasts in retro-electronics, they founded the Retro Info society, which services computer, monitors and other equipment, provided they were produced before 1997.

In addition to the legendary Commodore 64, their attics and garages are home to game consoles such as SNES and a 40-year-old Atari 2600, and old TV sets, VCRs and cassette recorders. Do they collect Pentiums, old cell phones and tablets? "No, that is too new for us... Almost everything we have comes from the previous millennium,” says Talan, who has the most extensive collection. The most valuable one belongs to Mucko, the society’s secretary, who has managed to acquire a 1983 Apple Lisa computer which was sold in just 100,000 copies.

“At the time, it had the most advanced graphical interface and was worth about 6,000 dollars, and today you can get a minimum of 1,000 euro for it. I wanted it so much, so I paid big money for it to be shipped from the USA”, says Mucko.

They find most of the electronics stuff on the Hrelić flea market, internet advertising websites and from people who want to empty their garages. They have a collection which occupies more space than they have available and is worth tens of thousands of euros, so they want to open an IT museum in Zagreb. Since 2006, their inventory has been exhibited at fairs several times a year, and their equipment was used in the filming of the popular "Crno-Bijeli Svijet" TV series.

They are convinced that a museum of retro-technology would be a hit. “We did not collect all of this just because we love old stuff and do not want our collection to rust in the dust. We want to share our love with others and teach the children how the technology world looked like when their parents were young,” says the society members.

Talan is a co-founder of the Peek & Poke Museum of information technology in Rijeka, which has been operating for ten years, and much of his collection came from the Zagreb society. But they have enough exhibits to fill another museum in the capital.

More IT news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

Translated from Večernji List (reported by Hana Ivković).

The race between the two largest mobile banks in Europe, Revolut and N26, which are often referred to as Ubers for banking, will be waged on the Croatian summer as well by the summer. Revolut has confirmed that in the next few months it plans to offer its services in Croatia and open an office here. Its main competitor, the German mobile bank N26, has recently entered the Slovenian market, reports Poslovni.hr on March 7, 2019.

Andreas Kapsos, Revolut’s marketing manager, says they are already preparing for the expansion to Croatia. “The official launch of Revolut in Croatia will take place in the next few months, as soon as we add support for the Croatian kuna (HRK) as one of the basic currencies," says Kapsos. He adds that they are already working intensively and that the biggest obstacle is adding the kuna to the app so that users can simply add the funds to their Revolut account. "When we do this, everyone will be able to receive payments in kunas on their account, either from another bank account or from other cards. We will also be looking for a country manager for Croatia," says Kapsos.

Until recently, Revolut was by far the largest mobile bank and the most valuable financial startup (fintech) in Europe. It has more than four million users, more than 650 employees and has more than 1.7 billion dollars of market value. Earlier this year, it was overtaken by N26, with more than 800 employees.

Both banks are expanding intensively across Europe, but also on other continents. Revolut specifically targets Asia while N26 is more focused on America. In the United States, their own mobile banks were launched by JP Morgan and Bank of America.

Mobile banks operate like other mobile apps and are not the same as mobile banking services offered by all the banks in Croatia. Registration of users in mobile banks is done via mobile phones, without paperwork. You immediately receive a current account with an IBAN which is valid throughout Europe. Both Revolut and N26 have European banking licenses, which means they can operate in all EU member states, including Croatia.

The Croatian National Bank (HNB) issued a press release three years ago, warning citizens to carefully read contracts they sign with financial institutions from the Union, which are opening branches in Croatia without the HNB's approval since the HNB has no jurisdiction in those cases.

Although Revolut has so far successfully challenged existing players in the banking market, being the only major bank in Europe which allows direct buying and selling of cryptocurrencies, this year it was hit by the first affair. The British Financial Conduct Authority is investigating Revolut for suspicion that the company neglected some of the money laundering regulations, which the company strongly denies.

More news about banks in Croatia can be found in the Business section.

Translated from Poslovni.hr (reported by Bernard Ivezić).