ZAGREB, 25 Oct 2021 - At the moment 3,820 students and 554 teachers are positive for coronavirus, a decision to switch to online classes can be made by local authorities in cooperation with county COVID-19 response teams, and for now the education ministry does not plan to change the school year calendar.

The calendar is defined by the decision adopted in late April, regarding the start and end of the school year, the number of working days and the duration of school breaks, the ministry told Hina on Monday.

At the moment 2,226 primary and 1,594 secondary school students are positive for coronavirus.

Zagreb accounts for the majority of those infected with 660 primary and 480 secondary school students, while Lika-Senj County accounts for the fewest - 24 in primary and four in secondary schools.

As for positive teachers, most are in Zagreb, 134, and the fewest in Požega-Slavonia County, five.

Also, 6,743 primary and 3,372 secondary school students are self-isolating, the largest number in Zagreb, 3,569, and the smallest in Krapina-Zagorje County, 14.

There are also 159 school employees in self-isolation, most in Zagreb, 41, and least in Požega-Slavonia, Koprivnica-Križevci and Vukovar-Srijem counties with one in each.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.

ZAGREB, 6 Sept 2021 - The new school year 2021-22 begins on Monday for almost 460,000 elementary and secondary school students across Croatia, including about 37,000 first graders, and all will have face-to-face classes.

This year again HRK 158 million was earmarked in the state budget for free textbooks for elementary school students.

Science and Education Minister Radovan Fuchs said on Sunday that elementary school students in grades five to eight and secondary school students would have to wear masks if the distance between them in classrooms was less than 1.5 to 2 meters.

However, masks are mandatory in hallways, outside classrooms, and in school transport.

Teachers who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 do not have to wear masks in classrooms, while those who have not been do, Fuchs said on RTL television.

The ministry has issued epidemiological recommendations based on research, the experience of epidemiologists, all stakeholders in the education system and other EU countries as well as in line with those of relevant European and international organizations, notably the World Health Organization.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

August the 28th, 2021 - A group of Croatian high school students called Team 7 have developed a guide for dyslexic people, a group of people who suffer with an issue that is still severely misunderstood.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes, even today, society is still not sufficiently informed about dyslexia which is faced by about ten percent of the population, especially because of the stigma that dyslexia is an "obstacle" that refers only to difficulties in reading and writing. On the contrary, this issue is much more than that.

This was the thought of the leader Anja Cvetkovic, one of a group of Croatian high school students attending the Sibenik Medical School, who, together with Antonija Crnogac and her younger sister Ivana founded Team 7. They launched a project called Public ignorance about dyslexia/Neinformiranost drustva o disleksiji, as part of which they published a guide for dyslexic people.

As Anja herself has dyslexia and from her perspective can more easily bring others closer to the challenges, but also the positive sides, it was a springboard to spread awareness and knowledge about dyslexia through the project and to encourage their local community to cooperate and make positive changes.

"Our project currently includes the publication of a simple information guide for dyslexics - ''Reading should be available to all''. We also held a cycle of four online workshops ''Dyslexia in four steps - What should every parent know?’' Which was attended by about 160 participants.

The workshops were realised in cooperation with the master of speech therapy Mihaela Lulic from the speech therapy cabinet ''From A to Z'' in Pula, who joined us with her professional knowledge and volunteered on this project.

The workshops were divided into two parts, professional and personal, presented by Anja in order to bring the world of dyslexia closer to parents, teachers, speech therapists and other participants from the point of view of a person with dyslexia,'' the girls behind Team 7 explained.

One mother realised that her daughter might have dyslexia owing to these workshops, which was later confirmed.

The Team 7 girls presented this project for the first time back in March, when a new round of applications for UPSHIFT for the Sibenik-Knin and Zadar counties started.

This is a three-day workshop for young people aged 13 to 19 as part of the unique programme for young people and adolescents called ZABUM (For the Future of Youth) launched by the UNICEF Office for Croatia and implemented in cooperation with the Croatian Office for Creativity and Innovation (HUKI).

The Team 7 project was among the winners, and the girls won 15,000 kuna for implementing their praiseworthy solution in their local community. ''We used the funds to create our guide for dyslexics (editorial, graphic design and prepress, printing), and to create promotional materials related to our project.

As for our further plans, we're continuing to work through the ''Norda Dyslexia'' Association, through online workshops, counselling and education, primarily for dyslexics and their parents and others who want to learn more about dyslexia. We have a lot of plans,'' stated the Team 7 girls, adding that right from the very beginning they had the great support of their school, family and friends and the local media, and there was no lack of cooperation.

''With the great support of our mentor Andrej Hanzir from HUKI, who was always ready to give us guidelines and advice, throughout the project, we achieved a number of quality collaborations. We had collaborations with Mihaela Lulic, MA, from the speech therapy cabinet ''From A to Z'', our editor Marijeta Matijas from ''Manuscript to Reader'' and graphic designer Maja Skiljaica from ''Creative Wheel'', who guided us through the process of creating a book from editing, proofreading, and graphic design to prepress.

We also had collaboration with the University Printing House in Zagreb. Then the collaboration with the Croatian actor and drama champion of the Croatian National Theater Bojan Navojec, who, in our book, shared his own inspiring experience with dyslexia and his support with the desire to continue to cooperate and act in the field of dyslexia.

Mungos Split is responsible for the production of our promo material. We were also supported by our local media Info Vodice and the team of Radio Ritma Sibenik. We're grateful to everyone for their wonderful cooperation, support, advice, and for coming out to meet us and giving us their time, experience and affordable prices due to our limited resources. Thank you all. We plan to establish cooperation with the city libraries of Vodice and Sibenik in connection with our book promotion. We'll publish the book in digital form and it will be free. We'll then donate it to libraries all over Croatia to reach as many people as possible and arouse people's interest in dyslexia, we'll also try to distribute it through publishing houses,'' the Team 7 girls noted.

They also referred to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and this was especially emphasised by Anja, who, as a dyslexic, said that following classes was more demanding due to online lectures, as there is a lot of copying and time constraints when trying to take exams online. The Team 7 girls believe that the Croatian education system generally needs refreshment, and they believe that, in connection with dyslexia, a multisensory form of learning should be introduced that would be useful to students with and without dyslexia.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

August the 25th, 2021 - Two innovative and determined Croatian students have been working for a little more than one year, and in that short amount of time, they already have numerous successful projects under their belts.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes, while many folk proverbs lean towards blaming almost everything on young people, there are a number of companies operating here on the Croatian market that prove this to be wrong and give young people the opportunity to learn, progress in business and successfully enter the business world.

One of such companies is ATRON electronic GmbH, more precisely the Zagreb branch of this company, which has been supporting student projects for years, and innovation and modernisation have long been in the focus of their development of smart solutions in the field of public transport.

The Croatian branch of Atron has been present in Zagreb for fifteen years now, and in the last few years they've placed special emphasis on higher education, ie Croatian students, as well as student associations and projects.

It is a company that employs Croatian students and enables them to upgrade their knowledge and skills learnd during their education into real business tasks and smart solutions in the development of which they actively participate.

As they point out from this company, with them, Croatian students have the opportunity to work on solving real problems and tasks relevant to their new products and services, and often after the internship they remain within their teams as permanent employees.

The Zagreb team of ATRON electronic GmbH also includes Marko Pavlinic, a student at the Faculty of RIT Croatia in the field of Web & Mobile Computing, who will begin his fourth year of study in September, and Nikica Hecimovic, also a student at the Faculty of RIT Croatia.

''My business interests are focused on teamwork, as well as on developing new and improving existing projects. I became part of the Atron team through a referral, and I’ve been there for about a year and two months. I'm progressing faster than I thought I would, the given tasks push me every day to learn something new, and if I can't come up with a solution on my own, I have colleagues who are happy to help me and give me advice. When I first came here, I mostly worked on smaller projects that don't have the pressure of delivery deadlines, but today I have tasks that require a little more responsibility,'' Pavlinic stated, recalling his beginnings in this company.

As he said, he supplemented his knowledge in the areas he encountered when in college, but this company gave him the opportunity to work with technologies he hadn't previously encountered, so now he learns something new every day.

''Currently, I'm primarily developing a graphical interface and I'm part of a frontend team. Together with other team members, I'm developing an application that will be used by companies across Europe that provide public transport services. At the company, I'm responsible for the graphical interface of the project I'm currently working on. The project I'm currently working on is the first major project that started in December last year. We're developing an application that will digitise the tracking and vehicle status of our clients. Before this project, I developed smaller tools,'' revealed Marko Pavlinic.

According to Pavlinic, his business plan in the future is to use the knowledge he gained during higher education and his experience gained at ATRON electronic GmbH to decide in which direction in the IT sector he wants to go and to help the company and transfer this knowledge to his younger colleagues.

“I've been part of the Atron team for a little over a year now and through my time here I've felt great progress in my programming skills. When I came to ATRON electronic GmbH, I had the task with a colleague to make a smaller programme that is part of a large project that I worked on for three months,'' explained the other of the Croatian students, Nikica Hecimovic.

His role is to develop the backend service, create the project structure and manage the database and is responsible for these items on the current project, where he has the role of junior backend developer in the team. Considering the fact that he has worked on two projects so far, and has been working on this current one for the longest time, he pointed out that the current project is very important and significant for him.

''This is a project on which I learned the most and on which, as a programmer, I gained a lot of experience and learned new technologies. My role today is to develop the backend services on a single project. Compared to the beginning of my work, this is a much more important and demanding role, as well as a rather rewarding experience. At the beginning of both projects, some time before the start of programming, I learned about the new technology I was working on on that project. Then, at all times, my mentor was at my disposal and helped me where and when I needed it.

I progressed in several ways, learned how to work well in a team, gained good work habits and experience in software development with new technologies that I worked on as part of ATRON electronic GmbH's projects,'' said Hecimovic, adding that he is currently working on the AWIRE project structure and manages the storage and use of data from the database.

The Zagreb branch of ATRON electronic GmbH is aware that Croatian students and other young people are a source of fresh ideas on the country's blossoming startup scene, and are thus an important factor in the development of that sector, and of the Croatian economy as a whole.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

July 31, 2021 - One more medal for Croatia, and not from Tokyo, after Lovro Mirković, a high school student from Zagreb, won a bronze medal at the International Biology Olympiad.

As reported by Index.hr, four Croatian high school students participated in the 32nd International Biological Olympiad, which took place from 18 to 23 July, and Lovro Mirković from the XV Grammar School in Zagreb won a bronze medal, announced the Faculty of Science in Zagreb.

Students Lukas Grbac Lacković from the Vladimir Prelog School of Natural Sciences in Zagreb, David Špiljak from the Andrija Mohorovičić High School in Rijeka, and 2nd-grade students Đurđica Kovačić from the III High School in Split and Lovro Mirković from the XV High School in Zagreb took part in the Olympiad.

Lovro Mirković won the bronze medal with 77.5 percent of the exam, while Lukas Grbac Lacković received an award for an exceptional result of 70.3 percent.

This year, Mirković also won one gold medal at the EOES (European Olympiad in Experimental Science) and participated in Mendeleev's Chemistry Olympiad.

"Four representatives were selected on the basis of exclusion testing, which took place on May 30. This year, students were trained by professors and students of the Department of Biology at the Faculty of Science from July 12 to 17. The leaders of the Croatian team were Andreja Lucic and Petra Cvjetko", read the publication.

The International Biology Olympiad (IBO) has been held every year since 1990, and this year it was organized online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Croatia participated in the IBO 2018 in Iran, 2019 in Hungary, and this year (when it was to be held in Portugal), and we have a total of 4 bronze medals and one silver. This year's Olympics was attended by 77 countries with 304 competitors ", reads the announcement.

The host country of the next Biological Olympiad is Armenia.

The exam consisted of two theoretical and three practical parts, but this year due to the online environment it had only one theoretical and one theoretical-practical part, which were physically held at the biological department of the Faculty of Science.

For more, follow our Made in Croatia section.

May the 17th, 2021 - A talented team of innovative Croatian students from Zagreb's FER are jointly developing Green Energy Pal, which works as a personal energy consultant to its users.

As Novac/Bernard Ivezic writes, Green Energy Pal is a student startup which is busy developing the aforementioned service, which isn't new but was expensive and as such has been very limited to only large companies until now.

''We look at electricity almost mechanically. There are sockets, plugs, bulb sockets, switches, timers, extension cords... all of that is mechanical. However, with the advent of smart lamps, smart thermostats, and even smart watches, which send consumption data over wireless networks directly to energy companies, it shows that electricity is becoming less mechanical and more smart,'' state the Green Energy Pal team, otherwise one of the ten finalists of this year's Student DIGI Award.

Green Energy Pal is a student startup developing a digital energy consultant. As previously stated, it isn't a new service in itself, but so far it has been limited exclusively to the largest companies that can afford it. All electricity sellers, in fact, have a team of consultants who offer large industrial plants, shopping malls, ports and office buildings energy audits, investment analysis and technology installations, all in order to optimise their energy consumption. Energy companies thus meet the needs of their customers, and they in turn pay for such a service, enjoy the additional savings and become their subscribers.

Ivan Pavic, a member of the Green Energy Pal team and an expert in the electricity market, says that such work is expensive primarily because it still needs to be done manually.

''Although such an approach is possible and cost-effective for large users, it isn't applicable for small and medium enterprises that don't have so much financial power or so many savings opportunities. That's why we're developing a digital solution in the form of a personal energy consultant called Green Energy Pal,'' explained Pavic.

Four doctoral students from the Department of High Voltage and Power Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb (FER) are working on the Green Enery Pal project. Two are focused on energy trends, regulations and needs, and the other two on software and hardware development.

In addition to Ivan Pavic, who is developing a business model, there's also an automation expert, the organiser of the first blockchain development meetup in Zagreb and the architect of their IT system, Alen Hrga, then there's a physicist, a power expert and head of development of their artificial intelligence algorithms, Ivan Sudic, and the head of the team and Master of Electrical Engineering, Domagoj Badanjak.

Ivan Pavic emphasised that this division isn't so fixed and that they complement each other a lot, explaining that they were pushed into this endeavor by friendship and good cooperation so far.

''All four of us are doctoral students at the Department of High Voltage and Energy at FER and we've worked together on many scientific and professional projects, and often together we guide students in preparing their own seminars and diploma theses, and we also write professional and scientific articles for magazines and conferences,'' stated Pavic.

Thanks to that, added Pavic, they are well acquainted with the current trends in energy. For example, the European Union (EU) has a very ambitious goal to become a leader in the fight against climate change, so for that, savings in electricity consumption have a strategic, political component, which will affect both regulation and the economy.

''I'd like to point out 2030 as the deadline for increasing energy efficiency by 32.5 percent, and to achieve such ambitious goals a great burden will fall on the profession, so energy consultations should be democratised, and that's our goal precisely,'' stated Pavic.

He added that their personal energy consultant, Green Energy Pal, is a combination of hardware and software that collects real-time data on its electricity consumption at the user's location, analyses it and then offers recommendations based on the results. The user manages the entire system via a web interface. In the background, sensors and a microcomputer are located in its location in the distribution cabinet. They send data to the Green Energy Pal cloud and there that data is analysed by artificial intelligence.

''It's the brain of our product and it recognises each device individually, be it a TV or an oven, predicts future consumption, analyses peak power and much more,'' said Pavic.

He explained that based on all this, the user can be given suggestions as to whether it pays to replace a device with something more economical, change their tariff, change their heating method, make an investment, and even include alternative energy sources in the system, such as solar or heat pumps. In addition, it can assess the performance of the charging station for electric vehicles as well as the benefits of selling excess energy back into the grid.

Pavic stated that so far, small and medium-sized enterprises, especially those in the catering and hospitality industry, have shown the most interest in Green Energy Pal, and that in the end they plan to offer their solution to households as well. With their startup, they also entered FER's SPOCK incubator, and also joined the BAIF Programme of the Croatian Employers' Association, as well as the STup and Student DIGI Award startup competitions.

''We were happy to enter the Student DIGI Award of Jutarnji list, because it's a confirmation of our idea, which gives us a bit of wind in our sails for the future. It wasn't easy to break through,'' concluded Pavic.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

May 15, 2021 – Croatian students in the category of under 17 years of age, participated in the European Olympiad of Experimental Science. Not only that, but they returned as winners.

Young Croatian competitors at the European Olympiad of Experimental Science did not disappoint. Displaying great skill in handling experiments, data compiling, and problem-solving, Croatian teams managed to win gold and silver medals.

Tportal reports this year's competition ran from May 9th to May 14th. The host city this year was going to be the Hungarian city of Szeged. Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic forced the organisers to change the format of the competition. With travelling restrictions in place, Croatian participants worked on their experimental competition tasks in Zagreb. They used the facilities of the Faculty of Science, a part of Zagreb University.

The European Olympiad of Experimental Science is an annual competition by the EOES association. This is a non-profit association for the promotion of science education in high school students in the European Union. Their official website describes the competition as a mix of „experimental and laboratory activities in the fields of biology, chemistry, and physics.“ In order to compete in the European Olympiad of Experimental Science students must first win national competitions in the related fields.

Results and Team Members

There were 120 students competing in this year's edition. They formed 38 teams. Croatian teams captured 6th and 7th positions in the team rankings. The gold medal went to Team B which was made up of Borna Perkovic (III Gymnasium, Split), Lovro Mirkovic, and Jelena Glasovac (XV Gymnasium, Zagreb). Team A won silver with Filip Vucic (I Gymnaisu, Zagreb), Petar Jukic and Nika Tretinjak (XV Gymnasium, Zagreb) in the roster. Mentors in charge of preparing the students, setting up laboratories, and translating the tasks were also a very important part of this result. They are the Faculty of Science members Tajana Begovic (chemistry), Andreja Lucic (biology), Petra Cvjetko (biology), and Kreso Zadro (physics).

Learn more about Croatian inventions & discoveries: from Tesla to Rimac on our TC page.

For more about science in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

April the 28th, 2021 - One Croatian economics student, Dorian Antesic, has decided to see how interested he can get today's youth of Croatia interested in finances and money with his new podcast - Pricajmo o novcu (Let's talk about money).

As Ivan Tominac/Novac writes, blogs are typically the choice of many young people today, and the topics talked about on blogs are often contemporary and lifestyle related. They are also read by Dorian Antesic, who we recently interviewed, and who is also the first winner of the Croatian Smart Croatia competition in the Financier category.

In fact, by launching his Let's talk about money blog, he went one step further, and as he pointed out himself, he believes that this is a good format for sharing knowledge and learning. He has further enriched his blog with a podcast, and today he networks with colleagues and presents them to potential business partners.

Student Investment Fund

“I started the blog because I had something to say. I think it's a good format to express ourselves on some topics and to throw out some ideas that are going around in our heads. I started the podcast a little later than I did with the blog. I realised that talking to people suits me more than just writing things down, if I want to have some kind of constant content publishing.

I noticed that there aren't really many podcasts in Croatia, especially not one focused on finance and economics. There are smart people in Croatia in finance and economics and I wanted to talk to them. There are a lot of podcasts in the world specialised in finance and economics, but here in Croatia, Let's talk about money is the only one of its kind,'' began Dorian Antesic, a student at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Rijeka.

Dorian Antesic actually embarked on his path of popularising the topic of finance even earlier than this, and appearing within the project Hrvatska pamet Hrvatskoj, he presented his project STOK-student investment fund. He delighted the jury with his attitude and thoughts and thus entered the column of the first winner of the Financier category.

According to Antesic, the project consisted of two parts: the establishment of an investment fund that would be managed by students who would invest real money in the financial market and the publication of educational and informative content in the field of investment.

The competition was followed by a series of steps, one of which is investing and implementing a project idea in a slightly different form. From this idea, the Let's talk about money project was born.

"After winning the award, I thought about starting an association through which students couldd invest, then I decided that I wouldn't do that, but that I'd implement the project in a different way. Instead of starting an association and a fund, I decided to spend that investment part by creating my own personal investment portfolio.

I withdrew all my savings and started investing with the prize money from the competition. In addition, I started a blog, and later a podcast where I publish educational and informative talks and articles. So in the end, I implemented the project from the competition, I just did it in another form. This way gave me flexibility in my work and greater concentration, since I invested all my money and thus had a dog in the fight when it came to investing,'' added Dorian Antesic.

His personal mission, as he went on to explain is to create generational wealth. It is, he added, everything that one generation leaves to another, regardless of whether it is money, real estate or the mentality and system of thinking.

“Caring for generational wealth makes people think long-term. This makes it clearer to them what's more important to do and have in life, and what's merely superfluous. I run that mission through a podcast and a blog. With this podcast, I want to create value for financiers and people interested in the field. I talk to professionals and through these conversations I try to touch on some things that would be useful to financiers for their careers and business operations. A successful career and company is the initial condition for creating generational wealth,'' explained Antesic.

It can be said that the Let's talk about money blog is something that brings some new perspectives on financial reality closer to Croatia's younger generations. The blog's repertoire includes, of course, economic topics, and the desire is to use its content to help people advance their careers, improve their businesses and adapt to the future. The podcast is reserved for topics related to corporate finance, investment, personal finance, the state of the economy and economic education.

“We'll talk about the skills that financiers need for successful career growth, and then about the labour market trends for that group. Topics will also be related to the health of financiers - their physical and mental health, since it's a stressful job where people are under a lot of pressure,'' said Dorian Antesic, adding that he has had six guests on his podcast so far. The biggest impression was left by Pavao Pahljina, also the first guest, and the topic was bitcoin.

The Let's talk about money project and initiative is one way of bringing finance closer to Croatia's young and often not so interested people. This has been firmly proven by the amount of inquiries that the innovative Dorian Antesic receives on social media, and the advice such individuals seek is often in the domain of personal finances.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 26th of November, 2019, a few years ago, former Osijek student Srđan Kovačević returned to his hometown of Osijek in Eastern Croatia, which initially left to go and study mechanical engineering in Zagreb.

"After graduating from university, I completed my master's degree in financial mathematics at the University of Oxford, then I worked for ten years in Zagreb in the financial sector,'' says Kovačević, and as was reported by SiB RTL. The ex Osijek student passes over his career quickly, preferring instead to discuss the time when he, along with his partners, Vlatko Matijević and Ivan Jelušić, founded Orqu, a successful Slavonian startup that designed and produced user-friendly glasses for the world to be able to look through the perspective of the drone it controls.

However, back in 2016, when this former Osijek student initially returned back home to his Eastern Croatian city, he wasn't really thinking all that much about drones.

"I returned to Osijek during a transition period between youth and adulthood. My wife was pregnant and we're both from Osijek. This city has many benefits for the life of a young family. Besides, I didn't have a job at that moment, and my financial situation was such that I could afford one year of sort of playing around, a year in which I could about think what I wanted to do,'' he says.

They started out in a small office with just three Ikea desks in it. Very quickly, there were more than twenty of them.

''We doubled our revenue every year. This may not be too much of a problem when you're so small, but it was clear that the model we chose was the right one. For a couple of years, everyone in the former Yugoslavia doing hardware work was either our client, or we were in some way cooperating with them, or at least at some point in contact,'' this innovative former Osijek student told SiB RTL.

"We were hobbyists when it came to drones, and so, through that hobby and as a kind of pet project of ours, we started developing first person view glasses. These are basically VR glasses that allow the person operating the drone to view the world from the drone's perspective, to see what the drone sees,'' he recounts.

Not long after, this project proved to be quite profitable.

"FPV glasses exist, we didn't invent them. However, we've found a way to make such glasses the best in the world, to make our product competitive on the global market. It's a small niche in the industry, there are maybe 100,000 people in the world who are our potential customers, but for a small Osijek company, we can make a good living from it. As the glasses business grew, so did our focus on it. A year ago, we made our first investment and now eyewear development is our primary business,'' concluded Kovačević.

Make sure to follow our dedicated lifestyle, business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

As Morski/Jurica Gaspar writes on the 15th of September, 2019, a positive story from Croatia was proverbially penned recently by a talented Croatian team from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in Split.

Five years ago, the Hydros Foundation launched an invitation to students around the world, inviting them to participate in an international environmental competition, aimed at creating the vessel of the future. The Croatian FESB Hydro team is now back from the international competition held between the 2nd of September and the 8th of September, 2019 in the Swiss city of Yverdon-les-Bains. Despite very strong competition from 10 university teams from 6 countries, the Croatian team achieved some remarkable results.

''Since 90 percent of the world's traded goods are shipped by sea, maritime transport is a major economic and environmental challenge. The quantity of goods has quadrupled since the 1970s, as shipping by sea is the cheapest means of transporting large quantities over long distances and connecting the continents.

Based on the distance travelled, the ship produces 58 times less CO2 per tonne travelled than an aircraft does. Considering this scale, shipping by sea is classified as the fifth largest source of atmospheric pollution in the world - but it can be made more efficient. Each individual percentage of fuel saved by the world's fleet represents an annual drop of 42 million tonnes of CO2 into the environment. The potential is huge,'' says the Hydrocontest-X project manager, Matej Dević, who explained the purpose of the competition recently held in Switzerland.

''The principle is simple: to sail as fast as possible, for as long as possible, all while consuming as little energy as possible.

Equipped with the same electric motor, the teams have a year to use their imaginations and come up with some innovative solutions on how to design the best prototypes possible. The only limitations are: mandatory maximum dimensions (2.5m x 2.5m x 2m) and battery power (7Ah).

The teams compete against each other in two categories that have been developed to align with industrial applications (but in reduced dimensions). These categories are:

Mass transport (container ships, tankers, bulk cargo) with a ballast of 200 kg. Light transport (pleasure boat, express boats for people etc.) with a load of 20 kg. The cargo is of standard dimensions, with a hollow rectangular section measuring 500 mm x 120 mm x 100 mm, and weighing 10 kg. In the transport of heavy cargo, it's necessary to transport 20 such cargoes and for the light category, 2 cargoes,'' explained Dević.

The Croatian team from FESB in Split have every right to be extremely proud of their excellent results. If, after college, they don't leave Croatia in search of work elsewhere, we can freely consider them as minds for the future of modern Croatian shipbuilding. Here are the more than impressive results of their efforts:

A place in the heavyweight category

A place in the lightweight category

A place in the category of heavyweight efficiency

A place in the place in the category of lightweight efficiency

''The boat we designed was designed solely for the heavyweight category, we entered the lightweight category purely for a laugh. Its dimensions are 3.55 m in length, 0.61 m in width, 0.45 m in height,'' explained the Croatian team.

From the very beginning, the Croatian team acted as a team of students of shipbuilding only, however, there was a need for developers, and subsequently two computer science students from Split's FESB joined the project. Ultimately, the team consisted of 12 shipbuilding students (with mostly 3 years of undergraduate study) and 2 computer science students (both with 2 years of undergraduate studies in computer science).

The team of Croatian students who participated in the project are as follows: Ante Buble, Duje Fržop, Luka Galić, Filip Raič, Milivoj Papec, Jure Bebic, Ines Tokić, Ela Kalinić, Karlo Vučić, Jure Penga, Mateo Sikirica, Jana Vojnović, Ana Puljić and Matej Dević. All of them worked under the mentorship of professors from the FESB Department of Naval Architecture.

''All of the professors assisted us in designing the project. Their advice greatly helped us in designing and building the boats for this competition. Professors: Dario Ban, Branko Blagojević, Josip Bašić, Boris Ljubenkov and Martina Andrun,'' Matej Dević noted..

''As far as finances were concerned, FESB covered the cost of accommodation during the competition for all students. At the tender of the University of Split in the second month, we reported the cost of materials needed for the project, however, out of the reported 35,000 kuna, we received only 13,000 kuna which, unfortunately, wasn't sufficient for the procurement of the materials and the construction of the ship, so we had to manage through other means through various sponsorships and donations. At the competition of the Student Union of the University of Split, we applied for travel expenses in the amount of 30,000 kuna, but we received 20,000 kuna. In the end, we were able to fund our participation in this competition.

Of course, it's necessary to emphasise the importance of our numerous sponsors and donors without whom this project would simply not have been possible. If it weren't for those good people who are willing to help us out as students, this project would have been difficult to complete,'' stated Dević.

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