As Novac/Jozo Vrdoljak writes on the 2nd of June, 2020, following last year's delivery of its first polar cruiser Hondius, which completed its first Arctic and Antarctic season, it's time for newbuild (novogradnja) 485 at the Croatian shipyard Brodosplit. Namely, the famous shipyard is working on yet another passenger ship for cruising the polar regions which will be named Janssonius.

Janssonius is Hondius' twin ship, and according to Brodosplit's main man Tomislav Debeljak, it is among the rare ships designed for polar expeditions in the world. Like Hondius, Janssonius has been contracted by Oceanwide Expeditions, which specialises in expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic. It is 108.6 metres long, 17.6 metres wide, and its speed of fifteen knots is provided by two main engines with a total power of 4260 kW.

It will be able to accommodate 194 passengers housed in 81 cabins, and cared for by 78 crew members. According to Brodosplit, they will offer their passengers a high hotel standard as well as various categories of cabins, from spacious apartments to two-bedroom and four-bedroom cabins, where they will be provided with a safe and comfortable stay with multiple secured systems.

"After the first ship was delivered on time and after it was built with a profit for Brodosplit, and the state even made money on it, the Dutch shipowner ordered the construction of another ship which is almost the same. So, the buyer didn't immediately order the construction of two ships, but after he was convinced that the first one was built with quality, he ordered another one. With some minor modifications, the ship is identical to the first one that is already sailing. It is being built in the LR PC6 class, which meets the latest requirements of the Lloyd's Register for Polar Class 6 vessels. The planned completion of construction is the end of next summer. This is a popular class of cruisers in recent times, which we believe won't be affected by the coronavirus crisis like other segments of cruising have been,'' said Tomislav Debeljak.

Debeljak revealed that Brodosplit was not hit so hard by the recent economic crisis as some other segments of the economy have been.

"We had, admittedly, experienced some delays in the delivery of materials, but that problem is now behind us. If there is a second wave of the epidemic to come, we'll adapt to the situation. Given the situation in Brodosplit, it shouldn't be affected by any long-term crisis,'' assured Tomislav Debeljak.

Regarding the measures introduced to try to cub the epidemic in Croatia, Debeljak said he welcomed them. He is of the opinion that it would not be good for a European country to support its shipyards without Croatia doing the same.

Wijnand van Gessel, owner of the Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions, pointed out that he wouldn't have contacted Brodosplit for another vessel if he wasn't satisfied with the first one, Hondius, and the hard work of Brodosplit.

"They wouldn't have ordered the construction of another ship if it were not so. We solved all the problems that arose during the construction together with Brodosplit. Hondius has fully met our expectations,'' said Wijnand van Gessel.

Assistant Minister of Economy, Zvonimir Novak, pointed out that if the deadlines for the construction of the ship are met, then the Government of the Republic of Croatia has no problems regarding the issued guarantees for construction.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes on the 1st of June, 2020, the City of Zagreb presented contactless smart containers for waste management at European Square (Europski trg) on Tuesday. The products are made by a Croatian company called Eco Mobile, an IT company specialised in the development, production and implementation of advanced information and communication solutions to support processes in waste management.

What this Croatian company has designed is a ''green island'' that contains smart bins for paper, plastic, metal packaging and glass, and separate containers for small mixed municipal waste. The system uses a press to compress and reduce the waste by seven times.

Jure Leko, director of Cistoca, said that what has been made and presented by this innovative Croatian company is a pilot project and that they plan to install more smart bins at different locations around Croatia's bustling capital city.

"We're going further in the procurement of these bins, especially for containers for mixed municipal waste, which we'll set up on the stretch from the Main Station to Ban Josip Jelacic Square. By the way, we currently have to empty our containers six to seven times a day, which requires a greater need for workers and vehicles, and when we install these smart bins, we'll only need to empty them once a day,'' said Leko, adding that the smart bins will also be installed at all tram stations.

Containers for the disposal of waste paper, plastic, metal packaging and glass, as well as separate containers for small mixed municipal waste, including the shredders that reduce the disposed waste by seven times, cost about 37,000 kuna.

"The system is the result of many years of work by local experts from the Croatian company EcoMobile, and the system is fully manufactured in the Republic of Croatia," said Aleksandar Ivanovic from EcoMobile when presenting the innovative smart bins.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

Is there a place for Croatian food on the competitive market of nearby Germany? It seems that yes, there is, and rich Croatian honey has already won the hearts of many German shoppers.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 1st of June, 2020, GoGreen, the brand of Croatia's largest agricultural cluster and the first domestic smart market until three years ago, was taken over and reactivated in mid-March by the Zagreb-based company Anytime Logistika. In the new business, GoGreen is only part of the business. The main focus is on logistics, wholesale and exports.

Anytime Logistika has just done its first job for Germany's largest retail chain, Edeka, which is 50 percent larger in Germany than Lidl and Kaufland combined and holds more than a fifth of the German market. Among other things, it placed Croatian food such as honey there. Alan Slapar, who started the GoGreen brand, and who is now working at Anytime Logistika on the development and digitalisation of domestic producers, says that Andrea Rukavina runs the business here in Croatia and Tomislav Hunic runs it over in Germany.

"The deal with Edeka was agreed upon by Tomislav Hunic, who lives and works in Germany, and who noted that all those there in the field, already present on the markets, find it easier to communicate with local procurement managers than even we from Croatia can,'' said Slapar. He added that he is already working on other customers because the market for Croatian food and agricultural products in Germany really does exist.

Here in Croatia, the company is working to strengthen its storage capacity. Anytime Logistika currently has a warehouse in Sesvetski Kraljevec of 140 square metres in a cooling mode from 2 ° C to 6 ° C. However, they are also building a new one which will span a significantly larger 750 square metres and in which there will be a deep-freeze cooling regime of -18 ° C and a temperature of 12 ° C.

"The warehouse will be equipped for the quick freezing and packaging of fresh and seasonal fruits, and there will also be a special system for washed and sliced ​​vegetables, such as already peeled and sliced ​​potatoes, zucchini spaghetti, salads and such things,'' explained Slapar.

They are also arranging warehouse and sales points in Zagreb and the surrounding area, but the emphasis is being placed primarily on wholesale. He stated that that is why they offered support to online stores, launched the HoReCa-Point sales channel for catering and decided on a precedent in Croatia. On the Anytime Logistika website, it will offer the possibility to order all products available in stock in real time.

"One of the basic problems in the distribution of agricultural products in Croatia is that producers don't even have a catalog of their products so that wholesale or retail customers can even come to find out what they actually have to offer. And if the customers don't know, then they won't even bother ordering,'' noted Slapar.

He stated that they are therefore working intensively on digitalisation with the Croatian producers they work with. Each manufacturer that enters their system also enters a catalog which they then offer on various markets depending on the product and their respective capacities. He pointed out that he wasn't surprised that doing business that way has intensified over the past two months and that family farms have taken an interest in GoGreen yet again.

"I don't attribute the interest so much to GoGreen as much as I do to the new chaos and hysteria, because Croatia hasn't invested in more creative ways of distribution for years, and with the arrival of the new coronavirus and isolation measures, it proved to be a big issue for all companies," explained Slapar.

Anytime Logistika currently has, he said, even better collaboration with larger manufacturers than it has with smaller ones. He explained that this is the result of a market shock.

"Because of these sudden market declines, now 'everything is possible'', ''everyone is good'' and there is potential in everything," Slapar concluded.

For more on Croatian food, produce and other products, follow Made in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 28th of May, 2020, all of us have become caught up in a whole new era. New rules, reduced economic trends, cancelled orders. But some saw the crisis as an opportunity. Here's the story of the Croatian company Mihokovic Metal Solutions as an example of excellent adaptation to the new situation.

The Croatian company, a metal producer called Mihokovic Metal Solutions is currently positioned as one of the leaders in the industry of metal processing and wholesale production of metal products in the Republic of Croatia. It supports various industries: transformer production, the IT and automotive industries, the marketing and fashion industries, interior and exterior furnishing, and for the last year they have been working for the needs of robotics, medicine and even the military.

The business has been growing concretely over the past 25 years, and short deadlines, many orders, and little time to develop non-profit metallurgy products have kept it away from products like the one it has now turned to amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis. The crisis that hit the whole world also made doing business difficult for this Croatian company.

''Almost 45% of our production stopped overnight. The primary focus was on the company’s survival and on job preservation. The direction in which we thought was: what can we produce in the short term that isn't currently being covered and for which there is an obvious need in the market?’ explained Marina Mihokovic, director of marketing and sales in the company.

The answer was interesting: Metal racks for disinfectants.

With the new regulations introduced by the National Civil Protection Headquarters, all branches and premises with a large flow of people at the entrance must install disinfectants. But how exactly is up to them. This primarily regards banks, hotels, bakeries, supermarkets, cafes, and all those who want to maintain a high standard of protection for everyone present.

''We receive the largest orders from distributors and manufacturers of disinfectants and large clients who have multiple branches. We started with two key models: one you mount on the wall and one that is self standing. Through numerous collaborations, we've developed several models with useful accessories: we have a model with holders for masks and gloves, a model that is adapted to various sizes of antiseptic bottles, a model with a people counter and one with a temperature reader,'' added Mihokovic.

Production soon boomed in Croatia, but the first orders from abroad only started recently.

''From the moment we produced the first line of racks, inquiries started coming in to us from all sides. It was clear that we needed to instantly expand the capacity of that part of production to more shifts. We're now well-established, and we approach each client individually, adapting to their needs, their business context and the premises in which they operate,'' concluded Mihokovic.

This Croatian company is a true example of quality leadership and timely adaptation to market needs, even in what is currently an unenviable, extremely difficult period for business.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

As Novac/Matea Grbac writes on the 21st of May, 2020, the innovative Croatian startup, Fortis Labor, has developed an application which promotes transparency aimed at cities and associations for the monitoring of the spending of public money.

The move represents a new upgrade to their ''Email notification system'' app, better known as SOM. Although the whole system was created primarily as an auxiliary tool for sports associations, it quickly became clear that it could quite easily be applied to all kinds of associations, and that it can also serve as a tool for the more clear cut and transparent monitoring of the distribution and spending of earmarked funds paid from the city budget.

Its main feature, points out the founder of this Croatian startup, Lorenzo Gasparic, is that the application can be accessed from any device, whether it is a mobile phone, tablet or simply a laptop.

''Through this system, the city always has an insight into how and in what way public money is being spent. So far, this hasn't been possible. Namely, at the beginning of the year, the city would announce a public tender to which associations would apply, which would then be allocated a certain part of those funds. They would then justify the money spent to the city only at the end of the year by submitting a yearly report. In this way, through a just a few clicks, associations can immediately enter data, or attach an invoice for the funds spent, and this information is then visible to everyone and is made available in real time,'' he explained.

In addition to easier and faster entry of invoices, associations have an insight into the remaining funds through this Croatian startup's useful system, while cities receive all the data in one place, and a more transparent way of doing business with reduced paperwork is thus provided.

Gasparic added that this system is really impossible to cheat because even if someone receives funds for one item, and tries to justify the money spent in some way when it was actually spent on something completely different, everything is always made perfectly clear through this system and there can be no such cover ups.

''Let's put it this way. If some association has received funds for the maintenance of a field, and instead a bill from the restaurant is attached and someone accepts it as a valid excuse, later on, during the check, someone can catch you committing that sort of fraud. Which person approved it remains in the system, and I doubt that someone would risk playing with their own career by trying to cheat like that,'' he noted.

Currently, this Croatian startup's system is used by about 200 associations which are mostly sport oriented, they're from Bjelovar, Sisak, Vodnjan and Rovinj, while Vrbovec was the first to use this system to monitor the work of 89 sports and non-sports associations within the city.

''We started engaging in negotiations with cities back at the beginning of the year, and now we have five more cities that want to use our system. Of course, these conversations have now come to a halt due to the coronavirus crisis, but our goal is to offer our application to everyone. I think that only now, after the pandemic, has it become clear just how important transparent and digital business truly is,'' he said.

The value of the entire project stands at a huge 1.3 million kuna, of which 80 percent has come from European Union funds, which marks the second project of a Croatian startup from Zagreb financed in this way. Fortis Labor doesn't plan on stopping there, either.

Next year, they plan to offer cities a similar programme through which the digitisation of applications for public tenders can be enabled. In this way, they would connect the new system with the existing one and thus almost eradicate the infamous and daunting Croatian paperwork which is typically involved in such processes.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 14th of May, 2020, this large Slavonian company was motivated to launch a new product by the demand for protective equipment, but also by the fall in the market of front/entrance door panels in Croatia and in the surrounding countries.

Vinkovci's Grad-Export, one of the leading European manufacturers of decorative panels for front doors, is a Slavonian company which reacted remarkably quickly to the current changes in the market caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Just under two weeks ago, the company placed a disinfection barrier for footwear on the market, which is supposed to be placed in front of the front door, Jutarnji list reports.

''The idea for the DS barrier is mine, it was developed by my associates in the company and, most importantly, it was well received by the market,'' explained Petar Simic, the founder, owner and director of this Slavonian company.

The placement of Grad-Export's new product was motivated by the demand for disinfection and protective equipment, but, as he pointed out, the market of front door panels in Croatia and in the surrounding countries also fell by about 50 percent.

''I had to do something, at the time when the coronavirus crisis broke out, I had to send fifty percent of the company's employees home because there was simply no work for them. However, I didn't fire any of the 186 employees who work for Grad-Export, and right now as we speak, we've started working on 160 DS barriers for clients. We won't be able to do everything today, so we'll work on Saturday as well,'' noted Simic, who has so far sold about 700 of his DS barriers, the application of which possible in almost all institutions, from shops and business premises to households.

The barrier consists of vacuumed and profiled PVC, steel infill, anti-slip EPDM rubber and fasteners. The Slavonian company Grad-Export is otherwise one of the largest companies in Eastern Croatia with an annual revenue of around 90 million kuna.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

As Novac/Matea Grbac writes on the 13th of May, 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to the Croatian craft beer industry, who claim that they cannot survive with so much less traffic and online sales.

''We're doing business, but it isn't enough. It's better than nothing, but it's still far from the real numbers,'' Davor Simisis, the owner of the the Varionica pivovara (brewery), explained the current state of the Croatian craft beer industry in a brief statement, which, like most other industries, has been hit by the crisis.

According to estimates, the Croatian craft beer industry, more specifically their breweries, make up just over two percent of the beer industry in Croatia. Despite that, this industry annually pumps just over 4.2 billion kuna in gross added value directly and indirectly into the state treasury. Due to their narrow niche, smaller facilities and strong connection to the HoReCa system, Croatian craft breweries have run into major problems due to the closure of hotels and restaurants. As Miroslav Suvak from Nova Runda points out, catering/hospitality facilities and hotels accounted for about 90 percent of their business.

A moratorium on credit

''We may be in a slightly different position from other craft breweries because draught beer is our main source of income. Of course, the cans we launched last year have improved the company's financial stability, so they are now giving us a 'cold drive'. If we look at the numbers, we recorded a 30 percent drop in March given that the bars were still open for part the month. April, on the other hand, shows a completely different picture and a drop of 80 percent is visible. In addition, we recently had an investment of approximately 5.4 million kuna, for which we have so far received a moratorium on credit, but the question is what will happen when the measure ends,'' he said.

Other brewers have faced similar problems. So that they wouldn't have to put their keys in their respective locks because of the pandemic that affected the whole world, they decided to turn to the internet instead of the previous way of making sales in bars.

''After the closure of cafes and restaurants, we introduced online sales through our distributors and partners. That channel partially compensated us for what we lost, so we're currently at 50 percent of traffic when compared to before all this,'' added Bruno Blazicko, co-owner of the PriMarius brewery.

Suvak also found one positive side to this bizarre situation, and that is turning consumers towards online shopping.

''Like other colleagues, we launched online sales through our partners, which is why the sale of our cans jumped more than expected. The great thing is that people are now aware of the fact that buying online doesn’t necessarily have to be bad. I can order anything without any problems from the comfort of my home, and without having to stand around waiting in lines. But despite the positive results, this type of sale cannot replace cafes,'' he explained.

Despite all, the entrepreneurs working in the Croatian craft beer industry decided to keep hold of all of their employees despite the abrupt closing of one entire sales channel.

Webshops provided some form of security, albeit it much less than cafes could...

''We've withdrawn the support measures adopted by the government and they've greatly eased this situation for us. In addition to measures to preserve jobs, we requested a moratorium on the main loan by which we launched a new plant. Apart from that, we had other investments, such as leasing for our own vehicles, which we're still paying for. How long we can cover this and what kind of future awaits us, we cannot know at the moment because in a situation like this, it's impossible to create a plan. Still, we're not living from today to tomorrow and we always have financial reserves, but we can’t live off a mere 30 percent of the business. This is how we're working and it's good that we are still working, but that's not the point of doing this sort of business,'' explained Andrej Capka, the owner of Zmajska pivovara.

''Unlike our colleagues, one of the largest and first craft breweries in Croatia, the Zagreb brewery Medvedgrad, found itself in a slightly different position, Igor Mijic explained. Namely, this brewery, in addition to the plant, owns restaurants where it sells more than a thousand litres of its draught beer per day. Since March the 19th, 2020, when the decision to close down such facilities came into force, the revenues of that brewery have fallen by 50 percent, and the reason for a slightly smaller decline than that experienced by others lies in online sales, the brewery pointed out.

''In just seven days, we managed to enable our webshop and turn to online sales, which now make up 80 percent of our business, and we deliver throughout Croatia. In addition, we've established cooperation with Wolt and Glovo, who deliver the beer with our food,'' said Mijic, adding that they hope for some kind of recovery after the re-opening of cafes, bars and restaurants.

''We will definitely open our restaurants. Luckily, we have large terraces so we can adapt to the new situation, but we cannot know for sure what awaits us. Currently, it's difficult for me to predict anything,'' he pointed out.

Other breweries are also hoping for a recovery in the form of the re-opening of restaurants and bars, but with great caution. Capka is optimistic about it all, but he believes that this move also raises the question of how long those in the hospitality and catering business will be able to operate properly with such rigorous measures still in place.

New channels

''The situation will certainly be better than it is now, but the Croatian craft beer industry and their breweries depend on the hospitality and catering industry. Neither we nor they can know how long doing business in such a way will be sustainable, ie, whether cafes and restaurants will work for only a few weeks in this way or will continue to work normally over time,'' he said, adding that this situation also causes consumption problems.

''Craft beer belongs to the segment of premium products. This fact entails two thing. One is that buyers of such products have the opportunity to continue to purchase premium products, and the other is that they can cut them out if they need to first,'' he explained.

Although he supports the opening of cafes, bars and other facilities, the owner of Nova Runda sees another problem in the new situation.

''Due to the strict measures, the question of the survival of people in the catering and hospitality sector is being raised. Many of them only have small terraces, what will happen to them? Will they open their facilities or will they simply close their doors forever?'' he asked.

Due to the still undefined rules and a very uncertain future, those in the Croatian craft beer industry and other brewers believe that they will have to start looking for new business channels. One of them, as Blazicko explained, is entering into negotiations with retail chains and exporting beer to foreign markets.

''We have started intense negotiations with retail chains and we're planning to go even deeper into that network, we have to compensate for our losses in some sense,'' said Blazicko.

And while a large number of them are not hoping for such a quick return to the old way of doing business, they pointed out that they hope the picture will be a bit better next year.

''Yes, we can practically write off this year because everything is shrouded in secrecy. We can't develop concrete plans because we still have only questions, questions and more questions,'' concluded Capka.

For more on Croatian craft beer and much more, follow Made in Croatia.

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 13th of May, 2020, video-on-demand platforms are the fastest growing way to use audiovisual content, and during the time of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, they recorded a significant increase in traffic. This gave one innovative Zagreb company a boost.

Here in Croatia, Netflix, HBOgo and Amazon are by far the most popular VOD (video on demand) platforms, but over time, some specialised ones have found their place among the competition, including the aforementioned giants.

One of them is Svevid, the first Croatian on demand platform that started operating in early May via the website www.svevid.net, created by a Zagreb company. The Croatian platform will more than likely bring a smile to the faces of all fans of Croatian and regional cinema with film titles from the former Yugoslavia from the 1940s until the present day.

Svevid is SVOD (subscriptional video on demand), which means that the user accesses the complete offer of content according to the subscriber model, and not on the basis of individual transactions (TVOD) for each title. The service is provided according to the model of monthly, semi-annual and annual subscriptions, and by choosing larger packages, the user manages to rack up some rather significant savings.

Registration starts at a mere four euros per month, and by activating the subscription, the user is given a trial period of two weeks within which they can cancel the service should they so wish, and without any obligation. As explained from this Zagreb company's David Slaj, the Svevid platform is intended for everyone who appreciates and follows regional cinema and those who want to get better acquainted with it. It is currently available in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia and Montenegro.

"In our ever-growing catalog, we offer content that originated exclusively in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, from the beginnings of cinema in this area right up until today. We offer titles in the best available picture and sound quality, and we're working intensively on the implementation of multilingual support for all of our content.

The Svevid platform is specific in that our goal is to promote regional production and local creators. We paid a lot of attention to the accompanying content of the catalog, in collaboration with film critic Nenad Polimac, to provide users with the historical and spatial context of everything they watch,'' explained Slaj, adding that their goal was not to take advantage of the coronavirus crisis, but instead to merely speed up their product launches and further optimise their platform to provide customers with the highest quality service.

The team that came together within this Zagreb company and embark on this project mostly come from creative backgrounds and the audiovisual sector. The core team consists of five people, divided into creative and executive segments - David Slaj, founder and CEO Filip Lozic, CAO Danijel Popovic, CFO Inga Lozic and creative manager Luna Zimic Mijovic. They collaborate with a dozen other external associates in the marketing, design and systems support sectors. All of them, according to Slaj, have worked on numerous independent productions for the last five or more years, which has additionally encouraged them to think about the placement and visibility of these works.

According to market research conducted internally, the average user in Croatia actively uses at least two VOD platforms, and there is a significant decline in the viewership of conventional television channels. Furthermore, as Slaj explained, users are increasingly turning to the possibilities that VOD platforms provide them, which is to control when, how much and what sort of content they consume.

"Another significant advantage provided by the VOD platform is that the content is not intermittent and saturated with promotional messages and advertising blocks, which users point out as one of the most important features when choosing a service," noted Slaj.

The name and theme of the whole platform comes from Slavic mythology. Svevid or Svantevid is the oldest Slavic deity, deeply rooted in a common cultural heritage.

"Our market segment counts about 40,000 households in each country in which we operate, which puts numerous challenges in our path, as well as numerous opportunities in the years to come," concluded Slaj.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

With so much focus being placed on just what to do with not only Croatian tourism but the tourism industries of the whole world, could something Made in Croatia manage to help rescue what's left of tourism from coronavirus?

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 12th of May, 2020, Ivan Bestvina is the co-founder and chief data scientist at ViraTrace. He graduated from the school in Osijek, and then five years ago, he graduated from FER. Back in 2017 he received his master's degree from there. In parallel, he worked as a programmer, analyst and data scientist at the likes of Spin Informatics, Ericsson NT and Mire.

The biggest new startup ''miracle'' from right here in Croatia is called ViraTrace. Just a couple of months ago, Ivan Bestvina from Osijek, who lives in Zagreb, and his partners from Romania, the USA, Canada and India, set out to research how to use technology in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic using contact monitoring applications and maximally protect citizens' privacy.

Now, they have freshly founded a company over in the US. They received an offer for investment from there, and various state institutions around the world warned them that they couldn't continue talks with them without a defined legal form in place.

You may have heard of the Apple-Google initiative in the field of mobile applications to monitor the spread of the new coronavirus, but this "contact tracing" platform is still in the development phase and is not yet available to the public. ViraTrace's technology, on the other hand, is already under the proverbial ''hood'' of the world's most widespread contact tracking software.

It is built into the official Indian COVID-19 app called the Aarogya Set, which is expected to exceed 100 million users in the next three days alone. Within it, ViraTrace calculates who might be infected with the new coronavirus based on a model developed by Bestvina, who offered it for free to anyone fighting coronavirus. Last week, ViraTrace was declared as one of about thirty winners at the European Commission's hackathon #EUvsVirus, as the only one from Croatia to win first place in one of the categories.

There were three more winners from Croatia, but they took second to fourth place in each category.

On that occasion, ViraTrace presented its own mobile application for tracking contacts, its model and the concept of the new hardware used. The aforementioned hardware is the type that would be added to the server and that would prevent even the server's owner from directly accessing the personal data of its users.

Data processing would be possible, but only in an anonymised form. This gave ViraTrace the opportunity to appear in the fast-growing digital health and IoT markets. ''I wouldn’t like to talk about the financial prospects of a startup, because that’s not my area,'' Bestvina said briefly.

Bestvina otherwise helps German company FoodTracks to develop data analytics in order to reduce waste, and has also created the AI ​​startup Courier Data.

Along with him in the ViraTrace team are Romanian Andrei Taranu, with whom he initially started this project. Then there is Wayne Thornton from Americam who also runs the startup, Canadian Anjana Pai, Indian Surbhi Gupta and Anne Frankovic, as well as the epidemiologist, Dr. Joseph Frankovich from the USA.

"Infrastructurally, we've been supported from the very beginning by one of the largest data science platforms, the American Alteryx, which is also in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Data Science and ML Platforms, and we have the personal support of its director Dean Stoecker," explained Bestvina.

He added that cooperation with Alteryx is currently limited to resources, and not investments. Several investors from the USA have shown interest and are being talked to, he noted. However, ViraTrace first wants to examine investment opportunities in the sequel to the EC hackhaton, where it has already won a 3,000 euro prize sponsored by Capgemini. Bestvina pointed out that this is also a coincidence.

''In the next two to three weeks, we'll be talking to investors and potential beneficiaries under a programme that the European Commission has called Matchathon, so we'll see what happens next with investors,'' Bestvina said, adding that the most important thing for him is that they have chosen the right path from the beginning: the protection of user privacy.

He explained that today, more and more countries in Europe are turning to this approach. One of Europe's strongest economic powers, the United Kingdom, in addition to its centralised application, which it is currently testing, is developing another one based on the decentralizsd approach advocated by Apple and Google. Germany has signaled that it is open to the approach taken by Apple and Google, and, much like Austria and Switzerland, has shown interest in accessing DP-3T.

Bestvina's solution, as he explained, is almost identical to Apple and Google's approach. But the key is which approach the EU will recommend so that EU citizens don't have to install COVID-19 applications for each country separately when crossing any borders. In addition, Apple and Google are under pressure to enable the recording of geolocations and other data on their platform, which will be the basis for the development of mobile applications for coronavirus monitoring.

Bestvina stated that the most important thing is gaining and then maintaining the trust of citizens, because in order for these applications to be functional, more than half of the citizens need to install them. Here, Apple and Google, as seen in Croatia, have an advantage. Bestvina declined to comment on the fact that the Indian Government, meanwhile, has made the Aarogya Setu application mandatory, and it is the only democracy to have done so.

He explained that in Croatia, where tourism, hospitality and transport are extremely important industries, contact tracking applications would be an alternative to quarantine in the early stages of a pandemic, but also later because, as has since been seen in France, the manual tracking of contacts is difficult.

Make sure to follow our dedicated section for more on coronavirus in relation to Croatia. Follow Made in Croatia for more on Croatian innovation.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes on the 8th of May, 2020, a group of a dozen innovators who have come together owing to the internet portal Pandemija.info, volunteer day and night to make Croatian respirators for the protection of health professionals, and this Croatian product is perhaps best known as CroResp.

"We designed a respirator that protects the whole face, and most importantly - the eyes and the airways. The respirator is made of a diving mask, an adapter and a virus filter ", explained Dr. Ivor Kovic, an emergency medicine specialist and the initiator of both the portal and the initiative. He stated that despite the fact that they don't have official certificates for the use of these respirators in protection against coronavirus, they believe that this solution provides people with greater protection than surgical masks in combination with protective visors.

Hundreds of healthcare professionals have so far requested this Croatian product, and a large number are already being distributed in Croatian hospitals and institutions.

"Although the situation is calming down in Croatia, it's important for medics to be looked after properly because, regardless of the number of patients, they can still become infected and spread the infection without proper protective equipment," warned Kovic. Most orders for this innovative Croatian product are coming from Zagreb, Osijek, Rijeka and Split, and the feedback from doctors and nurses who already use them has been positive.

The team has been counting orders in the thousands, while they also launched a campaign through the crowdfunding platform Croinvest and the association Helping is always in/ Pomaganje je uvijek in. They collected more than 150,000 kuna donated by the citizens, which was needed to supply the first 1,000 health workers with these respirators. The campaign is still ongoing, and at the time of writing, more than 195,000 kuna for this Croatian product has so far been raised.

Helping colleagues through the Pandemija.info portal

"It's uncertain how the pandemic will develop, and CroResp has the ability to protect healthcare workers from the virus in the long run," said Kovic, who went on to talk about how abd where it all started.

Seven years ago, he and his wife, who is also a doctor, moved to the UK where they worked together in various hospitals, and when he temporarily returned to Croatia, the number of infected people began to grow, and examples from neighbouring Italy showed what was happening with the collapse of the health system there. When the couple landed, they had to go into mandatory self-isolation, and Kovic was thinking about how to help his colleagues during that period. This is how the Pandemija.info portal was created, which he started up with several friends and associates.

''We've published educational materials and fast, verified, accurate and professional information for our medics who are under pressure and who need proper preparation. We soon published about 20 different summaries, posters, infographics, with information on the standard of masks, how to use them properly etc. Colleagues from Croatia and abroad started sending us materials, we followed everything that was happening in the world and realised that there was a global lack of protective equipment,'' explained Kovic.

The creators of this Croatian product work entirely voluntarily

The work of this Croatian team is completely voluntary and open, so they're not thinking about patenting the product or creating a business from this situation, because at the same time, they're actively fighting against those who are trying to use the current situation for their own profit.

"From the beginning, we knew that the dynamics of this would depend on what kind of support we will have, what kind of interest there will be and how we will be able to finance it. In the end, it happened that we didn't have any official confirmation; we're not an association and we don't have an account, but we have people who write to us every day and ask for respirators. We couldn't leave them stranded when we'd already 'tickled' them with the fact that such a solution exists,'' he explained.

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