As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes on the 8th of May, 2020, Business Intelligence (Poslovna Inteligencija) participated in the EUvsVirus hackathon organised by the European Commission (EC) in close cooperation with EU member states and the Croatian project called Birdbox entered the finals among 10 percent of the best projects in the field of Digital Finance.

In the final, the Croatian project Birdbox was selected as one of the 117 most promising solutions to participate in a Matchathon event which will be held from May the 22nd to the 25th, 2020, where Croatia's Poslovna Inteligencija team will have the opportunity to further improve their solution through a series of workshops and present Birdbox to its potential users, as well as to would-be investors.

The EUvsVirus hackathon was held between the 24th and the 26th of April around the world and brought together participants with the same goal - to develop a prototype and solution for technical, political and socially relevant issues related to the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The competition gathered 20,900 participants from all over Europe and beyond, and a total of 2,163 solutions were submitted, and Croatia's Poslovna Inteligencija competed in a challenge called "Supporting the Identification of Financial Deficiencies".

The Croatian team consisted of six members, experts in various fields of data collection, processing, analysis and visualisation. The team members are Iva Soric, Davor Dinjar, Josip Punis, Bernard Curic, Petar Pejakovic and team leader Marko Stajcer. Stajcer stated that this Croatian project is a prototype of a solution that would help EU member states to find the optimal strategy to help the economy, and with its help, they'll be able to detect the most critical areas and find those where financial aid packages would have the best possible impact on jobs and the economy as a whole.

"The platform also enables the development of simulations and the testing of different scenarios of the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the economic activity of a particular country or on the EU's single market. This solution is applicable not only to the immediate consequences of the current crisis, but also in the event of a return of the COVID-19 pandemic or another crisis that would once again affect the economy. The solution is also applicable for market analysis and risk assessment in different market conditions,'' explained Stajcer.

Following the Hackathon, this Croatian project, as one of 117 selected solutions, will be part of the Matchaton event which will be held later on in May aimed at connecting teams with potential customers and investors. The Croatian project's placement in the finals and the invitation to Matchathon represents an additional motive and incentive for further product development, Stajcer noted.

"We've included other partners in the Birdbox project, and we're especially pleased to be joined by Vuk Vukovic PhD from Oxford and one of the leading Croatian experts in political economy, all with the aim of the better presentation of Birdbox and Croatian innovations at the upcoming Matchathon. We also asked Fina to provide us with anonymised data for calculating the COVID score, which would help us to further expand the functionality of our application. Fina confirmed its support, noting that this is sensitive data and that due to regulatory requirements, special attention must be paid to the security and manner of data processing. Our wish is that in the future, if this project becomes a commercial product, we'll enable Croatian institutions to use Birdbox for free,'' added Stajcer.

Vuk Vukovic PhD says that the Croatian project Birdbox is an excellent project.

"I'm looking forward to being part of this great team. In our projects at Oraclum, we use the same approach and forecasting methodologies for individual responses, and here they're used to make relevant simulations of the impact of negative events on company revenues,'' said Vukovic.

On this occasion, Fina stated that as a socially responsible institution, they strive to support the initiatives of individuals and institutions in the field of improving the quality of life and the development of the economy and society as a whole.

"With all its characteristics, aggregated data will provide an innovative solution such as Birdbox with a better opportunity to present its solution at the Matchathon, and Fina, in the spirit of supporting Croatian innovations, has decided to support that within its capabilities. The COVID score is a unique objective assessment of business vulnerability and Croatia is among the first to implement such a system in the management of measures to help the economy, and in this sense, it gives more significance in the overall Birdbox solution,'' stated Fina.

The Croatian Agency for Small Business, Innovation and Investment (HAMAG-BICRO) participated in the organisation of the largest European hackathon to date as a national body to support competitors from Croatia, whose CEO Vjeran Vrbanec considers the placement of the team with the Croatian project Birdbox a great success, especially if strong competition from international teams is also taken into account.

"This shows that success is not reserved only for the big and the rich, and that Croatian solutions are very competitive in the world,'' stated Vrbanec.

Make sure to follow Made in Croatia for more Croatian projects, companies and innovation.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 28th of April, 2020, in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus crisis, a new high-tech manufacturing facility is emerging right here in Croatia. The innovative Zagreb-based company, Mareton, has begun the construction of a small, highly roboticised factory that will produce electronics for smart railways.

The Ministry of Economy has sent the aforementioned Croatian company a decision on the awarding of a massive 2.12 million kuna in grants on the basis of the S3 Competition in order for the company to further commercialise its innovation - a bidirectional converter. The rest to the full project value of 5.3 million kuna is funded by Mareton itself.

Marko Stetic, founder and director of Mareton, says that the subsidy will help finance the improvement of this Croatian company's business organisation, the hiring of two experts and the development of software to make the machines for the new plant, which the company has purchased itself, ready for production.

"The minimisation and mechanical compactness of the product requires production with very advanced and precise computer-controlled machines and devices," explained Stetic. Mareton became known to the general public just two years ago when the company became the biggest winner of the second round of IRI tenders.

Then, the Zagreb-based manufacturer, in collaboration with the Faculty of Electronics and Computing in Zagreb, received a million euros in grants to develop the technology Elon Musk wants to offer in cars and households.

Mareton's brand new piece of innovation, a bidirectional converter, is a universal power converter that enables smart grid monitoring and simplifies the upgrade of electrical grids to new energy sources. In the increasingly popular e-car industry, converters are rumoured to be key because such vehicles can return electricity from their batteries back to the smart grid at night.

Stetic pointed out that Mareton has primarily focused on the needs of railways because they use a variety of electrical devices from switches and ramps to signaling, and therefore have increasingly complex energy networks that ensure the continued operation of such devices. Mareton has simplified all of this by replacing all of the different types of converters with one - its very own.

"Siemens from Switzerland and Gustav Klein from Germany have commissioned the development and prototype production from us, and we've borne all of the development costs and the complete risk of placement," noted Stetic.

He added that last year, after testing involving the Koncar Institute, Mareton delivered a test series of seventy bidirectional converters, and they proved to be great. They made them manually, and now they plan to automate that process. Back in 2018, Mareton had revenue of 6.25 million kuna and a net profit of 344,092 kuna. Last year, they said, they continued to grow slightly. With this brand new device, Mareton's growth will likely accelerate to 9.1 percent in two years.

"When this project is completed, we'll be able to offer our converter not only to railways, but also to anyone who needs more stable energy networks and separate industrial systems," concluded Stetic, adding that his company's products are used even on platforms in the North Pole.

For more Croatian innovation, follow Made in Croatia.

As Novac/Boris Vlasic writes on the 23rd of April, 2020, the Zagreb-New York mobile app developer agency Five has received prestigious recognition, and is now ranked among the top three agencies on the respectable Clutch business platform by a competition of 480 agencies. This is yet another testament to the talent of Croatian developers.

Clutch is a platform that evaluates the quality of mobile applications based solely on reviews left by clients, and not the agencies themselves. This isn't some simple appraisal that comes with almost every application, but rather a serious review, which people from Clutch then check, further interview those same agency clients, and analyse a series of responses to avoid any subjectivism from the appraisal.

Five has been in New York for a decade now, ever since Viktor Marohnic went there, along with Luka Abrus and Sven Marusic, one of the co-owners of a company which boasts about 150 employees, and applied to Clutch three years ago, thinking that the references they would gain would be good recommendation for their further business development.

"We were never interested in the awards, we didn't spend our time doing that," says Viktor, who, like most people at Five, has been working out of the office, more precisely from home, for the past few weeks.

''What interested us at Clutch is that they were the only ones who offered a realistic assessment of our quality. It's especially different that they don't do the rating, but instead the clients for whom the work was done do it. Our rating comes directly from the clients themselves and this can't be adjusted. Clutch makes sure that every review is authentic. That prize is impossible to fake,'' says Viktor, adding that virtually every agency that has a profile on Clutch actively competes for the best possible position among other agencies.

Marriott International, a multinational hotel company with more than 200,000 employees, asked the Five team for an application to raise employee satisfaction, boast an employment chatbot, and other things.

''Five provided a level of engagement that is invaluable. Their team understood how people use technology, especially those targeted at the global level,'' wrote the director of the wellbeing sector at Marriott about the Five agency in a review on Clutch.

''The West Coast, or the Silicon Valley, is the centre of the world when it comes to VC funds and the Hi-Tec startup industry. On the other hand, the East Coast, or NY, is the epicentre of events in the agency business,'' says one of the Croatian developers, Sven Marusic.

''What used to be agencies on Madison Avenue are now slowly moving into the digital world, and therefore the mobile app world. The competition is huge, so this recognition certainly means that we've become a relevant player globally, now recognised by an independent service such as Clutch as one of the leading ones,'' says Marusic, describing how crucial to their acceptance in the US market was in terms of their decision to become an American company .

At that point, they stopped being a Croatian company with clients in America, and instead became an American company whose main people for sales, design, product definition, consulting and other jobs are Americans.

''In Croatia, we're an IT company with a strong focus on design and clients in America. In America, we're a New York-based agency with a strong development and design team in Croatia. We believe that our key to success was precisely in that step forward and in building a team based in New York. It was also a big risk that's now slowly paying off,'' says Marusic between two zoom meetings.

That's how everyone works, the coronavirus pandemic just changed their location, but it had no effect on the business of these talented Croatian developers and the company Five. Clients expect the realisation of commissioned projects, this is one of the evaluation items at Clutch, and five received five out of a possible five stars for each criterion.

For more on Croatian developers and other talent, follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page.

In predicting the market scenario after the coronavirus pandemic, that is, changes in the system of globalisation as we've now known for so long, yet another opportunity for the Croatian furniture industry to make a huge leap forward in its development can be found.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Juraj Loncaric writes on the 20th of April, 2020, the Croatian economy, as well as the manufacturing and construction industries are being forced to co-exist with the coronavirus pandemic for a longer period of time. Finding the optimal balance between health, economic and social priorities is the key to successfully managing in these trying times.

Strict restrictive measures in most EU countries and indeed across the world have more or less restricted production, which has a knock-on effect on sales and consumption. However, export-oriented wood processing and furniture production expect the EU's stringent restrictions to be eased, as many businesses in the field have temporarily or even permanently lost both foreign and domestic orders.

A modern, technologically and commercially organised, globally competitive European furniture industry (115,000 entities, with 1.1 million employees in total) purchases raw materials and supplies from around the world. Imports of these materials from the Far East have significantly increased over the last 30 years and the continuity of these deliveries has, owing to these unprecedented circumstances, been called into question.

The coronavirus crisis is forcing EU importers, wholesalers, retailers and furniture manufacturers to reconsider their own sources and supply chains, depending on market demand. The self-sufficiency of industrial production is one of the topics to dominate early 2020, and this could mark a major turning point for the international exchange of goods and services.

Reduced purchasing power has become the uncomfortable norm thanks to the pandemic.

The ''start date'' of the resumption of production activities and the gradual normalisation of furniture demand will certainly be very different across various EU countries. During the second half of April, a number of countries with advanced furniture and wood processing industries in the EU have been spending time considering a decision on dates for May, such as the mitigation of restrictive measures, and the resumption of production and the opening of specialised retail stores and other department stores. Production has been continuing in the Far East, most notably in China, which is well known as the world's largest exporter of furniture.

The good news is that wood processing and furniture production are on the list of many governments' priorities for the easing of anti-epidemic measures. The production of clothing and textiles is at the very forefront. The coronavirus pandemic has seen some extremely strategic management decisions be put at stake for the furniture and wood industries in both Croatia and the EU.

The purchasing and need for furniture, and therefore the demand for primary wood processing products, depends on the needs and desires of consumers and their purchasing power, and this has been further reduced. The question of when this trend might come to an end is still up in the air.

Industrial companies have been applying strict safety measures at work, and these are now being supplemented significantly to protect against the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19). In an environment threatened by something as menacing as a global pandemic, the preservation of personal health and common material interests is very much in the interests of both employers and employees.

Medium and small sized furniture factories are complex and changeable organisms, with numerous business relationships existing in the sales/export and supply/import chains. Any interruption of the production process in a single factory for several days causes a material and logistical damage. The interruption of industrial production in a country for several months causes a level of material and social damage that is difficult to measure, and the problems being experienced by many small and micro furniture manufacturers in this crisis are particularly complex.

For the Republic of Croatia, the coronavirus pandemic can be a challenge, but also presents with a golden opportunity to support the development of the manufacturing industry, whose share in GDP is low, more than ever before.

It is time for those who design Croatia's economic policy, as well as professional institutions and associations who also deal with that, to immediately prepare a debate and propose some decisions in regard to the national industrial strategy for the 2021-2027 period. The need to propose measures that will encourage exports, small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses, the use of information technology, and online sales, domestic consumption and more, are required now more than ever.

Croatian design is being sought.

The wood industry, furniture production and final wood processing are strategic activities for the Republic of Croatia. Compared to the business of its competitors from EU countries, the development of finalising valuable Croatian raw materials has not been sufficiently dynamic, nor has it been all that cost-effective.

In predicting the market scenario after the coronavirus pandemic subsides, or more precisely the structural changes in the globalisation system that are likely to come, lies another opportunity for the Croatian production of furniture to make a step forward in its general development.

The competitiveness of the Croatian timber industry has been confirmed by exports, which account for 60 percent of the total production value. It also accounts for 10 percent of total merchandise exports, and 90 percent of those raw materials and parts are of Croatian origin. Domestic raw materials will become more competitive than ever before in the changed conditions of international trade, ie, limited globalisation, following the end of the pandemic. The quality of products and branches of Croatian industry is very well recognised on the international market, and Croatian furniture design is a sought-after and very much desired product.

Make sure to follow Made in Croatia for more on Croatian companies, products and services. Follow our dedicated section for all you need to know about coronavirus in relation to Croatia.

As Glas Istre/Gordana Calic Sverko writes on the 18th of April, 2020, the Istrian company PAB Akrapovic is entirely export-oriented, and they expect their latest helmet to further progress their already impressive business results. At a premiere at the end of last year at the Düsseldorf trade show in Germany, this Istrian company based in Buzet thrilled potential customers. Orders started before the helmets could even be certified, and production begins in early May this year.

Some call the award this Istrian company has received the ''Oscar for design''. It's one of the most renowned awards for product, industrial and communication design in the entire world, it is awarded in various categories by a jury of international experts, and it just arrived in the hands of PAB Akrapovic, an innovative Istrian company from Buzet. Namely, the company's latest PAB FIRE 05 fire helmet, has been awarded the 2020 Red Dot Award for product design..

''We applied for the first time and were immediately recognised. And in such a way! The Red Dot Award, one of the most renowned awards for industrial design in the world, has definitely been received with absolute pleasure by the owner and CEO of the Istrian company, Miha Akrapovic, who praised the young team and the company's development manager, Marko Basic.

Everyone is in charge of their segment, from testing, designing, constructing… and together this company has created a product that will be sold worldwide. This level of acknowledgment is just a confirmation that they are very much on the right track.

The award-winning Croatian protective visor helmet, the fifth in a series of professional firefighting helmets, is entirely their work. They developed the new product themselves as an upgrade to all previous series' featuring functionality and aesthetics. It takes at least two years to develop such a product before its launch on the market. The helmet should be tested for impact, radiation, and temperature. Everything is done in Buzet except the main test during which the whole helmet is set on fire, which is carried out at an institute in Milan, Italy.

''When I came to this company fifteen years ago, a certificate for one helmet and visor cost seven thousand euros, and now it costs almost ninety thousand euros for certification,'' Miha Akrapovic noted.

The Buzet-based company specialising in the development and production of professional firefighting helmets, as well as those used during technical interventions, forest firefighting and altitude rescue, is unique in the national context as it is the only manufacturer of firefighter helmets in the whole of the Republic of Croatia. It is also recognisable on the global market, and for many Buzet locals, today, the Istrian company is synonymous with its founder Ivan Akrapovic, who founded it as a young engineer in 1953 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and then moved to Buzet in 1978.

Ivan, and his grandson Miha, who succeeded him in taking over the family business, is said to have established a way of working that could be called "old school." He primarily focused on product quality, so he would surely be proud of the company's remarkable latest developments.

PAB Akrapovic employs about sixty workers who are mainly from the Buzet area. These Buzet helmets are shipped almost all over the world, and are marketed through distributors. This Istrian company is completely export-oriented. Almost 99 percent of their production is marketed abroad, from Europe all the way to Brazil and China, and most notably to Middle Eastern countries. They expect their latest helmet to further strengthen their business results.

Currently, this Istrian company has stated that it isn't feeling the effects of the coronavirus crisis at the moment, but it is difficult to assess whether or not the situation will remain as such.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page for more on Croatian companies, production and innovation.

As Darko Bicak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 13th of April, 2020, at its facility in Zagreb, Kemoplastika is now busy "assembling" a highly sought-after item. Due to its microbicidal action, the product has a very strong disinfectant effect and successfully reduces the number of microorganisms from surfaces. The product was manufactured at their Zagreb facility and is doing well as the coronavirus crisis takes chunks out of the economy.

Disinfectants have become one of the most sought-after items on the market, both in Croatia and in Europe and indeed across the world.

Although not a particularly demanding technological process is involved when it comes to its production, as it is mainly alcohol-based, due to their relatively low added value, many chemical, pharmaceutical and petrochemical companies have all but abandoned production.

However, as a result of the coronavirus crisis across the world, more and more companies have been able to re-establish or re-produce this item in just a few days. One of them is Zagreb's Kemoplastika.

As explained by Kristijan Strmecki, CEO of Kemoplastika, the Zagreb-based company was established under its existing name back in 1991, but was formed on the basis of a business called VIST, well known in the 1980s. The company's founders are Viktor and Kristijan Strmecki.

''Back at the beginning of the business, it was solely related to manufacturing, with the aim of later expansion into retail, import and wholesale. So, we've grown from a small manufactory to a modern facility with professional employees,'' Strmecki recalls. He added that the idea of ​​producing their own disinfectants came naturally amid the coronavirus pandemic, when the scale and parameters of the ongoing health crisis and the assumptions of its duration were revealed.

''It wasn't really difficult for us to ''assemble'' the product, because what our company became famous for is just that - our own products. We had no problems with the technology and the raw materials, because in our company, we create an environment that motivates our workers to be creative and efficient. We respond quickly to the market and adapt to the wishes and needs of our customers. Listening to the needs of the market, we're constantly updating our offer with new products. We stand out for our speed of delivery and our flexibility,'' says Kristijan Strmecki.

Earlier on, almost all chemical and petrochemical industries, whether they were Croatian companies with 2-3 employees or multinational corporations such as INA, had started producing disinfectants for the market. INA Maziva announced that in just a few days, they had completed the technological process required and produced a deeply desired product, putting it onto the market - INA Dezinol - and the product was approved by the Ministry of Health.

Given the current situation with the coronavirus epidemic, the company will donate some of its products to the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia. As explained by Zoran Skrobonja, CEO of INA Maziva, Dezinol was primarily developed for the company's internal needs, for the disinfection of surfaces at retail locations and so on.

Pharmaceutical giant Pliva has also been a significant manufacturer of professional medical disinfectants in the past, with director Michael Furjan pointing out that they have increased their capacity in this segment three times, but that this still hasn't been enough, as market demand has increased by twenty times since the coronavirus pandemic began gaining traction.

Make sure to follow our dedicated section for all you need to know about coronavirus in Croatia. For more Croatian innovation, follow Made in Croatia.

As Barbara Ban/Novac writes on the 3rd of April, 2020, any help during this unprecedented pandemic is more than welcome. That is why young computer scientists from Pula - Kristijan Saric and Matija Plastic decided to focus their knowledge on creating an application that could help medical staff recognise the presence of coronavirus in the future. Meet Exactbyte.

''We're a company from Pula that is primarily engaged in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the development of applications using these technologies. We'd like to use this knowledge and experience to help with the COVID-19 virus situation. We have developed a machine learning model that could help doctors diagnose COVID-19 patients.

The model was trained to recognise whether or not lungs on lung x-rays are healthy, have pneumonia or if there is COVID-19 present,'' explained 33-year-old Kristijan Saric, who opened Exactbyte three years ago and hired 28-year-old Matija and another student. He says that when it comes to the preparation of this application, which could one day help medicine, he started before the epidemic began in Croatia, by taking numerous photos of lung x-rays from coronavirus positive patients, and then those of healthy lungs, and the lungs of those with inflammation.

''I took x-rays I found on the internet. These are about seventy images of the lungs of coronavirus patients. I also used 500 images of healthy lungs and nearly 4500 images of the lungs of people with pneumonia. The programme we developed uses these images for testing and checks their status based on image recognition,'' explains Exactbyte's founder.

However, for the application to come to life and function properly, Kristijan says he needs a lot more pictures of lungs infected with coronavirus, which is why he is seeking cooperation with healthcare institutions. The end goal is to implement those images into a web application that would allow access to doctors and hospitals.

''They could send an x-ray and get feedback from the system on whether it is a healthy lung, a lung with pneumonia or a lung with COVID-19, and mark the portion of the image on which the system reached a conclusion so that they can verify it,'' Kristijan explained.

He had already put the idea out, he says, to the Pula General Hospital, with which he had already started collaborating on a project before the epidemic broke out, namely the classification of breast cancer. Otherwise, most of the work Exactbyte does is for an American company.

Make sure to follow Made in Croatia for more Croatian innovation.

As Sasa Paparella/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 2nd of April, 2020, the Kamensko Association has been engaged in sewing cotton masks for the Association of the Blind, fire departments, nursing homes and more, and as we reported today, INA has very generously donated 50,000 kuna to them.

The former workers of Kamensko, who founded the association after the demise of the Zagreb textile factory and became been self-employed, have been sewing cotton masks since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which they then mostly donate to needy fellow citizens, and also send some to various clients.

"We're worried about all those vulnerable groups of people that society has forgotten, because we know very well how it is for them. We can produce 500 masks a day - our girls need the seams as well, as needed, so the masks aren't really a problem. We also gave some of the masks to the residents of the retirement home who, when it was most difficult for us, bought us a small sewing machine with their own money, so now we're giving something back to them,'' says Đurđa Grozaj, president of the Kamensko Association.

The association is also arranging some bigger jobs, and have sewed 1000 masks for the Rijeka student centre, Metro ordered 3000 pieces from them, and masks are also sewn for pension institutions in Koprivnica and down in Dubrovnik.

There are, however, some new problems, such as postage costs of as much as 79 kuna, which is charged by the Croatian Post for the transportation of three masks. This week alone, the Kamensko Association received an intercontinental order from Croatian expatriates from across the Atlantic in New York.

The Kamensko Association has also been hit by the downturn in the economy due to coronavirus and even tourism problems, as they have now lost the job of sewing linen bags for hotels on Croatian islands.

“You know, we're working very hard to preserve these five jobs of our seamstresses, to whom we pay salaries. So far, the salaries for the two seamstresses have been compensated every month by Ikea, as they sewed for them.

However, Ikea is now closed, so their fate has become uncertain. The only safe wages for now are the funds coming to us through a project funded over the next three years by the National Foundation for Civil Society Development. I don't know what to do next, and the hardest thing for me to do would be to have to let someone go.

We also have a single mother working here. We never received the arrears we were promised from Kamensko's bankruptcy. I think we deserve a chance after everything we've all been through. I urge that it be invested in us, and not in imports from China. Give us a chance to work,'' said Đurđa Grozaj.

As stated, the Kamensko Association has received a nice donation from INA, which will certainly help patch up some of the financial struggles the association has been dealing with amid the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Make sure to follow our dedicated section for rolling information and updates on coronavirus in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 30th of March, 2020, a product from the Croatian company Poslovna Inteligencija (Business Intelligence), the Data Privacy Manager, has become the first Croatian IT product to be included in the prestigious Forrester Wave report that reviews global products and services for global customers.

This home-based software helps businesses address the challenges they face when complying with data protection laws, especially in the area of ​​redundant data removal, where it remains the only solution on the global market that addresses GDPR data erasure.

"Protecting the privacy of individuals is one of the main concerns for businesses of all sizes today, and the Data Privacy Manager was developed precisely to help them comply with new data protection laws, such as GDPR," explained Marijan Bračić of Poslovna Inteligencija, adding that it is interesting that despite the fact that the most rigorous law on personal data protection is precisely the European Union's GDPR, this innovative Croatian IT product remains one of the few solutions from the European Union to be included in Forrester Wave, while most solutions come from the American market.

"American companies and investors recognised the great potential of the privacy management software market earlier on. In the coming years, this growth will be further accelerated globally as GDPR triggered a wave of data protection regulations around the world, such as the California CCPA, the Brazilian LGPD, the Indian Data Protection Act and similar legislation,'' said Bračić, noting that being included in this highly respected report further confirms that this Croatian IT product, as well as others, are all keeping up with the pace of both European and world trends.

The Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK), which uses this Croatian IT product to protect its members' data, was among the first to give confidence to the quality products made by Croatian companies.

"The quality of the Croatian IT sector has long been proven, and this product from Poslovna Inteligencija enables us to protect data by the latest standards, which is very important to us. The message we want to send out is that we don't need to search the world if we want top-quality technology solutions - because we have them right here in our backyard. We hope that as many of our companies and institutions as possible give Croatian IT solutions a chance and that by buying a Croatian one, we'll strengthen the domestic economy,'' concluded HGK President Luka Burilović.

Make sure to follow our Made in Croatia page for more Croatian innovation.

''If someone told me two years ago, when we were working on the BBC Pandemic app, that a pandemic would suddenly become a reality, I'd say there's no way, and well... it's happened,'' says Filip Ljubić, director of the Zagreb software company - Q.

As Filip Pavic/Novac writes on the 29th of March, 2020, not knowing that the world was awaiting the current coronavirus pandemic, this Zagreb software company launched a prophetic mobile app called BBC Pandemic, a virtual simulation of the spread of flu from person to person in 2018, in collaboration with the BBC and Cambridge University. The data it collected, the very first of its kind in the world, is being used today by scientists around the world to control the current coronavirus epidemic and to plan what's needed in regard to public health.

''The idea was to do the largest experiment in human history and to collect data that scientists hadn't been able to have before. It all started when we were contacted by the BBC, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of Spanish flu, to create an application for them that a user can download to their mobile device, through which we can monitor how the infection spreads from person to person, all of the ways it does so and at what speed it doesit. We then created the application,'' recounts Ljubić, who is one of the founders of Q, a Zagreb software company that has been developing web and software solutions since its inception back in 2013, and has an impressive list of clients, including Facebook, Volkswagen, The Times, Novartis, and more.

The application, he explains, is quite simple and not particularly technically demanding. Everything is anonymous, and the app only asks users for their gender and their age. Users download it to their mobile devices and thus become virtually ''infected''. As they perform their daily tasks, the app monitors their movements and their social contacts. The idea for each person is to collect the correct set of information about their activity, movement, professional status, travel habits and how often they come into contact with other people - 24 hours a day. During the day, they need to answer different questions within the app, such as how many people they were in contact with that day, how long they spent together, whether their train or bus on the way to work was full or empty, and how long that trip took.

''Scientists were looking for 10,000 people to download the app and participate in the experiment because that amount of people was necessary for a credible sample. In the end, almost 100,000 people downloaded the app, much to our surprise. Ten times what we'd hoped. The app has become a huge hit and has for some time been the number one medical app on the UK's Apple Store and on Google Play,'' says Ljubić.

This allowed scientists from the prestigious Cambridge University in the UK and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to analyse the data for the first time in history and actually produce a credible "contagion map" of the so-called Heat Maps - graphical views of the spread of influenza viruses from one city to another and in towns and counties, and display the exact rate of its spread. The shocking revelations from the BBC app were later packed into the documentary Contagion, currently available on YouTube and Netflix.

Based on the movement of app users and their interactions, it can be seen that in the months since the outbreak, the number of people infected in the UK rose to more than 43 million people, nearly two-thirds of the entire population. The death toll in the first six months rises to nearly one million. One user who carries the virus, as they have shown, by going to a gym, cafe or shop, infects as many as nine people on average, and then they spread the infection exponentially even further. Mathematician Hannah Fry, who led the entire project, said it was "a unique project and a huge leap forward for science, and one day, these discoveries could save millions of lives."

''It's almost unbelievable that so soon after the launch of the application, a brand new epidemic, coronavirus, really happened and suddenly what the application simulated in theory began to happen in real life,'' says Ljubić.

''Last week, we were contacted again by the BBC and told us they were considering developing a new application that would track people with coronavirus symptoms in real time. We've only had a few conversations so far and we're still waiting for the green light,'' Ljubić revealed.

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