Be it Croatian designers or scientists, medics or companies, this little country has no problem in breeding talent that stretches across all possible walks of life. One Croatian company has designed and made a machine that makes it stand out from the crowd on a competitive and demanding market with no problem at all.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes on the 26th of February, 2020, the Croatian company Rasco from Kalinovac near Đurđevac is involved in the production of municipal equipment, primarily equipment for road maintenance and snow clearing, and in its sector it is among the impressive European Top5.

After introducing their new compact cleaner called Lynx, which is entirely a product of both Croatian innovation and technology, at the end of last year, this Croatian company's management announced recently that their electric version of this self-propelled machine is also nearing completion.

The new electric cleaner, eLynx, will premiere in May 2020 at a specialist trade show in Munich, Germany and is expected to hit the market by the end of the year. Ivan Franicevic, CEO of Rasco, pointed out that the brand new eLynx will have a battery that will give it autonomy for between 10 and 12 hours, which is currently a feature not offered by any of its competitors, making it stand out from the rest with an incredible ease.

Rasco, which employs as many as 409 workers, has seen strong growth in recent years and ended up with a massive 170.8 million kuna in revenue in 2019, up by thirteen percent when compared to just a year ago. They have an assortment of about seventy products that they ship to as many as forty countries around the world.

Last year, this highly successful Croatian company delivered about 1,500 products to customers, and it is interesting to see that their equipment helps to maintain the Munich and Istanbul airports in unfavourable winter conditions.

For more on Croatian innovation, design, products and companies, follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page.

As Morski writes on the 24th of February, 2020, the presentation of Dalmatian wine in Switzerland from the 25th to the 26th of February, 2020 will see the participation of the Hvar Winemakers Association and the Wine Association of Dalmatia with the co-financing of the Tourist Board of the Municipality of Jelsa and the Municipality of Jelsa.

The presentations of Dalmatian wine in Switzerland are organised on the occasion of the Croatian Presidency of the EU Council in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Croatia to the United Nations Office in Geneva and the Croatian Embassy in Bern. In addition to the presentations of Dalmatian wine, the typical dishes of the island of Hvar will also be prepared and presented by chefs Kristo Barbic and Pavo Kordic, as will products from Hvar such as olive oil, lavender, etc.

Dalmatia is a true treasure trove when it comes to the sheer biodiversity of the wine world. Travelling from north to south, it's easy to find new, different varieties. The most famous and economically most important variety of Dalmatian wine is the internationally adored Plavac mali.

''With these presentations, we want to showcase the richness of varieties that Croatia has: we've gathered together twelve Dalmatian wineries, and as many as ten Dalmatian varieties will be tasted. We designed the tour in cooperation with the Tourist Board of the Municipality of Jelsa to present the environment in which our wines are made, because the story of Dalmatian wine is not only the taste and the aroma of wine, but also a number of cultural and anthropological elements together.

As an example, we will show what the island of Hvar has to offer, through its UNESCO heritage, products from the island, such as lavender, olive oil, typical cakes and even chocolates that capture the flavours of Dalmatia and the Mediterranean. And of course, with the sounds of the klapa music, because it is all part of Dalmatian life,'' explained Ivana Krstulović Caric, dipl.ing.agr, president of the association Hvar Winemakers.

Diplomatic guests, distributors, tour operators, and wine lovers will all participate in the events taking place at prestigious locations. We expect that the Dalmatian wine presentations will stimulate interest in Croatia, especially the island, which has an excellent eno-gastro offer, as well as a rich history and natural beauty. In recent years, the interest of tourists has increasingly turned to cycling, the study of cultural sites and heritage. In particular, we can emphasise the UNESCO-protected heritage, and the tourist season has been extended significantly in recent years because we're no longer focused solely on the sea and the sun,'' said Marija Marjan, Director of the Tourist Board of Jelsa Municipality.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page for much more.

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 18th of February, 2020, graduates of the Zagreb High School, Filip Hercig, Matija Fucek and their team, were presented with the award for their Croatian project - Mundus Education System, for which they were awarded 25,000 kuna in a Croatian Employers' Association (HUP) competition called Entrepreneurs of the Future.

The award was presented to them by HUP representatives and by Ivan Gabric, a member of the A1 Croatia Board.

The Mundus Education System is a Croatian project and a smart board game by Mundus Technologies that brings technology closer to formal education through several hardware and software solutions, and is now used by about sixty schools across Slovenia and Croatia.

According to Hercig and Fucak, this recognition has put a spring in their step, and the generous donation has helped them to provide all the schools using the system with the necessary materials. The young innovators, who have worked on this Croatian project for several years, want to study in the US at Harvard or Stanford, and their general vision is, as they say, a blend of business and computer science. In parallel with their studies, they will continue to develop the game because, as they point out, this is their life project.

''This is a great opportunity to expand on the American market as well as in European Union (EU) countries. One segment of the game is educational and the other is for the private user market. The educational part focuses on educational institutions, from schools to kindergartens,'' explains Hercig.

"We wanted to do something new and interesting. We had a brief episode of development for the education sector that we dedicated ourselves to, and a growing number of people showed interest in the initial segment of the game. So, the idea is to make a board game that is actually a console; the board connects to a mobile phone via a mobile application (app) and then you choose the game you want. Furthermore, the idea is that you can download and try brand new games through the same physical board that you bought earlier,'' Fucek said, adding that the motto of the game is ''one board, countless games''.

Hercig and Fucek are pleased with the feedback they have received from students who are ''interested in learning the material in a non-classical way that professors can present to them through fun,'' says Hercig.

Ivan Gabric from A1 gave a lecture after he presented the award, telling the students that it is normal in life to try and sometimes not win, but that this should never discourage them.

"You're young and I want to encourage and support your ambition, which is often a cruel thing, and life is not as comfortable as it is during your high school days. You need knowledge to showcase your skills and strengths when compared to others, you can't pay for it, and that is proven every day,'' he concluded.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page for more on this Croatian project and many more.

The Aeronautical Association of Split has linked the knowledge and experience of several generations of students, resulting in the Vector VX-3, the brand new Croatian drone.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes on the 14th of February, 2020, what entrepreneur Mate Rimac is to Croatian cars is what Alpha Sagittarius from Split could well be to the world of the Croatian drone.

For many years now, Professor Branko Klarin has been gathering students at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture (FESB) in Split. These are students of aeronautics for whom he has made his laboratory available for both research and ''play''. But as that generation left college, their collective knowledge of aeronautics was lost with them, and then new students started from scratch.

Because of this, the FESB Association - the Aerotechnical Association of Split (AUS) - was founded a year ago, which has succeeded in bringing together the knowledge and experience of several generations of students, which in turn has resulted in the Vector VX-3 Croatian drone project.

These students from Split have won a number of awards here in Croatia and across Europe with their impressive Croatian drone project, and have recently returned from the United States where they were at the renowned AUVSI SUAS Aeronautical Student Competition, traditionally held at the Naval Base in Maryland. They left behind them fierce competition from the likes of Harvard, Penn State and Berkeley, and were the most successful university in Europe.

As explained by Đani Vrsalović, one of the former students of FESB and one of the initiators of the founding of AUS, the interest of potential partners and investors was so great after their appearance in the USA that their work outgrew the possibilities of the association and they had to register as a commercial company .

Given the fact that Vrsalović himself already had a registered company, Alpha Sagittarius, primarily engaged in shipping and tourism, in early 2019 it was decided for that company to become the basis for the development of a commercial Croatian drone development project in which Vrsalović is the majority owner and the other participants are partners. The drone, weighing about 5.5 kilograms, is expected to hit the market by early 2021, and although it's too early to talk about prices, estimates are that it should range from the 60,000 euro mark upwards.

''Although the drone is most commonly referred to as a multirotor, which rises and is managed by its four propellers, much like a helicopter, this one involves a fixed torso and wings. This is an innovative modular design, and we've been recognised in the US, which allows for the drone to be adapted to the needs of its users,'' Vrsalović pointed out. It is, he added, a very serious tool that will receive even better quality features and software throughout the course of 2020 that will boast elements of artificial intelligence.

"We expect that its primary function will be in search and rescue operations at sea and in the mountains. It will be optimised for the energy control of transmission lines, pipelines or wind power plants, etc. With the software we develop, it will have the ability to perform operations without problems and to detect problems by default. It will have autonomy of a maximum of three hours and that will be sufficient to make an emergency delivery, such as blood plasma or medication, from Split to Vis, and then return - they will be able to carry cargo weighing up to about 1.5 kilograms,'' explained Vrsalović.

So far, the company employs four people, with three more who work occasionally and they have a number of partner companies. "This is almost entirely a Croatian project - of course we have to buy computers and cameras from abroad because we can't produce them here in Croatia. But everything else, from the composite materials and communication systems, to the software and more, is being developed in Croatia. While we were developing the project within the association, Rimac worked on the composite materials for us.

But when both of us became serious players, we no longer had the capacity to do that, so we found a new partner in the Brzoglas Kaštela company, and our communication equipment is being developed by Stratowave - Connect in Zagreb,'' he noted.

So far, 1.5 million kuna has been invested in the project, of which just over one million comes from European Union (EU) funds. Although they don't plan for these Croatian drones to be used for military purposes just yet, Vrsalović did note that this is the second step that he doesn't want to talk about in more detail just yet, and will set that subject aside until they perfect the drone in its first step and its commercial uses.

"The military has special NATO standards that imply much more demanding and much more expensive equipment. This greatly raises the cost of development, as well as the final cost of such a drone. We're thinking about it, but for now, let's just stick with what we're doing,'' he said. He believes that Alpha Sagittarius has great opportunities for development because drone technology in Europe is far behind the US and some other countries, and that they can make a lot of sense with their ideas and knowledge in the segment of commercial and then military drones.

The turning point for the organisation to start establishing a commercial company was the situation from the AUVSI SUAS competition in the US, where members of the association competed, and where their Vector VX-3 project drew an enormous amount of interest.

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

As Glas Istre/Novi List writes on the 9th of February, 2020, meet the latest creation from the gastro workshop of King's Cafe from Rijeka - Monada.

Monada is described as a real refreshing drink for girls and young men, as the slogan of this, otherwise the very first Croatian ''craft cola'' goes. This is the first refreshing drink after Rijeka's legendary Ler and the new King's Cafe brand, which gave birth to Monada but then gave it an independent life all of its own.

''Monada is a craft cola because we played with it a bit so that it doesn't follow the standard rounds of cola on the Croatian market. The taste of Monada is smooth and pleasant. It's a lounge drink for teetotallers. You can chill out with it, not just gulp it down like cola,'' explains Tomislav Juretic, the new Croatian drink's creative guru, who designed this refreshing drink along with Vedran Jakominic and Igor Matetic.

In the production of this drink, some ingredients are used that don't go into the its standard counterparts, such as hops instead of phosphoric acid, which gives it a special aroma. The hops are credited for Monada's smooth taste, and it's also a link to the beer side of the King's Cafe story.

''Monada is as natural as it can be. It doesn't have that element of a standard industrial cola that removes sediment and even cleans toilets, and it doesn't contain any artificial sweeteners or colours. All of the production material comes from the Rijeka area, including the limes and oranges from Rijeka's market and ice from Rijeka's petrol stations,'' Juretic jokes.

So far, the new Rijeka drink is only available as highly experimental samples, but it will soon be able to be tasted by the general public. The first public tasting was organised on the night of Rijeka's European Capital of Culture opening. The initial reactions were more than positive.

''People were very pleased. In the meantime, we've devised a special way of serving Monada so that everyone can enjoy its taste in the right way. It will be served in a round glass, full of ice, with a slice of orange and lime, and with dried blueberries and cardamom. By doing that, the drink is presented in the right way.

It's a drink that is not to be drunk in a hurry, but should be enjoyed slowly so that all the flavours are combined and felt in the right way. Since this is a craft drink, I think it's okay to consume it that way. The Croatian craft scene of alcoholic beverages has been developing a lot lately, and we decided to create a craft with Monada that people who don't drink alcohol can enjoy,'' explains Juretic.

However the ''sober'' population of the country responds to Croatia's very first craft cola, and the first tasters have responded really well, several alcoholic cocktails with Monada have already been designed. Each cocktail bears an interesting name, which evokes various associations with the taste of these drinks.

''It goes well with Pelin (wormwood), so we decided to call it Sette Bandiere. Monada brings the best out of the Pelin, which is then a wonderful drink. Fiume Libera, in turn, is the name of a combination of Monada and cynara, while ginger mixed with Monada is called Skribanda. Black Adder, or Black Goose, is a combination of King's Stout and Monada. The first tasters say it's great,'' added Vedran Jakominic.

''Our idea is to encourage positivity. As Red Bull sponsors extreme sports, Monada will encourage all those events where ordinary people come out of their shells,'' Vedran Jakominic concluded.

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

Yet another highly encouraging story of Croatian innovation and creativity surfaces in the form of young Croat Robert Basic and his guitars from Samobor.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Tomislav Pili writes on the 7th of February, 2020, Robert Basic is completely self-taught, and at the age of just sixteen, he became a talented craftsman. Twelve years later and after making eighty unique guitars, this fascinating young man has a workshop in his family house in Galgovo in Samobor, and some of the most famous Croatian bands, such as Prljavo Kazaliste, Kawasaki 3p and Hladno pivo play instruments made by him.

Basic was born in 1991, and after finishing school, he enrolled in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) in Zagreb. However, the study whose diploma almost completely guarantees a successful career saw Basic leave after only one semester. The reason for that was his decision to go into the world of the production of electric guitars. In December 2011, at just twenty years of age, he opened a company called R. Basic-Sound control (Kontrola zvuka).

Croatian innovation often has very humble beginnings, and the roots of Basic's story is no different. He found his motive for the construction of stringed instruments - which is an almost extinct craft that only about ten people in Croatia are professionally involved in - in his love of music.

He was first introduced to the world by his father and started playing instruments himself at the age of nine. His dad, Mladen, plays the keyboard, and Robert tried to play drums and guitar in addition to that instrument. However, he liked the guitar the most. With the Pipsqueak cover band, he debuted on stage back in 2007.

At one such gig nine years ago, his acquaintances offered for him to join them in establishing a band playing a somewhat unusual type of music in Croatia - country music. He then became Country Strike's guitarist and they've already released a five-song EP and are now working on their first album. They have performed twice in Jefferson, Texas, at the ''Texas Sound International Country Music Awards''. It is an international festival featuring thirty music bands from fifteen countries, and Basic's band won the main prize twice.

Despite this, playing alone is still difficult to make any sort of living from.

"You can make a living from music only if you do that exclusively, if you like the audience, if you manage to charge for it, and if someone pushes you," Basic says.

Instead, he decided to focus on making guitars, which he started doing at the beginning of high school when he saw on an online forum that there were people who make guitars themselves who play in their own bands.

"I made my first guitar with borrowed tools,'' Basic recalls. Seeing this, his parents got him some more tools. But back then, he considered making guitars to be just a hobby, with no idea that one day it would grow into a serious business. But he sold the second guitar he made to a friend and bought more tools from the money he made. The rumours of a young man making top quality guitars in Galgovo quickly began to spread.

Four years later, inquiries for guitar making and servicing were coming to him from all directions. At that time, Basic had become a FER freshman, but soon realised that he wasn't particularly interested in his studies.

"I thought like this - if I open a business and let's say in three years I realise that work isn't going well, then I'll continue my studies. After eight years, I'd have a degree and three years of service. But I had to convince my parents a little more that it was the right decision." Basic points out. At the beginning of his adventure, he made about ten guitars a year, and he has maintained that momentum to this day. Anyone who wants a guitar from him must first know what they want, especially in terms of the form.

"I can suggest to buyers what kind of wood would suit them, given the music they play," Basic emphasises.

The question of choosing a tree isn't irrelevant. As Basic explains, the biggest difference between his guitars and those established manufacturers like Fender is the quality of the material - wood.

"Big manufacturers are aiming for as much material utilisation as possible. I'm left with the waste of three more guitars because not every part of the wood is good and suitable for making instruments. In addition, quality control on a series of thousands of guitars cannot be at the same level as with me making one guitar in a month,'' explains Basic. In the construction of the guitar, he uses all kinds of wood which is standard in the making of this instrument - maple, ash, alder and mahogany. The sound of the guitar depends on the choice of wood, emphasises this craftsman.

Basic's guitars sound great, as confirmed by the bands from the domestic rock scene who put this piece of Croatian innovation to good use - Prljavo Kazaliste, Kawasaki 3p, Kojoti, Hladno pivo, Vatra and Urban&4.

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

There is an enormous amount of talent in this geographically small country. From the world of sport to medicine and science and beyond. The IT and tech sector has recently been experiencing somewhat of a boom in Croatia, with many great minds creating innovation. Croatian software developers are among those with some excellent ideas.

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of February, 2020, the term financial planning used to be a synonym for a messy and chaotic system for Katarina, Luka, Mateja, Matija and Zrinko in all of their past jobs, in which most reports, they explained, would be created with a lot of manual data collection from many different systems and with delays of up to two months.

Based on the experience of all five of them, with a combination of that experience, knowledge in the fields of communication, IT and telecom, they decided to launch a system that allows small and medium-sized enterprises to easily plan and monitor operational and financial components in just a few clicks. This is the Farseer platform presented by, among sixteen other teams, at last year's Zicero's (Zagreb Innovation Centre) pre-accelerator programme - Startup Factory.

The whole idea of ​​Farseer was developed at Kod Biro, a software agency that develops mobile and web applications.

"The guiding principle was to facilitate the process of financial and operational planning and reporting while achieving transparency and saving employees time. Planning and reporting is a critical strategic business management activity, and in most companies, it's performed on a yearly or a quarterly basis, often using technologically outdated tools, with most of the time spent on data entry and organising inputs instead of strategic decisions and business modeling,'' explains platform co-founder Matija Nakic.

The system is intended for middle and senior management participating in the business planning process of an enterprise, and certain operational tasks can easily be given to any responsible person in the system, adds Katarina Trbara.

"We primarily target medium to large companies that, owing to their size and complexity, need structured business planning," notes Trbara. Furthermore, the system created by these Croatian software developers allows for the defining the structure and process of the plan in a mere few clicks, a significant improvement over Microsoft Excel.

Young innovators have incorporated Excel's strengths into their user interface, so they have cells, functions and a formula engine, but everything is subordinate to planning. Users receive planning tasks, administrators monitor the completion of the plan and at some point ''lock it'', after which the realisation of costs and revenues is monitored in real time," Nakic explains.

Among the major advantages of Farseer, the ''child'' of these Croatian software developers, are therefore significantly reduced time, the simplification of the process of creating plans and minimising manual tasks, which allows users to focus on strategy instead. According to Nakic, users can easily monitor the results achieved, compare them with the plan and simulate different business scenarios before making any important business decisions.

''We also touched on the general financial literacy of employees and managers in Croatian companies, which young innovators consider to be at an unenviable level. In larger companies with controlling departments, the situation is better, but planning is still seen as an administrative commitment ''done'' a couple of times a year, while global trends in this field promote so-called continuous planning, which involves a lot of operational planning and continued simulation. The planning process should be more collaborative and lean towards strategy and defining concrete ways of implementation," says Trbara.

The young team of Croatian software developers' desire is that planning with Farseer is something managers actually want to do, not something they have to do. In addition to implementing the system, they also offer planning and reporting consulting, as they point out that they want to help Croatian companies track global trends in this field. They continue to work with Zicer as part of their Startup Factory programme, they say, and have undergone an intensive education process, worked with top mentors and made valuable contacts, especially as young entrepreneurs seeking to improve their product and business skills.

Gaining additional experience, they completed the first version of Farseer, and the entire team is currently focused on selling and integrating Farseer with existing customer systems.

They received an incentive from HAMAG-BICRO to develop an innovative technical solution that will be used for the self-service integration of Farseer with ERP systems.

"Since companies abroad are more mature in the context of orderliness and automation, our primary focus will be on foreign markets, but we'll certainly continue to talk to regional companies and institutions, among which there are some bright examples," conclude Matija Nakic and Katarina Trbara.

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

"We're doing our best to share our journey with you as transparently as possible,'' Mate Rimac states when explaining his new YouTube show - Mondays with Mate, which is sure to quickly gain popularity among car lovers from around the world.

As Goran Jungvirth/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of January, 2020, beloved Croatian entreprneur Mate Rimac, as well as the social networking administrator of the wildly successful Croatian company Rimac Automobili are active on the internet and often publish news about the development of their electric vehicles, with which the world has fallen in love.

In addition, they've been known to make jokes about trends and challenges that ''haunt'' various social networks from time to time, which speaks of a well oiled (no pun intended) international communication strategy.

Recently, the company headquartered in Sveta Nedelja near Zagreb hired well-known Russian YouTuber and test driver Misha Charoudin, who will surely have some lessons to teach and tricks up his sleeve for Mate when ir comes to communicating with his followers and fans on a modern multimedia basis.

''Welcome to our new show 'Mondays with Mate', where our CEO and Founder Mate Rimac updates you on the latest developments within Rimac Automobili and our industry, but also shares his take on topics chosen by you.'' the video's description states.

"A little bit about 2019, some plans for 2020 and an opportunity to engage with our fans even more - where you can ask us anything, and we will answer the best questions every Monday," Mate wrote about the reasons and topics covered by the first three shows of Mondays with Mate which were posted on YouTube in January.

In addition to the ''challenges of building a hypercar,'' Mate talks about campus building plans, global company expansion, financial plans, and collaboration with big players in today's auto industry.

As an award, those who post some of the best comments on YouTube will also receive a company T-shirt featuring the extremely powerful electric car - the new ''Concept 2'' - with 1,914 horsepower and the most impressive acceleration in the world - up to 100 km/h in 1.97 seconds.

Follow our dedicated Made in Croatia and lifestyle pages for more.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of January, 2020, the Vodnjan-based IT giant Infobip has recently developed a new product that will be offered to their customers, with the announcement of additional employment of thousands of new employees, which is of course excellent news for the Croatian economy.

Infobip's new ''baby'' is a "chatbot platform" developed by many teams and departments within Infobip for six months. Speaking more specifically, it is a new computer programme that will soon be offered to clients who will be able to create their own "chatbot" on the Infobip platform, according to a report from local Istrian portal Glas Istre.

''The chatbot can be very simple and work on the principle of predefined questions and answers, but it can also be a complex computer programme which, by using artificial intelligence, that is, using machine learning and neural networks, can function as a digital assistant and can independently learn, develop and respond to much more complex queries,'' explained Kreso Zmak of the incredibly successful Infobip.

''The chatbot is a computer programme that simulates human conversation whereby end-user inquiries are processed and answered in a completely automated way. The chatbot can be very simple and work on the principle of predefined questions and answers, but it can also be a complex computer programme which, with the use of artificial intelligence, that is, using machine learning and neural networks, can function as a digital assistant and can independently learn, develop and respond to much more complex queries.

We created the chatbot platform as an innovative online solution because we realised that there was a need on the market as end users increasingly wanted to interact with businesses using conversational channels, such as chat applications like WhatsApp and Viber. Today, end users want quick feedback and assistance when using online services, and such a programme can enable them,'' explained Kreso Zmak, a product development director at Infobip.

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

As Lucija Spiljak/Ivan Tominac/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 17th of January, 2020, this year, for the first time, students in Croatia have competed in a new category - as financiers - with the aim of raising financial literacy among young people, and the winner was Dorian Antesic, a young Croat and a first year graduate student at the Faculty of Economics in Rijeka who was awarded 10,000 kuna.

The main sponsor of the financiers category is the well known AZ pension funds.

“If we want our young educated people to stay in Croatia then besides messages and wishes aimed at them, we must provide them with opportunities, projects and jobs that will really keep them here. In addition, it is crucial for young people to gain study experience so that they're more ready to engage in work processes as soon as they graduate and gain their first jobs,'' said Natasa Hrabar Kaštelan, Head of Marketing and Public Relations at AZ Pension Funds.

Dorian, the young Croat who created the platform, revealed that during his studies he was ambitious and had a curious and restless spirit, so in his fresh CV there are various things listed - from conference organisation to project management and teams within the AIESEC youth organisation in Rijeka, as well as having done a semiannual student exchange in Prague.

He learned about the Hrvatska pamet Hrvatskoj (Croatian talent for Croatia) project through the internet and when he read all the categories, he realised that he had the ideal project for the latest category - Financier.

“At the time, I was just writing a final paper on the topic of a Student Investment Fund and thinking that it would be great to launch something like that in Croatia. I'd already briefly made a plan for establishing such a fund in Croatia when I saw an advertisement for Hrvatska pamet Hrvatskoj and I immediately decided that I'd elaborate on this plan a little better and send it to the tender,'' explained the innovative young Croat.

The Stoik Student Investment Fund is a student-managed investment fund. It is designed as an organisation where students learn about investing and then invest real money in the financial market. Within the organisation, numerous workshops, lectures and courses on investing in the financial market will be set up, and the students, imitating the work of a real investment fund, will invest real money that they collect from sponsors.

This will give the students the knowledge of investing, but most importantly, they will have the confidence to start investing on their own with their own money. Dorian got the idea while researching the topic for his final paper.

"I came across a concept of learning through student investment funds that was started in the US, and I became interested immediately. An additional motive was that there is no literature on such funds in the Croatian language, so my final work under the name Student Investment Funds is the only one in our language so far,'' the student notes.

The categories have been refreshed with one new one, explained Hrabar Kaštelan. The Financier category is intended for students who share interests such as Dorian's, and through their engagement, they can become partners and advisors in the development of new business ideas.

“It seemed like a good idea to encourage students to think of ways to get their own population interested in topics in the areas of finance and the work of pension and other funds. We're pleased to see how young people think and how they can be partners and advisors in projects like this. I think, both in business and in working on new projects, it's a winning combination of experience on the one hand and ideas and freshness on the other. It would be great if some good ideas really came to fruition,'' added Hrabar Kaštelan.

Hrvatska pamet Hrvatskoj ended only a week ago, but this talented young Croat is already launching a larger project - Dorean Finance.

“The project will bring together students interested in finance and economics from around the world. I plan to incorporate Stoik within the project as well,'' announced the student, who has a lot of work to do, but at the same time, he is accompanied by enthusiasm and excitement.

“Since I needed to write a project plan to go to the second round, I've learned a lot; from strategic thinking, analysis and planning to rationality and 'going back down to earth' regarding some goals. Hrvatska pamet Hrvatskoj gives students a longer application period, which actually makes it easier for students to write in, in addition to their student responsibilities. I hope that more people will follow my example, especially my colleagues from the University of Rijeka,'' said Dorian Antesic.

This ambitious young Croat is interested in business, finance and investment, hopes to someday travel the world and work, but ultimately, he wants Croatia to be his home in which to grow his community.

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