As Novac writes on the 18th of January, 2020, at the Faculty of Textile Technology in Zagreb, professors and students have designed and patented so-called smart clothing. Among the smart clothing is a jacket that feels and thinks for you, according to a report from Zimo.

''It is no different from ordinary clothing, but when you look inside you can see the built-in chambers that are thermo-insulating,'' explains Dr. Dubravko Rogale.

These chambers regulate heat by blowing in or blowing out air. Everything is controlled by a pocket-sized computer. This means that you can choose the temperature you like, regardless of the outside temperature.

This is a seemingly ordinary-looking jacket, but it's far more than that. It contains a smart sleeve that has a mechanism that tells people with dementia to wake up, eat breakfast, take a pill... and anything else that can help them and make their lives a little bit easier.

Commands - both audible and visual, can be sent to the jacket by a mobile phone or by a computer by a doctor or guardian. A built-in GPS system is available to help find a person if he or she goes astray. This type of smart clothing can also be used by children.

''For example, there can be a circle within which the child can be, if the child leaves the circle, an alert can be sent to the child's parents, that the child has left wherever the circle is, and that the child is located here or there,'' says Snježana Firšt Rogale .

Smart pajamas, which could prevent sudden infant death and also help those suffering from apnea, are the latest invention of this innovative Croatian team.

''The textile sensor sends us a signal to us that the baby is breathing. At the moment when the baby stops breathing there is no signal and then it will send an alarm through the microprocessor to the person in charge,'' emphasises Željko Knezić.

Prototype wires will be replaced by wireless technology.

One of the many inventions made in this lab is a smart bag that protects against theft. It works in a way that when someone unlocks the bag without the owner noticing, the bracelet on the arm instantly alerts the owner with vibrations and light. There is also a cycling jacket with turn signals.

This talented team isn't lacking in the smart clothing idea department and they mostly finance the projects themselves. So far, 72 medals for innovation have been won in Croatia and across the world. In order for these patents not only to remain on models, they need partners to commercialise them.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sasa Paparella writes on the 16th of January, 2020, just a few months after graduation, young Ivan Milkovic decided to transfer the theoretical knowledge he acquired at the Faculty of Economics to doing business in Zagreb, and opened Milky pancakes in Dubrava back in 2014.

He used an easy-to-remember derivative of his surname and went into business with 12,000 euros in family savings. In the first five years of its establishment, its brand has expanded not only in Croatia, but also in the surrounding countries - Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania.

In all these countries, he designed a pancake chain that employs more than 200 people. Three Milky's have been opened in Zagreb so far, two in Split, Belgrade (Serbia) and Sarajevo (BiH), and one in Banja Luka (BiH), Mostar (BiH), Nis (Serbia), Novi Sad (Serbia), Novi Pazar (Serbia), Podgorica (Montenegro), Bar (Montenegro), Tirana (Albania), Skopje (Macedonia) and Kragujevac (Serbia). Milky pancakes are planned in Istanbul (Turkey), Vienna (Austria), Ljubljana (Slovenia), and Zurich (Switzerland), and a couple of inquiries have arrived from Germany. Although there are about fifteen different pancake shops in Zagreb today, only Milky pancakes has made it abroad.

After the Milky pancakes brand managed to establish itself regionally, most of these pancake shops now operate as franchises. The money invested brings given know-how and marketing, and the biggest expense for any potential investor is the pancake room. Milkovic retained a 50 percent stake in the shops in Belgrade, Banja Luka, Bar, and the one set to open in Istanbul.

"Belgrade is doing great, we employ 40 people there, it's amazing how much Serbs spend on going out! The prices of our pancakes are very similar to those in Croatia, and although salaries are much lower in Serbia, turnover is very good.

The situation is similar in Banja Luka, where we have a space of 300 square metres and seventeen employees. I'm satisfied with the business in our neighbouring countries, and I've left Croatia to others. I no longer had the nerve to pay unreasonable tax penalties. I definitely gave up when the VAT on catering was increased, it killed us,'' Milkovic said, explaining why it's easier for him to do business in other countries.

He decided to use the expansion in the region to promote Croatian products. "I withdrew Podravka's chocolate spreads in BiH, Serbia and Albania. I told them I was promoting their products, I expected some reaction, maybe for them to co-finance that promotion on the markets that are important to them, but no, there was none of that," says Milkovic, who then began making his own brand of spreads.

When starting a business, the biggest problem was convincing people that it made sense to give 30 kuna for pancakes. "The comment was always the same - ''For that money I can make tonnes of pancakes at home!''

Over time, guests began to realise that pancakes from Milky pancakes look much better than their home-made ones, they're more imaginative, and going to Milky pancakes is also a reason to go out.

He came up with many combinations, and admits that he didn't have to type them all into a computer, he just listed various items and left the guests to arrange their own pancakes.

"You start with an empty pancake, which costs 13 kuna, and then add what you want, from the type of spreads to, if you like it, whipped cream or ground almonds on top. The guests themselves combine whether they want Nutella, Kinder bueno, ice cream, strawberries, mousse, coconut, Oreo biscuits, fruits of the forest... I still come up with some novelties, for example, I introduced protein pancakes. Part of the competition is stealing ideas from us, but it doesn't matter, we're constantly coming up with something new. Of course, the raw material is also important, for example, we use premium Callebaut chocolate,'' reveals Milkovic.

The pancake mix for all Milky pancakes is made in the same factory in Zagreb.

He got the idea of ​​a pancake house about ten years ago, but only after graduation did he do anything about it.

"When I graduated from university, I first went to the employment service, they offered me a job as an intern for 1600 kuna, which I refused. Then they offered me self-employment assistance, they asked me for project documentation. The condition was that I should not open a company until they they give an opinion on my project and their response time is 90 days,'' explained Milkovic, detailing the draconian Croatian business attitude and why he steered away from going the normal route, using his own cash instead.

The first Milky pancakes opened back in 2014 in Dubrava, Zagreb. He found a 28 square metre store in a busy location, "there were a lot of young people there who could be attracted by our products. The shop used to be a used goods store, then a gold buy-back shop... so it was hard at first and it was difficult for people to accept that something could be eaten there now. I was doing everything to attract attention, I was even hanging balloons in the surrounding trees," Milkovic recalled.

He used pallets and brick walls in the shop's landscaping, but the ''competent'' inspectors from the responsible authority didn't like the industrial style, so he was denied a permit to continue, with the justification that the ''space was unfinished''.

"The inspection refused me because they weren't used to spaces made of pallets and brick walls. Only after proving with certificates that the paint on the wall was washable and easily maintained did I get a permit to work,"s added Milkovic.

Then, one year later in 2015, he opened a shop in Spansko, also in Zagreb. He decorated it with car headlights and car seats. As business went well, competition appeared in Dubrava and Milkovic moved to a larger neighbourhood. His competition failed after just one year. The third Milky pancakes opened back in 2016 in Sredisce, Novi Zagreb. In the meantime, he abandoned minimalism in landscaping and invested as much as 100,000 euros in the renovation of 100 square metres of the space.

"If I knew how much it would end up costing me, I'd never have embarked on an adaptation! Although banks seem to be offering increasingly affordable solutions, in Croatia, young people have a hard time getting a loan," Milkovic says. For now, he is not considering expanding to downtown Zagreb: "the rent is too high there. We work with a solid margin, but the price and quantity of the pancakes sold is not enough to cover that cost."

He covers that part of Zagreb with the help of the popular Glovo delivery service, with whom he started working to fill in the gaps in the morning, and now his revenue from deliveries has reached 50 percent of total traffic. Having conquered the region with Milky pancakes, he can now devote himself to other ideas - his own line of chocolate spreads, as well as frozen pancakes for cafes, restaurants and shops.

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A Vodnjan company called Sentinel Marine Solution has signed a contract with the Hanse Group, which entered into the OEM segment and thus opened the door to mass production for shipbuilders.

As Novac/Jozo Vrdoljak/Privredni.hr writes on the 14th of January, 2020, the Vodnjan company Sentinel Marine Solution, with the exception of Vodnjan, has offices in Zagreb and Ljubljana (Slovenia), along with its manufacturing facility. The sixteen employees who work there are focused on development, aided by the 1 million euro venture capital fund of South Central Ventures and the capital of several other partners.

''After five years of development, we've been recognised by the world's largest players such as the Hanse Group, the second largest yacht and motorboat manufacturer in the world. Each of their ships will have a Sentinel system and will be on the Sentinel platform. In addition to them, we collaborate with the brands Fjord, Sealine, Privilege, Dehler, Moody... Our system is also used by Beneteau First and many well-known shipbuilders from Australia to America.

Sentinel also successfully integrates partner technologies such as Torqeedo's electric motors or CZone's most famous digital switching and monitoring provider. Even the great Garmin Marine has chosen Sentinel for its own product range as a telematics solution for business clients, shipbuilders. What we do with shipyards involves a lengthy process, and the results of collaborating with big names are now visible. We've developed into an independent company that operates well,'' explained Draško Andrić, sales and development manager of the Vodnjan company.

Sentinel Marine Solution was launched as a Slovenian-Croatian startup, initially as a basic monitoring model for all ship's devices and a provider of marine internet for private users and charter fleets. In just a few years, Sentinel has become the market leader in developing technologies for smart ships. One of Sentinel's first clients was Jack Shuri, a pioneer of the charter industry in the Croatian part of the Adriatic sea, which he supported at an early stage of development.

''In addition to Surija, the first users were the pioneers of the charter industry in Croatia, such as Ivica Buble, the owner of Dalmatia charter from Trogir. The Sentinel Boat Monitor is actually a gateway that collects all the data on all instruments on board that are connected to the NMEA 2000 network. The read condition communicates with our main gateway, after which any warnings are sent to the shipowner or someone who maintains it.

It's a standard that sets itself as the future of all nautics. Shipbuilders are now our focus. It's a platform that enables the communication of all of the ship's devices and the ship, that is, its users for the purpose of a better navigation experience and easier and cheaper maintenance of the vessel. Due to complete control of our own system, we have our own production of hardware and software, which is a great advantage for us, but it's also necessary if you want to work with the Tier 1 sector,'' stated Andrić.

According to Draško Andrić, today, the Sentinel Marine Solution (in-house solution) is a leader in the market for connected vessel technology, a huge title for this Vodnjan company.

''The service is completely in-house, which means that every aspect of it has been developed in Sentinel. This gives us stability and a system independent of external partnership development. Sentinel's advantage and strength lies in the fact that it can connect to all ship systems and interact with almost all instruments on board, read them and understand what happens on board when no one is aboard,'' he explained.

In the last four to five years, Sentinel has, according to this Vodnjan company's managers, become a leading provider of monitoring services in the Adriatic and worldwide.

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Slavonia is constantly overlooked in favour of either the rest of continental Croatia, the City of Zagreb, and of course, the glorious Adriatic coast, which, with its glitz, glam and fancy yachts is a far cry from the often harsh and sad realities of life in the Eastern Croatian region of Slavonia. It isn't just tourism that is lacking, but industry. With people abandoning this part of Croatia in their droves, could Croatian industrial hemp perhaps revitalise production in the east?

As Novac writes on the 11th of January, 2020, Marinko Marušić, director and one of the founders and owners of a company from Donji Miholjac which grows and processes Croatian industrial hemp and sells food and cosmetics from this valuable plant stated that his story began ten years ago.

''Our story began a decade ago when Croatia revitalised the cultivation, processing and sale of Croatian industrial hemp, which has long been in disrepute. Initially, we went ahead rather intensively with our research. After seven years of learning in collaboration with the profession, as of last year we began to develop the brand Miholjačka hemp, because, analysing the microclimatic position, we realised that the area along the Drava river is a godsend for growing high quality hemp,'' pointed out Marušić.

In addition to oil, seeds, protein flour and teas sold under the brand Miholjačka hemp, they also sell other products such as chips, candies, chocolates, and other types of snacks.

According to Marusic, who spoke with local portal Glas Slavonije, Miholjačka hemp was created as a project of many years of research by enthusiasts whose goal has been to return top quality products from plant and Croatian industrial hemp seeds to Slavonian fields and to promote both nutritional and health values.

''The profession has been following us from the beginning. We cooperate with the faculties of agriculture in Osijek and Zagreb, the companies Saponia and Kandit in Osijek, Kanaan from Donji Miholjac and Meden from Sveti Đurđ. We can produce top quality raw materials, but food and cosmetics require certain standards,'' he explains.

In addition, their company brings together several subcontractors, with whom they sow Croatian industrial hemp on about thirty hectares of land in the area of ​​Donji Miholjac and its immediate surroundings.

''We're constantly working on developing new products, increasing their quality and expanding our sales here in Croatia. We've also dipped our toes into cooperation with companies from America, Portugal, Spain and Brazil. In addition, Saponia is accompanying us in its research laboratory to develop new formulas for obtaining hemp-containing products.

Generally speaking, our idea is first of all to brand Eastern Croatia as a centre for hemp, which in itself will allow us and all other growers to have a much easier time on foreign markets. I think that hemp can revive neglected land resources in the area,'' concluded Marušić.

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The Zagreb-based technology firm Serengeti is focusing on developing its business west, not east.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 5th of January, 2020, the first Croatian software company, which the dominant, Indian outsourcing model turned upside down and made emerge as the third fastest growing technology company in Central Europe has maintained its impressive high growth rates.

Zagreb's Serengeti, which employed 80 software professionals back in 2018, will conclude this year with more than 170 employees, 140 of them are in development alone, with revenue expected to grow by as much as 50 percent. According to Fina, Serengeti concluded last year with a massive 35.4 million kuna in revenue, and this year, with the currently projected growth, it expects revenue above 50 million kuna.

Zoran Kovacevic, director of development at Serengeti, says they aim to grow to 500 employees in the next three to five years. In doing so, he emphasises that this will be mostly influenced by the trend of business development on more western markets.

"We grew last year because of the significant influx of new clients, both in Croatia and Europe, especially the DACH region, Benelux and Scandinavia, because there is a great need to develop IT solutions everywhere, as between 60 and 80 percent of companies cannot find the right experts on their own markets,'' says Kovacevic.

He added that Zagreb's Serengeti has found its market space in software development services that include a very wide range of emerging technological trends: machine learning, IoT, augmented reality, computer visions, cloud, microservices, automated testing and DevOps. He stated that they opened an office in Amsterdam a year ago.

"It just isn't possible to succeed today if you don't have a global perspective,'' Kovacevic says. He points out that this is the natural evolution of their business and the plan of the business owners started to realise six years ago when they got their first customers in Western Europe.

"Now that growth is accelerating, in 2020 we're opening an office in Germany and we're considering opening some more offices abroad," Kovacevic says. He explains that their plan is to become a significant player at the European level, and potentially globally.

"However, I think it's important that from the beginning, the emphasis is placed on developing business westward, not eastward, such as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, because that seems to us to be a more stable development path in the long term," Kovacevic says.

In development, he explains, Serengeti is growing strongly through software development projects in industrial manufacturing, then in the healthcare, automotive and financial industries, and then in logistics and energy. The Croatian software company mainly develops and maintains core systems in the insurance, banking and card business in the financial industry. They help banks to transform themselves technologically towards open banking by moving them to the so-called microservice architecture and cloud. Regarding software development in industrial production, Serengeti works for the Austrian company Fronius.

The company develops and manufactures welding stations used by several well-known car manufacturers in its product lines, and has expanded from battery manufacturing to the production of key equipment and solutions for solar power plants. "We're working on a solution that further facilitates the development of a robotic welding station in line with Industry 4.0 trends, as well as a solution that integrates individual components of solar power plants into one globally integrated system," says Kovacevic.

In logistics, they work with KNAPP to operate a warehouse management system that uses robots, artificial intelligence, IoT and augmented reality, where the goal is to make the entire warehouse fully automated. In addition to working abroad, Serengeti has also managed to develop part of its business in Croatia.

"We've grown locally in public and financial sector jobs, with over half of our employees working in the financial sector, and in this industry, we've grown into one of the leading IT companies in Croatia," Kovacevic points out.

He adds that they have worked on large scale public sector IT systems and development projects and are working with Fina and APIS IT in these types of jobs. He points out that such jobs are done solely through a public tender and are very carefully selected. Kovacevic explains that they see their role in such jobs as a kind of socially useful work, "because with the rich experience and knowledge we've gained on numerous domestic and foreign projects, we can help in the effective computerisation of public administration."

"We're almost exclusively submitting to tenders that are defined to allow for great advancements in our level of quality of service and delivery,'' he adds.

He states that they also cooperate with Mercury Processing International and RBA here in Croatia.

"It was attractive to us to engage in projects where we used a complete cross-section of open-source technologies, event-driven design and microservice architecture, all using the DevOps approach and achieving continuous integration (CI) and even continuous deployment (CD) practices. These practices, such as Facebook, can quickly release new software releases, and this offers them, among other things, unprecedented benefits in realising new functionality and managing IT security risks,'' concludes Serengeti's Kovacevic.

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As Novac writes on the 29th of December, 2019, everything went much more spontaneously than it did in a planned fashion when it comes to these Sesvete chocolates that have won over Japanese customers, acting as yet another example of just how successful the ''Made in Croatia'' tag could really be for this little country.

''My father had had a plan in his mind for ages to produce some authentic Croatian desserts, chocolate balls. Four years ago, when the possibility to obtain EU funds was opened, we decided to take a chance,'' recalls Fran Reizl, the son of the owner of the Sesvete family-owned chocolate factory - Vrsna.

Together with his mother Jozefin and his father Mirko, the small factory produces handmade pralines, truffles, white, milk and dark chocolates that have broken through the borders of Croatia and have become popular even in Japan.

''My parents founded a consumer goods distribution company 20 years ago. They mostly imported sweets, biscuits and chocolates. Over time, these jobs were less and less fulfilling. During this time I studied design. After graduation, I worked for a short time in an agency, but I wasn't satisfied with that. I decided to try to work with my parents, even though that was never my plan,'' explains Fran.

With the help of EU funds, they were able to equip a small factory for the production of the Sesvete chocolates, and as Fran explains, it took them almost two years to master the craft.

''At first, we had no idea what we were doing. We'd get the temperatures wrong, then we'd put the chocolate in the fridge and everything would crust over. I had some crazy combinations in my head, like olive oil in chocolate, which was a total failure… We had total chaos in the kitchen. Chocolate was all over the walls too,'' he said.

Although these Sesvete chocolates are of course made here in Croatia, they do not process raw cocoa themselves, they buy it from a French-Belgian company as raw material, which they then process according to their own recipes in Sesvete near Zagreb.

The first brand with which they bravely came to the market was white chocolate with black dots, called Dalmatiner. After that, they just kept on throwing out new products. This year, they grabbed more attention with the first pink chocolate made in Croatia - Ruby. The price of their chocolates ranges from 30 to 35 kuna. They are of course more expensive than chocolates from major manufacturers, reports tportal.

''That chocolate has no artificial colour and doesn't contain any berries. The natural colour of cocoa seeds is rosy. Chocolate makers discovered just two years ago that it can be preserved if the cocoa is kept in lemon juice for 24 hours. And there's the secret for you,'' he adds.

Reiz currently has more than fifty brands, all of which have been made in Croatia, out on the market. In addition to chocolates, there are various types of pralines and truffles under their name, too. Almost 40 percent of their production is exported to the markets of Japan, Australia and Austria, and may soon be present in neighbouring Montenegro, and even in the United Arab Emirates and in Pakistan.

''Most of our customers came to us alone. They would taste our products and that would interest them. The story with the Japanese is interesting. I got an email from their big distribution house. At first, I thought someone was messing with me because it seemed too good to be true. But then their representative came to us by plane directly from Japan. She was with us for an hour and immediately returned home. The Japanese are our favourite customers now. They're particularly delighted by our family story. They want us for long-term partners,'' says Fran proudly.

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As Morski writes on the 17th of December, 2019, the processing of the steel for New Construction (Novogradnja) 485 has begun today in Split's Brodosplit shipyard on the sheet metal cutting machine. This marks the beginning of the construction of a polar cruise ship contracted for the well known Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions.

''The first ship is the pride of the shipyard, made during the restructuring and with new software tools. Namely, we're the first in the niche of polar cruisers, in the class ''LR PC6'' we came out with this boat, and it was made on time and in top quality and on budget, and this resulted in another order. This vessel's completion is scheduled for the 2021 Arctic season. We plan to hand it over even earlier. The earnings on this ship should be about 10 percent of its value,'' said Tomislav Debeljak, CEO of Brodosplit.

The ceremony was attended by Zvonimir Novak, Assistant Minister of Economy, and Ruđer Friganović, Director of Croatia's Jadranbrod, as well as numerous contracting representatives and construction partners.

Following the handover of ''Hondius'' back in May this year, a contract was signed at Brodosplit for the construction of another ship of the same dimensions, the so-called ''sister ship'' for the same contracting authority, which gave the Dutch company the best possible opportunity to showcase their satisfaction with the quality of the work done in Brodosplit and the completion of the construction of the contracted ships within their prescribed deadlines.

''When we decided to build a ship like this, no shipyard in the Netherlands or Germany could give me a guarantee that the ship would be completed within the time limit we wanted. Because of this, we contacted the management of the Brodosplit shipyard, which accepted our construction deadlines and guaranteed that the ship would be completed on time. And they did all that was agreed.

It isn't easy to build a ship like this, but with the cooperation of our team of experts and experts from the Split shipyard, the ship was built within the agreed deadline. That's why I decided that we'd build another ship in Split,'' stated Wijnand van Gessel, the owner of Oceanwide Expeditions back during the handover in May.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 16th of December, 2019, the Croatian company Metus Group, which specialises in the design, installation and maintenance of residential, public and commercial elevators, has unveiled its new, innovative manufacturing facility and the impressive Marly-B Croatian elevator.

The presentation was officially opened by Mr. Fredrik Sederholm, a board member and a representative of Sdiptech AB - a reputable Swedish strategic fund, who also happens to be the majority owner of the Metus Group. The new production facility, located in Farkaševac close to Samobor, covers 1,400 quare metres and is a modern facility that ensures the production of elevators to the highest of standards.

In addition to the members of Metus Group's management, the opening was attended by a number of prominent business partners from here in Croatia and from Europe.

Founded back in 2009, Metus Group has been focused on providing top quality design, installation and repair services for elevators with 24-hour support available to customers since its very inception, and today, this Croatian company employs over three hundred employees, thus making a significant and positive impact on the domestic economy in continental Croatia.

Headquartered in Sveta Nedelja near Zagreb, Metus Group, through its many affiliates in Croatia's immediate region, collaborates with a number of renowned vertical transportation companies such as Thyssen Krupp, Schindler, Kone, Otis, and Tepper here in Croatia, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and in Austria.

''Our current position reflects the strength and expertise of our 320 employees who are the bearers of the excellent results of Metus Group in Croatia and beyond its borders. It is my personal honour and privilege to be part of such a successful collective.

This week, we officially opened a brand new, modern production facility with the goal of putting the focus on intensifying production and strengthening our Marly-B brand. It's a modern, functional, quality and affordable preference-adapted elevator in Croatia, with which we want to further strengthen our position here on the domestic market.'' they say from Metus Group.

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When Croatian scientist Dr. Ivana Capan first announced back in the autumn of 2016 that she would develop the prototype of a sophisticated nuclear material control detector with an international team of collaborators, it sounded like an optimistic vision and not much more. We couldn't have been more wrong.

As Novac/Tanja Rudez writes on the 13th of December, 2019, three years later, Dr. Ivana Capan of the Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB), fulfilled her promise and recently presented a detector for cargo control and the discovery of special nuclear materials for seaports at a press conference.

This sophisticated silicon carbide-based neutron detector was developed as part of the E-SiCURE project, one of the largest projects in NATO's Science for Peace and Security programme in Croatia. As the head of the 400,000 euro E-SiCURE project, this Croatian scientist assembled a respectable international team of scientists from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, from the Aveiro University of Portugal, from Japan's National Institute of Quantum and Radiological Sciences and Technology, and from the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

''As I deal with semiconductors that are the basis of microelectronics and electronics, I'm interested in concrete applications. I was thinking about how to find a small niche where we'd have enough knowledge on it, and this would not require some sophisticated equipment, so I decided to research silicon carbide material. It's an excellent material and is currently being produced in maximum quantities in Japan. As I have colleagues in Japan, they've been my ideal partners. So, we started gathering one consortium that covers everything from material research right up to the finished device. Because our device has a security component, NATO was a logical choice as a source of funding to support such a consortium,'' this innovative Croatian scientist recalled.

She also stressed that everything evolved rapidly: from the very first contact between the members of the consortium to the start of work on the E-SiCURE project (Modifying silicon carbide for enhanced security at borders and ports). Of the 396,500 euros, which is how much this project is worth, as much as 31 percent of the funds have now arrived where they need to be in Croatia.

''Current neutron detectors are mainly based on He-3, a naturally occurring helium isotope. The helium isotope used until recently is a legacy of the Cold War, and its supplies are projected to be completely consumed in the next ten years. Therefore, scientists are trying to find quality new materials for detector development,'' said Dr. Capan, adding that the idea was to make an inexpensive neutron detector that would be easy to use.

''For the past three years, we've devoted ourselves to seeing if we can make such a detector at all. And we did it: the whole system is complete, and it's simple - plug it into a laptop and see the signal right away.

Our detector is one to four square millimetres in size. With it, for example, we can detect neutrons from so-called ''dirty'' nuclear bombs. This makes this detector specific and harder to create. We're now working on its further development and we've already signed up for the continuation of the project, in NATO, too. The results of the tender will be announced early next year,'' said Dr. Capan.

One end user of this very sophisticated device could be Croatia's own customs administration, but so far, only the Slovenian Ministry of the Environment, more specifically the Nuclear Safety Administration, has shown interest.

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As Marta Duic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 12th of December, 2019, the talented and innovative Croatian entrepreneur Ivan Mrvoš, the founder and CEO of the remarkable company Include, one of the leading Croatian manufacturers of smart solutions, has won a prestigious award for his impressive efforts.

On Wednesday at the Croatian Music Institute, the Croatian entrepreneur attended the awards ceremony and took home an award. This award ceremony in the one in which National Geographic Croatia presented its awards to individuals, teams, companies and institutions that contribute the most to sustainability in the Republic of Croatia.

To be more specific, National Geographic Croatia presented a long-term project called "Žuti okvir" back at the beginning of this year, with the motto "We inspire people to care for their planet" attached to it. The United Nations (UN) has identified as many as seventeen sustainable development goals that will ensure the survival of both planet Earth and human civilisation, and if you operate within those seventeen categories, you could win an award.

Croatian entrepreneur Ivan Mrvoš therefore received an award in the category of ''affordable and clean energy", and his tireless determination to keep pushing his company, Include, further and further are likely to see many more awards from where that one came from.

"Four years ago, when we started our smart bench project and the company, we didn't expect that more than two million people would be using our products annually across 51 markets worldwide.

More than 1,300 of our products have produced over 40,000 kWh of energy from renewable sources so far, reducing CO2 production. This may not be a big figure today, but I believe that over the years, more and more of our products, which will also be based on renewable energy sources, will contribute to reducing CO2 globally and thus provide a better future for generations to come,'' Mrvoš said.

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