May the 30th, 2023 - The very first Croatian Infobip Shift conference across the pond in the US city of Miami has ended in success. This utterly remarkable domestic company has taken not only Croatia and the immediate region by storm, but the rest of the continent as well. It seems the United States of America is its next conquest for recognition.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the first Croatian Infobip Shift conference programme to take to US shores was opened by the talented and ever-innovative Silvio Kutic, the co-founder and executive director of Infobip.

The American Shift conference hosted an extremely diverse developer audience, and speakers from some of today's most prominent technology companies, as well as many of Infobip's North American partners. All of those involved in the organisation of the conference have confirmed a return to the US next year as well.

"The Croatian Infobip Shift conference here in Miami represents a significant step forward for Infobip on the American market, which is very important for us. Holding the conference on two continents in one year and the level of expressed interest from the audience have well and truly confirmed to us that the developer community recognises the quality of the conference", said Silvio Kutic.

Thematically speaking, the conference covered a wide range of topics of interest to the wider developer public, and will no doubt do exceptionally well in further positioning the truly innovative Croatian company Infobip on the demanding American market.

For more on Croatian companies, innovation and entrepreneurs, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

July 16, 2021 - The Infobip Shift conference will be held this September in Zadar as the largest developer event in Europe this year!

After acquiring Shift, Infobip, the leading IT company in Croatia and the region, announced its plans for the upcoming Infobip Shift conference, which will be held on September 7 and 8 this year in Zadar at the Krešimir Ćosić Hall. The developer conference will bring together over three thousand people over two days, making this edition the largest developer event in Europe this year, reports Dalmatinski Portal. 

After Infobip organized its own DevDays development conference for many years, with the acquisition of Shift, both conferences were merged into one technology festival during which the best speakers from the developer world will gather, 60 in total, from companies such as Microsoft, Google, Adobe and many others. The Infobip Shift conference program will be held simultaneously on five stages. There will be three main stages, one intended for workshops, and the entire program will be rounded off by startups that will present their ideas and products on the Startup Tribe stage. With a rich conference program, time and a place for socializing and meetings have been provided, for which a thousand square meters are planned in front of the hall.

After the founder and executive director of the Shift conference, Ivan Burazin, was appointed a member of the Management Board for development experience at Infobip, his longtime associate Marin Tomičić was appointed project manager of the Infobip Shift conference.

"In a little less than two months, something truly unseen awaits us in this area. The program will be opened and closed by the performances of the co-founders of Infobip, Izabel Jelenić, and Silvio Kutić. In addition, we were able to secure the arrival of the world’s greatest speakers like David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the Ruby on Rails framework, and Val Head coming ahead of global IT giant Adobe. Finally, of course, we also took care of the part of the conference that guarantees fun, so that all visitors will be able to enjoy a unique afterparty after the end of the program. The young and motivated team gathered around the organization of this event is working hard to justify the high expectations and trust," said Marin Tomičić, project manager of the Infobip Shift conference.

He added that Infobip has almost 500 developers in Vodnjan, Zagreb, Split, and Rijeka, who come from all over Croatia.

"Previous editions of the Shift conference were held in Split, while Infobip DevDays were held in Tuhelj. In the wake of this rich spread, we decided that the Infobip Shift conference in the coming years, starting with this one, will tour the whole of Croatia without a fixed location. We want the conference to be held at a different location every year. Therefore, we decided to hold this year's edition on the coast in Zadar," he said.

The tenth jubilee edition of the conference will not only be bigger than any Shift so far, but the whole experience of following the conference will reach an unprecedented level. From speakers, partners and startups, to organizational meetings and educational workshops - Infobip Shift will be the most influential developer event this year.

"My vision since 2012 has been to create the largest global development conference, but also to strengthen Croatia's connection with the world development scene. Over the years, we have grown, and we are getting closer to our goal. With Infobip, we got what we lacked - the support of a large company to give the domestic conference that global caliber and become the leader," said Ivan Burazin, a member of the Board for Development Experience at Infobip.

Join the two-day Infobip Shift conference on September 7 and 8 this year. Discover the latest technologies and learn all from the world's top developers. More information about the conference, tickets, and schedule can be found on the official website of Infobip Shift.

For more on lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

Apil 11, 2021 - The largest Croatian software company Infobip acquires Split Shift Conference, just after taking over US company OpenMarket.

In the next few years, Split will become the center of the world. At least in one thing. The first Croatian unicorn startup Infobip has completed its second acquisition, reports Novac.Jutanji.hr.

After a $300 million acquisition of a rival American company, OpenMarket, Infobip has decided to acquire a Croatian company. Namely, they have acquired the largest conference for computer programmers in Southeast Europe, Split Shift Conference.

The reason? The largest Croatian software company wants to create the largest developer conference in the world, in Croatia.

Developers are considered to be developers, but also all others who work on software development. The first step on that path will be the Infobip Shift Dev conference announced for September at the Spaladium Arena.

Izabel Jelenić, co-founder and technical director of Infobip, says that he will not announce the transaction's value.

"This is an important acquisition with which Infobip is making a strategic shift in business by focusing on developers, internal and external," says Jelenić.

He adds that the founder and director of Shift Conference, Ivan Burazin, became a member of the Infobip board for developer experience. Burazin will head the so-called Developer Experience department within the company.

Jelenić states that this department's goal is to create the largest global development conference and introduce and implement various initiatives to strengthen the development community.

Software companies compete globally for the market with classic sales and a presence in the developer community. Many build their own development communities, which know their software and thus make potential corporate customers more willing to acquire their own software products.

"We are all excited about this new collaboration. We have known Ivan Burazin for a long time, and we believe that we all have wonderful and great things ahead of us," says Jelenić.

Infobip itself, which has surpassed 3,000 employees in Europe, both the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia, internally has more than 800 developers.

Jelenić says that they are making huge progress in terms of the external development community.

"We realize them through numerous initiatives, such as our Dev Days conference, as well as by opening our products to end-users, in this case, developers," explains Jelenić.

It is less well known that Infobip has been organizing its own Dev Deyse development conferences since 2015. In Tuheljske Toplice, they would gather more than 500 programmers, mostly their own. At the last physical conference in 2019, Mate Rimac, Damir Sabol, and Ivan Burazin were guests at Dev Days.

Dev Days also attracted global program stars. They hosted Juergen Hoeller, co-founder and one of the key people of the Spring framework, a programming environment in which corporations worldwide develop more than half of their software.

But that conference never competed with Shift, which from the start was mostly geared towards the global community, so it remained smaller and focused on internal education at Infobip.

"We continue to organize the Dev Days conference, which we will now, with the acquisition of Shift, further improve and enrich with the experience and production brought by Shift. The level above this whole story is the third day of the conference, which is open to the public, and Infobip Shift will now take the stage," Jelinić emphasizes.

On the other hand, Shift has branched out in recent years, so it has started organizing conferences on fintech, artificial intelligence, and other topics. But his strongest product is still the Shift Dev conference for developers.

Before the pandemic, in 2019, Shift Dev gathered 1300 participants from all over the world in Split.

The conference, which has grown into the largest such event in Southeast Europe, is attended by top developers from Booking, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Shopify.

But also several programming stars such as PHP creator Rasmus Lerdorf and CSS creator Håkon Wium Lie.

Ivan Burazin is convinced that with Infobip, they can scale Shift into the world's largest developer conference and emphasizes that he did not decide to sell because of the pandemic.

"Last year was certainly harder for us than the previous ones, but when it comes to finances, we concluded it better than 2019, which was the best year for Shift ever. This year we are planning a completely new, sensational level - a developer conference that would be even bigger than any edition of Shift so far," concludes Burazin.

To read more about business in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

September 15, 2020 - The Shift Conference, a two-day open-air and hybrid developer conference, is specifically created to continue the tradition of delivering educational and inspirational talks for the developer community, but in a format fit for the world we live in today.

Split.hr reports that Shift, the largest developer conference in Southeast Europe, was opened in the ambiance of century-old pine trees of Sustipan park in Split. Respecting the prescribed epidemiological measures, numerous renowned IT experts and representatives of the international development scene gathered in one place. They were welcomed on behalf of the Split Mayor by Antonija Eremut Erceg, Director of the Development Agency Split-RaST.

Eremut Erceg stated that the City of Split strongly supports the development of IT technologies through its development plans. Thus, she also mentioned the technology park project in Dracevac as a future place to birth new information and top technologies.

"The City of Split also financially supports this conference, which in recent years has positioned our city and Croatia as an unavoidable point on the world map of the information industry, one of the fastest-growing business industries in the world," said the head of the Split Development Agency.

Addressing the guests, Split-Dalmatia County Prefect Blazenko Boban said that even the coronavirus pandemic did not prevent the conference from being held. The city under Marjan affirmed itself as an IT scene on the global map.

Speaking about the ninth edition of Shift, the organizer Ivan Burazin announced over twenty lectures and workshops and the presentation of new technological solutions and the most current trends.

It should be reminded that the City of Split has been supporting the Shift conference since 2013. Appreciating the importance of this conference, the City of Split signed a three-year contract in 2018, which provides funds in the amount of HRK 70,000 per year (including VAT) from 2018 to 2020.

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

Read the Croatian Travel Update in your language - now available in 24 languages

Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community.

The 8th edition of the Shift Conference - Powered by ICT County - will make Split the center of the IT industry for two days, May 30 and 31, 2019. In a single place, the conference brings together leading world experts from renowned companies such as Google, eBay, Shopify, Amazon, Xbox, Minecraft, Slack, and many more.

It is expected that the largest IT conference in Southeast Europe this year will welcome as many as 1,500 participants, reports Splitski Dnevnik on May 20, 2019. 

The Shift Conference - Powered by ICT County, has gathered IT specialists and innovators from various parts of the world for the past few years, providing them with an excellent platform for discussing new development technologies, techniques and trends, and quality networking. The organizer of the Shift conference, Ivan Burazin, discovered that “several of the speakers who attended the conference later helped Croatian companies to break through and succeed in foreign markets, at least to reach the next step in their business."

Participants will have the opportunity to listen to 25 top-class lecturers and participate in 6 interesting workshops. One of the most outstanding lecturers is Boyd Multerer, who is known as the creator of the Xbox One console software, and the founder of the enormous online Xbox Live community that brings together millions of players around the world with billions of dollars in profit a year.

This year's conference will also host two Google representatives, Mugdha Lakani and Mete Atamel, who are the leading developers to help users having problems with the Google Cloud. Also, a prominent guest is Yolanda Robla, who comes from the cutting-edge technology and programming company, Red Hat, where she works as a software engineer and has 15 years of experience. Red Hat is a company that has been in the IT public eye thanks to the fact that IBM acquired it last year for an incredible $34 billion.

The great interest of visitors will certainly target Tiffany Tse, who works as a Developer Advocacy Lead for the Canadian king of e-commerce - Shopify. Tiffany specializes in front end and design oriented to user experience and accessibility. Her lecture will give participants insight into the work and manner that e-commerce functions and will reveal the various challenges that developers encounter daily. E-commerce, from a different perspective, will also feature Front End Engineer of the well-known eBay, Willian Martins, who will challenge and motivate participants in experimenting and using various tricks in the development of business.

From the spontaneous idea of organizing the first Shift to date, the conference has grown into an unexpectedly large but vitally needed IT project in Croatia. The continued growth of the conference and the presence of representatives of some of the world's largest companies are just one of the invaluable indicators that the conference brings to all participants. 

"From year to year, we try to be innovative and original. In addition to being an ideal opportunity to reach young talents and delivering solutions to targeted business partners, the established contacts at Shift open a lot of doors and networking stimulates the great interest of visitors,” concluded Ivan Burazin, the Shift organizer.

This year, on May 30 and 31, the Radisson Blu hotel in Split will become the IT center of Southeast Europe. In addition to quality lecturers, interesting lectures, and excellent networking opportunities, there will also be an entertainment program. 

You can find the full program at www.shiftconf.co.

To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page. 

The SHIFT conference will be held in Split on May 31 and June 1, 2018.