ZAGREB, 11 May, 2021 - Successful Croatian stories and a plan to include citizens in Europe's development were presented on Tuesday at the Croatian parliament, during the first part of the "Conference on the Future of Europe - A Vision of Croatia," during which Speaker Gordan Jandroković entered a debate with a robot.

The Conference on the Future of Europe is a pan-European, democratic project during which citizens have an opportunity to decide on how the EU should develop.

This is a project in which "citizens are in the centre," European Commissioner for Democracy and Demography Dubravka Šuica said.

Citizens can participate in panel discussions, debates and the plenary session, in which 108 seats are reserved for citizens.

An equal number is allocated to representatives of national parliaments and MEPs.

The plenary session will also include 54 Council representatives (two for each member state), three members of the European Commission, and representatives of the Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Council, social partners and civil society.

"If we miss out on including citizens, we will leave room for populist ideas," said Šuica.

The conference provides a digital platform where citizens can exchange ideas, connect, make recommendations and launch initiatives.

Šuica warned that according to forecasts, by 2070 Europeans will account for only 4% of the global population and she believes that demography will be a point of interest for citizens.

Robot  argues with Jandroković

Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković was the conference's host and during his opening address he was interrupted by Pepper the robot who warned him that he had violated the Standing Orders.

Pepper was made at the Faculty of Computing and Electrical Engineering in Zagreb.

Pepper and Jandroković then debated about parliamentary procedures. 

Jandroković explained that this is a demonstration of what the future holds.

"If we are not smart enough, robots will manage us and not the other way around," he said.

Successful Croatian stories 

Several successful Croatian stories were then presented to the parliament, including a project by the Sisak-Moslavina County Development Agency (SIMORA) promoting the town of Novska as the centre of the gaming industry in Croatia.

SIMORA director Mario Čelan said that the gaming industry, particularly now during the pandemic, had surpassed the film and music industry with regard to total revenue generated.

He added that the project had already launched 49 start-ups and that a new, four-year study programme for gaming technicians had been developed as well as that the National Recovery and Resilience Plan envisaged a gaming industry campus.

This has motivated young people to settle in Novska and the town now has the largest number of companies in its history, he said.

Dragan Schwarz spoke about Radiochirurgia, a special hospital for oncology patients in Zagreb.

More than 45,000 patients have been examined in the five years since the hospital's establishment and more than 4,000 operations were performed, said Schwarz.

"Our results put us at the very top of the global scene," he added.

Sven Lončarić spoke about the Artificial Intelligence Centre (CAI) of the Zagreb Faculty of Computing and Electrical Engineering (FER), which consists of 19 research laboratories, with FER currently implementing around 260 projects financed from national and international sources.  

Boranka campaign, Toljanić family awarded with Croatian Sabor medal

Scouts Croatia and the Toljanić family from the island of Krk were awarded with the Croatian Sabor medal.

The Boranka project, implemented by the scouts' alliance, has been awarded with the European Citizen's Prize by the European Parliament in 2020.

Boranka is the largest reforestation project in all of Europe. To date more than 7,000 volunteers have planted more than 85,000 new trees in fire-devastated areas of Dalmatia.

The Toljanić family was named European Family of the Year in 2020. The family has 12 children and has developed a successful winery and hospitality business.

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April the 25th, 2021 - The Croatian SIMORA (Sisak-Moslavina County Development Agency) has gone from strength, and with award and enormous investments to boast of, it seems that the sky is the limit for the agency.

"The concept you came up with in Croatia related to the gaming industry is brilliant, and it should be followed!" was an important message stated as the Croatian SIMORA accepted the award for the best European development agency in 2020 from the president of the European Association of Development Agencies (EURADA), Roberta DallOlio. At the same time, this is the first award to have ever gone to a Croatian agency.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, at the online award ceremony, the award was accepted from the PISMO business incubator by the director of the Croatian SIMORA, Mario Celan, who has since announced an investment worth 50 million euros in the Campus gaming industry. It regards a project that has gone through all of the necessary procedures, he explained, and is now facing a decision at the next session of the Croatian Government regarding funding from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

"The new project is coming as the second step in our development, and it's so big that it will, in fact, make us, its initiators, even bigger and more recognisable in the upcoming period in terms of encouraging entrepreneurial activities in IT and new generations," announced Celan.

In his review of the award for 2020, he pointed out the following: "We'd remember the year 2020 as the coronavirus-dominated year in which we were destroyed by the earthquake, but for SIMORA, we're going to remember it as the year in which we were the best.''

After renovating and equipping two abandoned buildings in Novska with European Union money, they opened their doors to the very first startups, and today there are as many as 49 of them present there, Celan noted, who are busy creating video games in one of the most modern places in all of Europe before sending them out to the global market.

“But before entering the world of entrepreneurship, we educate the people who come here on how to go about things. At the same time, we provide the youngest children in kindergartens with free English language lessons, we educate primary school students about the world of video games from the point of view of the manufacturers, while we also invented a new high school course for high school students. We offered six-month training sessions to unemployed people, so they can learn the basics of programming and graphic processing and they receive a salary for all of those six months, after which the student is ready to make a video game on their own. More than 150 people from all over Croatia have undergone such training,'' pointed out Celan, adding that startups that come to their incubator have offices at their disposal, as well as various machines.

According to him, such advanced technology transformed Sisak-Moslavina County into a modern region, thus becoming the centre of the Croatian gaming industry, while the award received by the Croatian SIMORA actually rewarded "the way of developing the region and employing young people, educating them in creating video games, offering them mentoring in order to make it as easy as possible for them to enter entrepreneurial waters, providing them with support to their start-ups and to enabling them to use state-of-the-art facilities and equipment in the PISMO business incubator,''

During the same online ceremony, the work of three agencies, two from Spain and one from Turkey, were also praised for the practices they have introduced in their own respective regions, and a round table was held.

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February 18, 2021 – After so much bad news from Sisak-Moslavina County recently due to earthquakes, there finally comes some positive news. Thanks to best practices in regional development, the Sisak-Moslavina development agency SIMORA was named the best in the whole of Europe.

To identify best regional development practices, EURADA, the European Association of Development Agencies based in Brussels, evaluates the best development agencies through their projects. In the sea of numerous and successful European projects, as well as the agencies that design and implement them, it is difficult to find the best on the list of those chosen by the EURADA expert jury. However, for 2020, the Sisak-Moslavina development agency SIMORA, which is also the first award winner from Croatia ever, succeeded.

36 start-ups in the gaming industry

Namely, with numerous projects in entrepreneurship, rural development, strategic planning, social funds, and EU funds, development agency SIMORA created 217 new jobs and preserved over 1000 of them. The EURADA thus recognized it for improving life in Sisak-Moslavina County.

"The European Association of Development Agencies has informed us about the selection, and we expect an invitation to take over the award soon. We were already in the top five European development agencies in 2017, but the first place is really great news for us!" said Mario Čelan, the director of SIMORA.

In selecting SIMORA as the best European development agency, the EURADA jury particularly emphasized the concept of how to develop the region and how to employ young people. It was also important how to educate young people to make video games, mentor them to become entrepreneurs as easily as possible, support their start-ups, and use state-of-the-art facilities and equipment in the PISMO business incubator in Novska.

"Becoming gaming expert-capacities upskilling" is the name of the practice, which was awarded thanks to SIMORA. Ultimately, it resulted in the opening of 36 start-ups and solved the problem of youth employment in a specialized and fastest-growing industry – the gaming industry.

SIMORA also has the best Croatian EU project

"It is a great recognition to receive the status of the best European development agency,' especially since we are the first agency from Croatia that managed to get this title. The year 2020 brought us a lot of written and approved projects, and this award is just the crown of the entire work of SIMORA, which this year celebrates 15 years of work," said Čelan.

On this occasion, he commended all employees who work on all projects, as well as ministries and public administrations from state, regional, and local levels. Without them, he said, SIMORA's projects would not come to life. He also thanked all clients and partners for recognizing SIMORA.

The EURADA award is prestigious because it is not only awarded to members of the association but also all other development agencies based in Europe. In addition to being the best European development agency in 2020, SIMORA also got an award for the best Croatian EU project – the PISMO business incubator in Novska.

Source: Simora

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December 22, 2020 – The Sisak-Moslavina County Development Agency SIMORA and A1 Croatia, a leading technological innovator, have entered into business cooperation to develop the video game industry in the Business Incubator in Novska.

As Jutarnji list reports, SIMORA, a development center for the video game industry, and A1 Hrvatska, a leading technological innovator, have signed a multi-year agreement on cooperation and services exchange.

Business cooperation has common goals: development of the video game industry in the Business Incubator in Novska, including the development of video games on the most modern mobile and fixed technology, promotion of innovations, as well as stronger involvement of ICT industry and video game industry in education, public, and private sector throughout Croatia.

The specific location where the cooperation will take place is the PISMO Business Incubator in Novska, recently declared the best EU co-financed project in Croatia for 2020.

"At a time of unprecedented public health and economic challenges, we are especially pleased that the project of our development agency is recognized by important market participants aimed at digitalization of society, the progress of the local community, and thus the whole of Croatia. I am convinced that the inclusion of A1 Croatia will further accelerate the achievement of the goal of our county becoming a true center of the gaming industry, the fastest growing industry in the world," said Ivo Žinić, prefect of Sisak-Moslavina County.

The PISMO business incubator currently consists of two facilities with about twenty offices, co-working, and conference rooms equipped with the latest technology such as motion capture, photogrammetric and video, and music studio, CNC, 3D printer, VR, and other ICT equipment.

"About forty startups from the gaming industry are already operating in our incubator. It proves that we are succeeding in our intention to give young people the opportunity to stay in Sisak-Moslavina County or a reason to move in. The support provided by our new technological partner A1 Croatia is related, among other things, to access to the most modern mobile and fixed network. This is certainly one of the basic preconditions for our further development and growth in the direction of building a future Gaming campus worth almost 400 million kunas," explains Mario Čelan, director of SIMORA.

In addition to optical fixed infrastructure with access speeds of as much as 1 Gbps, A1 Croatia also ensures the availability of a real 5G network, gigabit speeds, and extremely low latency.

"A1 Croatia is a company that brings innovations and recognizes technological and social trends. So it's no surprise that everything related to the gaming industry has been in our focus for a long time. The potential that we recognized in the PISMO incubator we plan to realize much wider than technical support. In addition to content related to esport and hackathon events, we will organize numerous demonstrations and trainings related to the use of new technologies together. This partnership will certainly be one of the wheels of development of modern, digital society," concludes Tomislav Makar, General Manager for Technology and Information Technologies at A1 Croatia.

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