August 25, 2022 - From September 2nd to September 4th, the largest regional IT conference will be held, organised by the team from MS Community, the Osijek Software City association, the PMI Croatia association, the Business Incubator BIOS, and partners: City of Osijek, J. J. Strossmayer University and the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek.

„In addition to the previous sponsors, this year we gained reinforcement from some new ones, with whom we are preparing 3 days of first-class knowledge, fun, and unforgettable socialising in Slavonia and Baranja. Each year we strengthen the program, which would not be possible without the tireless individuals who do their best to raise the bar for the quality of the conference“, said Conference Director Bernardin Katić.

During the 3 days of the conference, there will be an interesting program for all fans of the IT industry, as well as for the young ones. The topics range from advanced programming, database, IT Pro, web technology, design, project management, and game development, to an open part, where the lectures are formed at the event.

A major refreshment to the conference this year is brought by a new sponsor - EPAM USA, which will cover the KulenDayzKidz program.

The organization of the conference would also not have been possible without the support of the teams from King ICT, Tria, Undabot, Optiva, Joberty, Infobip, Nephos, and Evolutio.

Conference program:

FRIDAY – 2^nd September 2022

The program starts with pre-conference training in seven different areas. The locations of the training are the Kopački Rit Nature Park and the Kopačevo Ethno Village.

SATURDAY – 3^rd September 2022

On the main day of the conference, over 50 lectures will be held at the Academy of Arts and Culture and the Stara Pekara centre. The courtyard will be the place to socialise through the well-known In Da Sofa concept, stalls, and exhibitors who will make sure that there is no shortage of food and drinks. At the end of the day, a legendary party and gathering await!

SUNDAY – 4^th September 2022

A day of relaxation in Tikveš for a team-building event with a tour of the newly opened museum.

IT conference for the young ones

In addition to the main program on 3^rd September, an IT conference for children will take place: KulenDayz Kidz - a workshop intended for children aged 7-15 to strengthen their skills with computers, communication, and teamwork. This year's the theme is Scratch and HTML where the little ones will learn to create websites and a simple game.

Kulen, rakija, chillis, and first-class knowledge - it smells like a good invitation to apply!

Registration is open until August 30, and the number of places is limited to 500. The organisers invite you to secure your place in time.

More about the conference at www.kulendayz.com.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated Lifestyle section.

August 24, 2022 - Nathan arrived in Osijek from Arizona via Colorado and Prague. Not only did he find a job there, but also what he calls the ideal place for family life. The Osijek Software City movement is slowly, but surely coming to life.

As RTL writes, Osijek is a city where IT companies produce good software. Where do you acquire the necessary knowledge and skills for that? Where are the educated and motivated workers employed in quality and promising companies? This is how the objectives of the Osijek Software City project were presented, were they achieved?

Ten years from the first vision of Osijek as a regional IT center, and seven years until the first company in the IT park. The story of Osijek Software City unfolded slowly.

“It went slowly and it was difficult, but now it's going faster and faster”, Denis, one of the initiators of this story, told RTL. Better cooperation with universities will create the necessary IT specialists and scholarship programs with the City and the County that will attract young people.

“For us, this current pool of young people is no longer enough to turn Osijek into a true center of the IT industry, and we will really need to attract and import a lot of foreign students”, says Denis Sušac, director of the IT company.

Nathan arrived in Osijek from Arizona via Colorado and Prague. Not only did he find a job there, but also what he calls the ideal place for family life.

“Osijek could be one of the best cities on the planet for family life”, said Nathan Chappell, a developer.

The family spirit is present in the workplace, and his family is also helping him learn the Croatian language.

Ivana, on the other hand, studied languages, but after finishing her studies, she felt that it was not her life's calling.

“And then, little by little, I started poking around in IT to see what was there and what I was really interested in and I came across this testing”, said Ivana Belak, software tester.

She didn't want to leave Croatia and rather wanted to find the job she desired here, and that, she says, came true.

“We think that today young people can live very well working in Osijek, without leaving, and this trend of going to Ireland, Sweden, Germany is slowly coming to a halt”, claims Sušac.

The number of IT people in Osijek is growing. The goal of recognising Osijek as a city where IT experts live and work is becoming closer, and without their skills life is almost unimaginable today.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated Lifestyle section.

August 9, 2022 - This year will mark the tenth edition of Web Summer Camp, a high-profile event that gathers developers and web experts for a few days of learning, sharing experiences, as well as fun under the sun, and networking.

As Poslovni reports, Netgen, a local IT company, which has been organizing Web Summer Camp since 2012, which in recent years has been profiled as an event that gathers around two hundred developers and web experts on the Croatian coast, announced the tenth-anniversary edition of the conference, this year with a slightly different concept.

“In addition to the full-day workshops planned for the first day, which our participants already know and expect, the second day is reserved for interesting lectures and accompanying discussions”, explains Ivo Lukač, Netgen's co-founder and director, adding that this year it is possible to choose to buy a ticket either for the entire Web Summer Camp or just for one day – the conference part that takes place on Friday, September 2.

On the first day, the workshops will be held in six tracks: UX, Javascript, PHP, Symfony, DevOps, and Tech forum, and the participants include Valeria Adani, Flaminia del Conte, Gerard Sans, Princiya Sequeira, Derrick Rethans, Marco Pivetta, Andreas Hucks, Neal Brooks, Matt Thorpe, Luka Kladarić, Vanja Bertalan, Cristoffer Crusell, Ondřej Polesný, and Janus Boye.

The conference part of the second day will be divided into 2 tracks - Web and Developer. Harry Roberts, Ramona Schwering, Stephen K. Meya, Rowan Merewood, and Nehha Sharma have been announced for the Developer track, while the Web track will host Andy Clarke, Simon Jones, Sam Dutton, Ante Stjepanović, Magdalena Sekulić Ljubić, and Mili Ponce.

After all-day workshops and lectures held by leading experts from companies such as Google, Infobip, Hrvatski Telekom, and Oracle, coming from various parts of the world, the participants of previous conferences most often emphasize the acquisition of new knowledge and direct networking and exchange of experience with colleagues as the main benefits. For this very reason, the conference will exclusively be held live, without live stream options.

This year's platinum sponsor of the conference is Lendable, an online platform for personal finance from Great Britain, founded in 2014, which is aimed at introducing and enabling fast, simple, and practical personal finance in the digital age.

Last year's edition was rated 8.7/10 by all attendees, and 84 percent of attendees stated that the conference provided them with the knowledge that they can apply in their daily work, with 86 percent stating that they intended to return to the next edition.

Web Summer Camp is also different in that an additional Companions track is organized for accompanying participants, during which a tourist tour of the destination or some similar entertainment program is usually prepared for the participants' partners or spouses, who are not interested in attending the workshops. The last day is usually reserved for an excursion for all participants, which this year, depending on favourable weather conditions, will be held in the vicinity of Šibenik.

Paul Boag, one of the world's leading authorities in the field of user experience, conversion optimization, and digital marketing, commented on last year's edition of the conference:

“If you are thinking of coming to any conference, you can hardly find a better one than this one. Great weather, great location, you can bring the family, relax while learning new things, and enjoy it like you're on holiday. There is something unique about this conference!”

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

Excellent news for one Zagreb company as its success leads to the opening up of yet another office abroad, this time across the Atlantic in no less than the Big Apple - New York, USA.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of February, 2019, the key person and the manager of the Zagreb company's brand new American office is Mick de Meijer, a former executive director of several marketing agencies and a person with very strong experience in two key areas - project management and business development.

Zagreb's Q IT software company, which is one of the fastest growing IT companies in Europe according to Deloitte, has been operating at a new location since the beginning of this year. Their sixth global office was opened in New York, the digital hub of the eastern coast of the United States. The office is located in the very centre of New York, more precisely in Manhattan, and in addition to this location, this Croatian company still continues to operate from Zurich, Oslo, Belfast, Los Angeles, and of course from Zagreb, where the company's headquarters are located.

In his twelve years of hard work in the field, Mick de Meijer has successfully consulted more than 100 companies and worked directly with a variety of enormous and highly respected brands such as Victoria's Secret, Trojan, and Heinz.

So far, this Zagreb company has successfully helped a number of American companies with their technology development, of which, companies such as the United States Postal Services, Facebook, Walmart and Coca-Cola should definitely be mentioned. They have worked in different manners for these gigantic American companies, ranging from genialising their employment process to dealing with the system that employees use in their daily work.

Make sure to stay up to date with our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more on Croatian companies, products and services, as well as information on doing business and the overall investment climate in Croatia. If it's just the capital you're interested in, give Total Zagreb a follow.

The Vukovar company Code Consulting was proclaimed the best small company this year in Croatia, the winner of the Golden Kuna from the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK). They remain unprecedented in developing advanced IT solutions.

As Sergej Novosel Vuckovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of December, 2018, one of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to Deloitte's criteria, one Vukovar company stood out, and as it was voted as the best small company by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, it was recently awarded the prestigious Golden Kuna (Zlatna Kuna) award.

The Vukovar company in question is Code Consulting which deals with software development and mobile applications (apps). Despite the fact that that in terms of growth, this company ''exploded'' by 545 percent and now also has the primacy in the category of small Croatian companies, its founder and director Saša Solomon doesn't seem to be all that phased.

"I don't consider that as a crown of work, but more like recognition that we do what we do well, and that we're going in the right direction, we aren't bothered about lists and prizes, but we're delighted to be recognised by the big players. We're still too young to be given a crown,'' said Salamon.

Salamon is a young entrepreneur whose personal profile on the Code Consulting website says that his the favourite book is the classic Little Prince and his favourite fim is the Matrix. In addition, he has more than fifteen years of experience in software development and system administration under his belt, and he continues to get excited by all new technologies and challenges. Code Consulting was founded in Vukovar, which is otherwise Salamon's hometown, back in 2012. Salamon brought the company up to the status of a desirable and trusted partner working for the American market, where it mainly exports its program products.

The slogan for this Vukovar company is Let the computer do the job, which means that they are running technologically advanced solutions, just by applying the knowledge of people in Vukovar.

"We cover all stages of development, from planning and technical design with the client, UI/UX design, development, testing, and infrastructure, so that we can provide a full service to our customers, but I don't think we are specialists for a specific area, we mostly work on big, long-term projects, projects which are somehow related to medicine and regulated software, but we're not exclusive. What works well for us is to work on smaller projects for a long time, with customers who have a vision and are ready to accept suggestions and criticisms.

We're usually their extended team and we're involved in making technical decisions and consulting on ways of getting things done, team organisation, everything,'' explained Salamon when talking about the work methodology within this Vukovar company, which cooperates mainly with clients over in America.

The list this company cooperates with includes, among others, Varian Medical Systems, the world's leading manufacturer of medical devices and cancer treatment software, Glocco, which develops modern anti-diabetes solutions, then the University of California in San Diego.

When asked about the company's earnings and whether or not it continues to grow, Salamon doesn't mention the actual figures, but notes that he's satisfied with the rate of growth. It's going at its own pace, revenue increases year after year, but growth itself is a bit slow because they are somewhat limited by the number of people who can work in the team. 

According to the Poslovna.hr portal, this computer consultancy business had revenues of 11,693,874 kuna last year, and it has been operating with a profit over the last two years (in 2017, revenues amounted to 2.99 million kuna), which is on a very steady upward path.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more on Croatian companies, products and services, doing business in Croatia, and the overall business and investment climate.

Click here for the original article by Sergej Novosel Vuckovic for Poslovni Dnevnik

The largest Croatian software company and the very first one to exceed 1000 employees has allegedly begun plans for the construction of the Infobip Campus Zagreb.

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of November, 2018, the largest Croatian software company, Infobip, has apparently decided to surpass itself once again and is planning to build an even larger campus than the one that opened its doors last year in Vodnjan in Istria, this time in the Croatian capital.

To briefly recall, at the end of last year, Infobip Campus Pangea was opened by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, and this facility, boasting 17,000 square metres in total, became the largest IT campus in the whole country.

The photogallery entitled "Infobip Campus Zagreb" with dozens of images of the new facility was published on LinkedIn by the multi award-winning Zagreb studio SODAarhitekti. After publishing, the post quickly received more than 200 likes, and among the ''likers'' was Infobip's chief operating director, Robert Kutić. Discussions about the construction of a campus in Zagreb have been going on for some time, but there had not been any actual confirmation of that fact until now.

Among the rumours circulated the information that Infobip was looking for PR agencies to properly ''follow'' this project for the company. The photographs show that the campus in Zagreb is expected to be larger than the one in Vodnjan, potentially twice as large. According to the currently available information, the new campus will be located in Klara in New Zagreb, in the area of the city where Microsoft, DHL, Styria, Croteam, and other companies are based.

Vedran Jukić, owner of SODAarhitektat, who initially published the photo gallery on LinkedIn, was unavailable for comment. Infobip also refused to comment on it.

Despite that, Poslovni Dnevnik was unofficially informed from close sources to the company that "that they're just pictures, and the published work is unlikely to be selected". Infobip already has a smaller office in the old part of Zagreb, near Trešnjevka, but apparently plans to continue expanding rapidly. In early 2017, it became the first Croatian software company with more than a thousand employees, and by the middle of this year, there were already over 1,300 of them, of which around 500 are based here in Croatia.

The largest Croatian software company already has fifty offices across all continents except the Antarctic, and its services are used by as many as four billion people worldwide.

The company reportedly made more than a quarter of a billion euro at the global level in 2016, with 350 million euro in profit last year. As was confirmed by the co-founder and director of Infobo Silvio Kutić, they grew 30 percent last year. If Infobip continues to grow at this impressive pace, this year the company could reach 455 million euro, or 3.4 billion kuna, in total revenue. Despite these educated guesses and calculated estimates, these figures are impossible to check because the company's official headquarters are located in London, United Kingdom.

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

Click here for the original article by Bernard Ivezic for Poslovni Dnevnik

It's not often you hear such a statement...

Varaždin is putting itself on the map as one Canadian company chooses the Northern Croatian town as an office location.

One Zagreb company has impressed the Americans, yet prefers to keep its growth slow.

The delegation held a series of meetings with various representatives of Croatian companies on Wednesday.