On June 1st and 2nd, the Codeanywhere Shift Conference will take place in Split where more than 1,500 visitors and speakers are expected to attend.
While last year’s event drew an impressive 1092 attendees, the largest informational conference in Southeast Europe is expecting hundreds more for this year’s edition, which was was presented today by current prefect Zlatko Ževrnja, organizer Ivan Burazin, director of the Tourist Board of Split-Dalmatia County Joško Stella, Mariana Pivalica from the Tourist Board of Split, Ivan Blagajić from the agency Five, and Silvia Bareša from Splitska banka, a sponsor of the Shift conference, reports Dalmacija News on May 9, 2017.
"We look forward to the sixth Codeanywhere Shift Developer Conference and we are proud that after all these years Split-Dalmatia County is one of the important actors in the organization. I always emphasize that we should not just focus and invest in tourism, and that it is important to invest in the development of science and IT. There is a growing number of registered crafts and small businesses involved in information technology, and in our county this sector employs more than 2,500 employees, achieving 200 million HRK in profit. We have really great people and I believe that we can further improve this branch,” said Ževrnja.
Traditionally, the Shift conference hosts the representatives of the largest IT companies in the world.
"We always try to bring the most influential speakers from Silicon Valley. So this year, we will host the representatives of Microsoft, Skype, Heroku, BitBucket, DigitalOcean, Toptal, Autodesk, and many more. Someone I would like to specifically point out is Christian Heilmann from Microsoft. With more than 20 years experience working in web technologies for the largest IT companies, Christian is known among IT professionals as a big developer, speaker and author,” said Burazin.
Thanks to the five-year tradition, the Shift conference has positioned the city of Split and Split-Dalmatia County as an information center on the European map.
"We are witnessing a new phenomenon. Today you can work from home or from anywhere in the world. An increasing number of internet nomads are visiting the city of Split, and a conference like the Shift conference contributes to that. We will continue to support this conference as the Tourist Board and brand ourselves as an IT destination,” said Stella.
For the first time, as part of the Shift conference, practical workshops will be held. Through sixteen workshops which will be organized parallel to the event, visitors will have the opportunity to get acquainted with the latest trends and technologies in 2017.
"What I would like to emphasize is that this year we will surpass the number of visitors, which is an indicator of growth for the conference. An interesting fact is that 30 percent of accreditation is reserved for countries in Western Europe; meaning Shift has taken on European significance. In addition to the traditional teaching part of the conference, this year we will have hands-on workshops, demonstrations and testing of virtual machines and augmented reality, robots that cook, a TEC event, table football and much more,” added Burazin.
The general sponsor of the conference is, like last year, the agency Five.
"Five years is a long time to sponsor the Shift conference. I really support such events and encourage the development and popularization of the IT scene in Croatia. The conference will have its own exhibition space, playstation, HTC Vive device and cocktail masters. Therefore, when you get tired of lectures, come enjoy the refreshments,” said Ivan Blagajić.
Splitska banka is also proud to cooperate with Shift.
"As soon as Ivan came and presented the project, we did not hesitate to answer. From the very beginning we have believed in Shift. You may notice that we are always there for all of the positive developments in Split and the county,” said Bareša.
In addition to the presentation of Shift, the press conference included an impressive set of virtual and augmented reality pieces - the Microsoft HoloLens worth 3,000 USD, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR.
Make sure you don’t miss out on the largest regional IT conference coming next month!
Shift is organized under the auspices of the agency Five, Split-Dalmatia County, Microsoft CISEx and many others.
