Serbia Innovates at the Advanced Technologies Forum in Niš
We participated in the Advanced Technologies Forum 2022 that our friends from the Science and Technology Park in Nis organized on 24-25 March. The central theme of this year's forum was the Innovation Ecosystem as a factor of competitiveness.
Aleksandra Popović participated in the session Promotion and popularization of start-up ecosystems and entrepreneurship. The session was held on the first day of the Forum. Since the topic directly referred to how communication, networking and cooperation with relevant participants in the ecosystem affect the growth and development of start-ups, this session was a great opportunity for us to present our goals and highlight cooperation as one of the basic prerequisites for receiving systemic support from our project. Also, we used this session emphasize the importance of start-ups as a driver of an innovative and globally oriented economy.
During the session, Aleksandra emphasized the project's determination to provide systemic support to all ecosystem participants through a supercluster methodology and focusing on the four most promising technological areas. She referred especially to networking and joint work in order to create synergetic connections and added that only with a joint contribution can we present and position ourselves in the foreign market. She also talked about how, although our scientific community has great potential and brilliant ideas, there is no good connection with the economy that would enable commercialize those potentials. Improving the relations between science and economy is an absolute priority, Alexandra concluded.
In addition to Aleksandra, Mirko Pešić from the Science and Technology Park Čačak, Drago Gverić from the Innovation Center Banja Luka, Nebojša Drakulić from the Science and Technology Park Novi Sad, and also Sanja Popović Pantić, head of the sector for women's entrepreneurship within the European Network and Todor Mladenov, a representative of the Technology Park Sofia participated in the session. The moderator was Miloš Grozdanović from the Science and Technology Park Niš, a partner of our project.
They discussed the global and local connectivity of start-ups, the links between founders, investors and experts, as well as the roles of support organizations. Institutional support for encouraging innovative entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial culture, promotion and popularization of innovative entrepreneurship, were also discussed along with other topics.
At several panels and sessions during the two days of the Forum, we heard representatives of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, members of the Serbian Development Agency, the Office for IT and e-government, City of Nis officials, business representatives and many other relevant guests from the innovation ecosystem.
