Croatia well represented in the field of global innovation.
Google has included four Croats on the list of the 100 best innovators in Central and Eastern Europe, describing them as a group of people who will challenge the New Europe, reports Poslovni.hr on November 29, 2015. The list includes Matija Kopić, founder of Farmeron, Jan Jilek, founder of Dotmetrics and 1000startups.eu initiative, Valent Turković, founder of project for portable Wi-Fi points for refugees, and Miroslav Vrakić, founder of Serwantess.
Wojciech Przybylski from Res Publica Foundation, who initiated the whole idea, said that they wanted to put together a list of people in various fields who use the technology in a completely different way. “This is a list of persons who will be the agents of change in Central and Eastern Europe in the very near future”, Przybylski said.
Matija Kopić from Farmeron, a start-up from Osijek which connects livestock breeding and the Internet of Things, said that he is now in a very advanced stage of development. “We have been focused on the US market, and now we are working on the expansion to the Far East and South America”, Kopić added.
Jan Jilek from Dotmetrics said he was glad that he got the recognition. “The aim of the 1000startups.eu initiative is to draw attention to the problems of all start-ups in the EU which are in a much worse position than those in the United States, and therefore I do not want to tie this initiative just with myself”, Jilek said and added that the EU needs to become more open to innovation and start-ups, support the further development of the investment ecosystem and open opportunities for start-ups to access the markets.
Miroslav Vrankić, founder and director of start-up E-Glas, which has developed a system called Serwantess, a Croatian counterpart to Apple’s Siri, said that after a lot of effort they had managed to broke into the German market. “We have a key partner now who is selling the system that we have developed in Croatia, and which is better than Apple’s and Google’s solutions since it does not depend on the Internet connection and does not record on some remote servers everything you say, thus protecting your privacy”, Vrankić said.
Agata Waclawik from Google concluded that people included on the list show that this region has a great potential for further development.
