January the 16th, 2024 – CES, the most powerful tech event in the world, has facilitated connections between Croatian startups and huge global names such as Amazon, Google and more.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Tanja Ivancic writes, the very well known CES, the consumer electronics and industry innovation fair, began earlier on this month. Known as a testing ground for revolutionary technologies and global innovators, this year it opened its doors to exhibitors, investors and ordinary visitors.
It is traditionally held across the pond in Las Vegas and brings together the global techno elite, as well as everyone who wants to be among them. It also provides a deeper insight into the broader picture of rapidly evolving technological trends. The most interesting part of CES, especially for the Croatian representatives, is actually Eureka Park, where the startups perform. Their number was a record this year – 1,400.
It isn’t easy to get an exhibitor’s place, and for years Croatian startups have been given places by winning the Croatian competition for tech ideas – Idea Knockout, organised by Bug magazine.
The main prize is a booth at CES, and Dragan Petric, the executive editor of Bug, has been visiting and reporting from CES for fifteen years in a row now. The recent winner of the Idea Knockout was Ani Biome, a Croatian startup engaged in the production of personalised microbeverages for the improvement of intestinal health, all based on AI algorithms, with the aim of prolonging healthy human life.
“In addition to Ani Biome, there were also representatives of DotYourSpot X YellowDot present in Vegas. They were third-placed team from Idea Knockout 2023, and they attracted a lot of attention,” Dragan Petric explained, before continuing: “There was also a third representative, CircuitMess by Albert Gajšak, who showed off a rich assortment of STEM devices intended to motivate young people to acquire skills in technological fields through play. That was otherwise Albert Gajšak’s second appearance at CES, after he appeared there five years ago as the then winner of Idea Knockout”.
As Petric emphasised, “all three Croatian startups recorded unexpected success and established contact with the likes of Google, Amazon, Best Buy and many other top American companies”.
It’s worth nothing that every year, CES provides a broader picture and an insight into the direction in which technological trends will develop going forward. This year, CES has been bigger, more impressive and more useful than ever.
Technologies related to artificial intelligence of course dominated and more than half of the companies used it in their presentations at the fair. There was also a lot of talk about longevity, that is, technologies that enable a longer and healthier life, and about the digitisation of the food industry as a whole.
Croatian startups Ani Biome, as well as the foodtech startup and DotYourSpot X YellowDot, both fit perfectly into these trends.
