Some technology innovations to enrich the Dubrovnik experience.
Universal Industries and Enum Software are two IT start-ups of the Dubrovnik Development Agency (DURA) whose members are students. Within the Ideas Factory business incubator, DURA opened the Smart City laboratory where two teams work on pilot projects, for which they have already received awards at the Hackathon competition, reports Poslovni.hr on October 29, 2015.
Robert Kalačić, Hrvoje Lakić, Petar Matuško and Dubravko Jakovljević, undergraduate and graduate students of electrical and communication technologies, engineering, transport sciences and aquaculture, are members of the hardware team Universal Industries. The Enum Software team includes Ivan Brčić, Andrej Šarić and Dživo Jelić, students of information technology.
Smart Parking project is a system which turns the search for a parking space in the city from a long and frustrating process into a few simple steps. The idea is for a user to find a free parking space in the shortest possible time. “We will put sensors at the parking spaces which will relay information in real time to a server. The data will be available to users in a form of interactive maps on mobile applications, where all the information about the parking will be displayed, the prices, which parking spaces are unoccupied, and so on”, Robert Kalačić explains. Recently, they have received the approval for the Smart Sprinklers project, a system which will be installed in a new park and which will completely modernize park irrigation systems. Dubravko Jakovljević explains that the expected savings in water consumption will be very significant.
The third project, the Dubrovnik Card, is actually a modernization of an existing tourist card with special benefits for visitors. As explained by Dživo Jelić, it is a mobile app that will have all of the content from the Dubrovnik Card brochure, but also a series of additional, more modern features, like the use of iBeacon technology that can very accurately determine the user’s location using mobile application and display information about features in their immediate vicinity.
“In addition to reducing the time required to find parking space, we will reduce traffic jams and thus emissions from vehicles”, explained Kalačić the main advantages of Smart Parking system. Jelić says that the Dubrovnik Card will be completely modernized, since tourists will no longer have to carry with them a paper brochure.
“It is known that Smart City solutions help the city in several important aspects, through budgetary savings, expansion and improvement of offerings, and concern for the environment and sustainability. These projects have a significant long-term impact on improving the quality of life and make the city a more pleasant place”, Petar Matuško says. While acknowledging that their beginnings were chaotic and that it was difficult to enter the business world, they say that the help they have received from DURA was crucial.
In addition to office space and mentoring services, DURA can help them with all the business questions, as well as with the technical elements of the projects. It also distributes information about available European funds. “Our plan is to complete the first pilot projects and then to expand them to cover the whole city. Our goal is to achieve the growth of our companies and hire more new young engineers”, Andrej Šarić explains.
