Digital Cities Bootcamp

The goal of the Digital Cities project is to connect cities of Western Balkans and the UK through digital and creative industries!

After the official start of the Digital Cities project in Montenegro, as well as a number of meetings and events in the UK, digital industry representatives from the Western Balkans had the opportunity to go through an intensive training camp from February 21st to 23rd at Mokrin House, the first and most advanced rural hub in the region.

This project contributes to the creative and digital economy by connecting the professionals working in the field, boosting their skills and networking while also leading to stronger international cooperation.

The three-day stay in Mokrin gave the opportunity to more than 40 digital industry representatives from the region to work intensively on up-to-date topics, shoulder to shoulder with prominent experts from the international scene.

Numerous lectures and workshops covered a number of relevant topics, such as 21st century companies’ enterpreneurship, digital product menagement, team culture, strategic marketing and digital business scaling, development and mapping of the digital community, as well as blockchain.

The training camp was also a great opportunity for everyone who started collaborating with their partners from the UK to get ready for implementation of their collboration projects.

More than 37 hub and digital SMEs’ representatives from the Western Balkans participated in the training camp, with the opening lecture on the topic of 21st century enterpreneurship being held by Habib Lešević, guest lecturer at Cass Business School and Royal College of Arts in London.

The participants were given the opportunity to learn more about different problem solving techniques in everyday work and strategic acting, in addition to receiving insight into the vast experience and knowledge of prominent lecturers, such as Lazar Džamić from the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade; Yiuwin Tsang, representative of the Disruptive Thinking consulting organization from the UK; Jovana Tokić, representative of the Autheos startup from Amsterdam, or Nana Radenković from Nova Iskra.

As part of this event, Mališa Pušonja spoke about the blockchain domain, while Kerem Alper from Atoyle Labs from Istanbul spoke about community mapping and partnership development.

Larisa Halilović, who is the Director of the British Council in Bosnia and Herzegowina as well as the Director of the Digital Cities project, said: “I am incredibly proud of what the participants of the project have accomplished so far. The way they connected, cooperated and shared their knowledge and experiences was truly inspiring. I am especially thrilled by the fact that they will be able to apply the things they are learning here into their everyday work, and contribute to further bonding and collaboration of the UK and the Western Balkans. The creativity and enterpreneurship of these young people is changing the world we live in as we speak, and it is a pleasure to be one of the links that connect them.”

The Digital Cities project will last until the end of the March 2018, while the final conference for all the participants will be held in the UK.