Digital Cities Kickoff

Connecting Cities of Western Balkans and UK Through Digital Technology.

January 19th was the official start date of the Digital Cities project, which uses its broad program of education, mobility and project support to help connect digital hubs and SMEs from Western Balkans with initiatives from the UK. The implementers of the project are Culture Code (Nova Iskra) and Creative England, while city administration representatives will actively take part as well.

The Digital Cities project, organized by the British Council and the British Government, was presented at hotel Splendid in Budva, marking the official start of the project realization. The project aims to connect creative centers (hubs), startups, small and medium businesses from the fields of creative industries, technology and education, as well as local authorities from cities in the Western Balkans with their colleagues and partners from the UK, in addition to initiating collaboration and mutual projects.

Open call for participation was announced in late December, and resulted in 129 Western Balkans organizations applying and as many as 46 of them gaining the opportunity to participate in the project. 21 organizations will have the chance to use the opportunity to undertake study visits to the UK; 39 of them will go through an intensive capacity-building bootcamp, while 14 of them will have the opportunity to apply for financial support for mutual projects with partners from the UK.

The project was presented by Gavin Vesi, Deputy Chief of Mission of the British Embassy in Montenegro, and Larisa Halilović, Director of British Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also the Director of the Digital Cities project. The one-day conference gave the participants the opportunity to gain better insight into recent experiences in this field and good practice examples from the UK, while the lecture presented by John Newbign, General Director of Creative England and one of the pioneers in the field of creative industries development, was met with great interest.

10 city administrations from the Balkans, as well as 43 representatives of digital SMEs and hubs from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo were greated by inspirational and informative program, which included Stephan Kuester of TECH City UK, Lazar Džamić (prominent Serbian digital communications strategist), Charles Armstrong (Founder of The Trampery from London), and Paul Bourne from Cambridge Judge Business School, who engaged the participants in a two-hour collaborative interaction and gave the final touch to the program in the best possible way.

The Digital Cities project contributes to building skills and knowledge in the fields of strategy and business development, planning and networking, while also stimulating capacities and skills of the leaders of digital hubs and companies, giving them the opportunity to exchange knowledge, contacts and experiences with other participants of the project from the UK and Western Balkans region. The representatives of the selected digital centers will have the chance to connect with local governments, exchange experiences and good practice examples, in addition to developing mutual projects with partners from the UK that are working in the fields of digitalization of city administration, education and creative industries.

The Digital Cities project will last until the end of March, while the participants will have the opportunity to reunite from February 21st to 24th in Serbia, when emphasis will be put on developing the participating organizations’ capacities and their networking, in the presence of many experts from both the Western Balkans and the UK. All the participants will get together during the final event to be held at the end of March in the UK, while in the meantime organizations from Western Balkans will have to opportunity to visit their colleagues and partners across England.