SEE WEST
During the 24th International Tourism Fair in Nis, on March 30, the SEE WEST Alliance for the Development of the Social Economy in the Western Balkans officially started working.
On this occasion, through the panel discussion “Business in Tourism”, we talked about good European practices and examples of development and support for social business in tourism, the development of rural and sustainable tourism, and opportunities for regional connections and joint work on European projects.
SEE WEST alliance is the first regional alliance of organizations for national support of the social economy in the Western Balkans. This alliance was formed by actors in the field of social economy in the region, members of the Diesis network, in order to work on the development of the sector and achieve long-term goals through three directions:
– Visibility and recognition of the social economy ecosystem in the WB6 countries and the work of key actors at the European and international level
– Nurturing and formation of interregional partnerships and cooperation
– Facilitation of interregional knowledge transfer
Members of the alliance are CDP “Globe”, ADP-Zid, ARNO, LENS, Partners of Albania for Change and Development, Diesis Network, COSV – Cooperazione per lo Sviluppo, Coalition for the Development of Solidarity Economy, Public, Caritas Šabac and Young Ambassadors.
Stay tuned to discover more about the SEE WEST Alliance initiative and future actions.
Study visit in Italy
WB SEA PROJECT – STUDY VISITS IN ITALY
During the second week of September, Young Ambassadors went to Monza, Italy for the WB SEA project to discover the Italian Social Economy ecosystem.
Thanks to our members COSV and Gruppo Cooperativo CGM we had an insightful week, where we learnt more about the long tradition, development, and future perspectives of the Italian Social Economy. We had the chance to meet experts and local practitioners to better understand the opportunities for innovation through the European Social Economy Action Plan (SEAP) and through the co-design between the public administration and social enterprises. We were introduced to the inspiring youth policies in the Lombardy region and how to best support business development through central reflections on space, time, and connections.
Our members from ARNO, Partners Albania for Change and Development, Diesis Network, LENS, Center for the development of social entrepreneurship “Globe”, and Association for Democratic Prosperity – Zid were also invited to share best practices and create connections with local social enterprises, some of which have been active in the youth field for decades.
BOLD
The BOLD Event is a leadership development workshop integrating the fundamentals of Emotional Intelligence, Entrepreneurship and Community Development designed to activate a generation of emerging leaders throughout Serbia.
Accepted fellows participated in an immersive 4-day training in Belgrade, Serbia. Through interactive workshops led by experienced facilitators, fellows worked on development of their ideas in two directions: civic engagement or business venture and pitched ideas to each other. Based on their voting, 5 best ideas were chosen and composed 5 teams of all participated fellows.
On the 5th day, 5 teams participated in the launching event of BOLD initiative organized by the US Embassy in Serbia, where they competed for the awards with a total budget of 15000 USD. After competition, teams will receive mentoring support from Young Ambassadors in order to develop further and implement their ideas.
Project named „VRH“ won 1st place with 29% of votes, and received the award of 5000 USD. The idea was creating a platform for the promotion of natural beauties in the Nis and South Serbia. All famous but also some still undiscovered places in the mountains and gorges that are surrounding Nis will be presented on the platform and all nature lovers will be able to see what are the suggestions to visit, difficulties of the proposed routes and upcoming events which are organized by associations of hikers.
BOLD event is organized by Prismatic (USA) and Young Ambassadors (Serbia) with the support of the US Embassy in Serbia.
KreNI7
KreNI is the first and most influential festival of creativity in southeastern Serbia, which brings together innovative creative professionals and experts from around the world with the idea of creating space for creative young people to develop the kind of society they want to live in.
KRENI7 conference was opened by H.E. Annika Ben David, Ambassador of Sweden in Serbia, H.E. Virginia Pina, Ambassador Portugal in Serbia, H.E. Yahel Vilan, Ambassador of Israel in Serbia, Mr. Dejan Vladic, Minister – Counsellor at the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia, Mr. Adrian Faix, Attaché for the culture of the Austrian Embassy, Mr. Roberto Cincotta, Director of the Italian Institute in Serbia, Ms. Monika Damnjanovic, Director of the French Institute in Nis and Snezana Andric, President of the Young Ambassadors.
#KreNI7 participants worked with more than 30 experts from Italy, Sweden, Austria, France, Portugal, Israel, Slovenia and Serbia, gained new knowledge and experience, shared their ideas with experienced mentors and developed solutions for creative development of the tourism sector in our city. Workshops took place during the 2 days of the conference on Smart city transformation and Branding and communication. On the third day they worked with mentors on developing their ideas. And on the last day of the conference, teams presented ideas to the jury and we have chosen the winning idea of the conference.
In the programs KreNI talks we had masterclasses on the topic of “Smart Tourism” and we found out what are the best practices in smart tourism development in Italy, Sweden, Austria, Portugal and France. Our speakers were: Paolo Verri, Director of the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation, Italy, Maria Mansson, Senior lecturer at the Department of Strategic communication at Lund University, Sweden, Itshe Petz and Io Tondolo, CEOs of SelfSightSeeing Company, Austria, Roberto Antunes, Executive Director of NEST – Tourism Innovation Center Portugal and Thomas Silvie, Founder of “Back of the house”, France.
On the 27 November panel discussion “Smart City” was held where we talked about smart innovative city solutions for a sustainable world and what we could learn from Sweden, Slovenia, and Austria. Our participants were: Urska Strac Peceny, CEO and Lead of Tourism 4.0 Department, Slovenia, Ljubica Knezevic Cvelbar , full professor at the School of Business and Economics, University of Ljubljana, Ann Louise Larson, project leader for Smart City Sweden and Milan Randjelovic, director of Science Technology Park Nis.
We had an interesting presentation “Open Innovation in Travel” on 28 November and our speaker was Itai Green, founder and CEO Innovate Israel.
Panel discussion „Future of Tourism“ was held on the 29 November. What is the future of tourism and where do we see the touristic sector in a couple of years was an interesting discussion in which participated Milica Raskovic, Head of Program Development at Novi Sad 2022, Serbia, Annalisa Contini, Social economy expert at COSV and CO-Profit Benefit company, Italy, Igor Kovacevic, Pavilion Director, the Republic of Serbia Pavilion at EXPO 2020 Dubai, UAE, and Assistant professor, Faculty of Economics, Belgrade. The Moderator of the panel was Nenad Rokvic, President of the Association of Tourist Guides Nis, Serbia.
KreNI7 teams have developed ideas that will contribute to the development of tourism potential in Nis in a more smart and innovative way. Winning idea of #KreNI7 is “Inside the box” which presents available smart lockers in the city for tourists. Those would have wi- fi, phone chargers, map displays, and other tourist information.
At KreNI7, we wanted to show the power that innovation and creativity have in improving the tourism potential, and the host country was Italy, in whose economy tourism and culture play the most important role. The Italian corner, made up of interactive settings and a VR exhibition, was open for all interested public to get acquainted with the development of the concept of smart tourism in Italy and best practices.
This was another step in encouraging greater use of creative industries in the development of society, and in the coming period, together with partners, we will work on further development and implementation of KreNI7 ideas.
KreNI8 – conference on creative industries Nis | 25 – 28 November 2022
KreNI is the first and most influential festival of creativity in southeastern Serbia, which brings together innovative creative professionals and experts from around the world with the idea of creating space for creative young people to develop the kind of society they want to live in. In the last eight years, during the conference, 40 ideas were developed by young people, which contribute to the improvement of the city of Nis with the use of tools of creative industries and digital technologies.
KreNI8 conference was opened by H.E. Yahel Vilan, Ambassador of Israel in Serbia, Mr. Roberto Cincotta, Director of the Italian Institute in Serbia, Ms. Monika Damnjanovic, Director of the French Institute in Nis and Snezana Andric, President of the Young Ambassadors.
#KreNI8 participants worked with nearly 30 experts from Italy, Sweden, Austria, France, Israel, Slovenia and Serbia, gained new knowledge and experience, shared their ideas with experienced mentors and developed solutions for creative development of our city. Workshops took place during the 2 days of the conference on the topics of Slow culture and Metaverse. On the third day they worked with mentors on developing their ideas, and on the last day of the conference, teams presented ideas to the jury and we have chosen the winning idea of the conference.
In the programs KreNI talks we had master classes on the topic of “Slow culture vs Metaverse” and we found out best practices from Italy, Sweden, Austria, Israel, France and Slovenia. Our speakers were: Gil Elnekave, Lecturer at Shenkar school of engineering and design (Israel) , Vanessa Trapani, Founder at Sloworking (Italy), Maximilian Prag, 3D Design at Sound:frame (Austria), Vincent Liegey, Interdisciplinary researcher on Degrowth (France), Ilkin Mehrabov, Senior lecturer at Lund University (Sweden) and Martin Petrič, Co-founder & Art Director at Charify.art web3 (Slovenia).
On the 26 November panel discussion “Slow culture meets Metaverse – Slovenian experience” was held where we talked about two different approaches, traveling continents by feet and living in the word of blockchain, and our participants were Tadej Slapnik, CEO at HashNET and Oliver Tic, hiker from Slovenia. Panel discussion „Slow culture meets Metaverse – Serbian experience“ was held on the 28 November. What is the potential of creative industries development and what challenges are facing creative workers in Serbia was an interesting discussion in which participated Martin Cuff, Advisor to Prime Minister for Creative Industries and Tourism, and strategist for the Serbia Create and Dimitrije Tadic, Head of Creative Europe Desk in Serbia.
KreNI8 teams have developed ideas that will contribute to harmonizing the world of Slow culture and Metaverse. Winning idea of #KreNI8 is “StepNI”, which is an application that measures steps a person is making during the day and that gives certain challenges. Based on the given challenges, users receive a discount when shopping in one of the partner stores, especially in sports equipment stores and bookstores.
This was another step in encouraging greater use of creative industries in the development of society, and in the coming period, together with partners, we will work on further development and implementation of KreNI8 ideas.
