The second INAT Summit (Innovation Attitude Summit) took place in Belgrade from April 12-15 and hundreds of visitors had the chance to learn from the best IT experts in Serbia and 13 countries of the world how to build a global ICT career irrespective of the location and how to achieve serious success with Serbian and international ICT clients.
The conference theme was From E-migration to Digital Transformation bearing in mind the global and Serbian context where thousands of people relocate or thrive in an online world so as to reach more prosperity thanks to IT industry and innovation.
Thanks to the superb organization of INAT Centre the best developers, marketers and strategists could exchange knowledge and directly connect with speakers from leading companies. The central part of the conference took part in Belgrade Youth Center, whereas B2B networking sessions happened in Share Square and Impact HUB Beograd.
The conference was accomplished thanks to the support of company partners: TeleSign, Delta Holding, Serbian Blockchain Initiative, Avisto and Elsys Eastern Europe, Infobip and Centili, Bitgear, Infostud, NetCast, as well as company Mainstream that also provided programming courses for two conference participants. INAT Summit is endorsed by more than 40 institutional and media partners, as well as IT communities from Serbia and the Balkans.
Milena Milicevic, the founder of INAT Centre, and a coordinator of the conference team gave the background information, ‘‘The central theme of INAT Summit 2018 is From E-migration to Digital Transformation because of the Serbian context in IT sector.’’ Milicevic as an alumna of the University of Belgrade and the University of Cambridge who studied and worked in Belgrade, Berlin and London sees international ICT collaboration as modus operandi.
She adds, ‘‘The best ICT knowledge workers that emigrate from Serbia can still contribute to the development of our ecosystem as local heroes who succeeded abroad; the local or international companies that open headquarters in Serbia or expand their existing teams can do that with the understanding of global IT supply and demand, which boils down to work conditions, promotion opportunities and reward systems for high-achiever workers. The young people born after 2000 now enrol universities and have the opportunity to build their knowledge and career both in the field of artificial intelligence and e-sports.’’
All these burning questions were covered at INAT Summit during three streams of topics: Digital Transformation; E-migration of Talent and Capital and Psychology of Success.
During the speech of Ivan Bjelajac and Miloš Solujić from the Serbian Blockchain Initiative, the audience busted myths about blockchain and learned how to apply this technology in business, while Bill Le-Voir Barry, IBM CTO and E-sports Advisor spoke about global projects in artificial intelligence and e-sports that IBM initiates.
In the panel on talent emigration and IT entrepreneurship, the following experts participated: Stefan Salom, on behalf of the Digital Serbia Initiative, Oana Bouraoi, project manager from European Young Innovators Forum in Brussels, one of the largest organizations in Europe for youth education in ICT; Moshe Sarfaty, Founder of Krypton Venture Capital from Tel Aviv; Armin Konjalic in front of Humaniq, a blocking solution for finances in emerging markets.
Dr Miloš Borenović, Product Development Director at TeleSign, presented trends in the development of mobile applications, as well as successful mobile projects for 20 of the world’s top brands that TeleSign teams in Belgrade, USA and other offices successfully implemented, while Ilija Zagorac spoke about agile TeleSign engineering culture during the workshop.
The keynote of Marija Desivojević-Cvetković, the Senior Vice President for Strategy and Development of Delta Holding left the brilliant impression on the audience and opened many questions. Ms Desivojević-Cvetković spoke about optimal time management and sharp focus so that we better synergize our business and private tasks.
We should also emphasize the first visit of the keynote lecturer Danny Creed to Serbia, who is a consultant for the transformation of IT companies and 6-Times Recipient of Brian Tracy FocalPoint International Award of Sales Excellence. Master Coach Danny taught the audience how to double their performance and productivity in 24 hours; what are 12 main pillars for career success, and how to determine personality profiles of their clients and associates.
The audience was also extremely interested in the panel about tendencies in IoT and mobile technologies, as well as the collaboration between the public sector and users. Participants at the panel were: Gilad Uziely, on behalf of the Tel Aviv Global; Franco Coin, founder of MHT SRL software company, involved in the application of GDPR in the IT industry; Dejan Dramicanin, CEO of Bitgar; while Silviu-Tudor Serban, the founder of Helios Vision and Intel Software Innovator, spoke about the application of artificial intelligence in business.
What distinguishes INAT Summit in the sea of similar projects is that apart from the improvement of engineering and business skills, the audience can learn a lot about the development of strategic thinking and soft skills for both teams and individuals. This year the lectures of the following speakers were exceptionally visited: Kristina Klassen, software engineer and consultant from Zurich; Lazar Džamić, author and lecturer from the Faculty of Media and Communication, Dylan Hey on building B2B partnerships on Linkedin; as well as Lidija Marković Rosati and Thomas Bjorge, founder of Momentum Strategies coaching.
Through a series of monthly meetups in 2018, the INAT centre will continue to help the IT community in Serbia to develop skills for international IT business, create a stronger engineering culture in companies, and position Serbia as a destination with innovative IT solutions and reliable professionals in the time of Digital transformation and Industries 4.0.
The next monthly meetup in May will be with Sam Malikarjunan, executive strategist at Hubspot, and information on the exact time and location will be available on the INAT Summit website and on the official Meetup page INATE Meetup Group.
Those who have missed lectures and workshops during the INAT Summit have the opportunity to view them at the official INAT Summit YouTube channel, as well as to note down the dates of new meetups and conferences during 2018 and 2019.
The Journey From E-migration to Digital Transformation never comes to a standstill thanks to curiosity, knowledge and dedicated IT professionals.