Bosnia and Herzegovina was well known for big companies and some traditional industries as key components of its economy (metallurgy, textile, construction, etc.) in which the unemployment rate has been particularly high. Many international organizations and projects have spent millions of Euros trying to create a more vibrant and dynamic tissue of SMEs that could absorb some unemployed people and create a real added value for the economy. Such change has proven to be very long to come since it requires firstly a change in way that people think, as they need to be more entrepreneurial and risk-taking, and this takes time. There are, of course, some great examples of real success stories and cities like Gorazde or Tešanj, just to mention a few, where it is difficult to find a person who is looking for a job and where the unemployment rate has almost disappeared.
But this time we will focus not on local economic development best practices but on two excellent individual examples that might well be massive success stories in a couple of years, and which are already remarkable based on their impact.
In the last couple of months, with increasing frequency and intensity, good news is coming from the IT sector, where some of the most important and modern world trends are being reproduced also in BiH. This is great news for job creation and skills development. More precisely, an already well known organization HUB387, founded by Mr. Edin Saracevic, has been launched with a goal to create the next generation of IT work environment in the city of Sarajevo. HUB387 is a space where aspiring IT companies and individuals connect and collaborate and where interaction with peers facilitates new ideas and solutions. As a place it is very nice and modern, situated in Bosmal center with a surface of 2400m2. It was built according to the highest western standards. In addition to the office space, HUB387 offers a social area including a cafe and a restaurant, brainstorming and relaxing zones used for workshops and promotional/educational activities and events.
Besides servicing some of the most important regional and world customers in the IT industry, with companies that it is hosting, HUB387 is organizing and hosting IT industry events such as seminars, working lunches, hackathons, etc. It happens on a regular basis and guests and potential partners from the entire country are coming to some of these events. Through these programs, HUB387 members can enjoy educational benefits while connecting with other leaders and experts in the IT industry. This is also a great example of synergy between different entrepreneurial activities and projects as some of the winners from Start-up weekend competitions in Sarajevo are also now using HUB 387 services. Hub387 already provides space to different types of IT companies, going from dynamic, small and local like Mistral Technologies, Klika, etc. to important big international companies like Authority Partners.
There are also at least two very important benefits for the whole community that might be less obvious but in any case not less important. Firstly, as a cluster combining several companies and several dozens of IT experts, HUB 387 is now looking much more attractive to foreign companies and partners and they already had visits from some of the world’s top IT companies. None of them would have come to discuss or visit one single company, but having valuable local IT companies in one place makes it much more attractive to foreign investors and partners.
Secondly, HUB 387 helps stop the brain drain that is particularly important in this industry. Everybody who has tried to recruit any real expert from the IT industry knows how difficult that task can be because the demand for such profiles, both national and international, is very important.
The other very positive news, promising in terms of future demand for such products and of the development potential of the company is the industry of electrical cars. A Banja Luka based company called Nikola Tesla just finished testing products and started to produce cars for which spare parts are coming from 5 B&H based factories, including the municipality of Laktasi, which is also one of the fastest growing municipalities in B&H in terms of economic development.
The plan is to produce 14 000 cars per year. The founder of that company is the Government of Republika Srpska and all cars are being exported to Germany because the contract was signed with the German company Streetscooter. Given the state of the local economy, it is a real privilege to have in B&H an exporter of such high added value products to Germany. The first cars will equip German Posts car pool and it has been planned to produce three different types of vehicles. Also, 10 cars have been ordered for the local market and it will also contribute to better awareness raising about environment protection and this is also very positive news. When we take into account additional savings that such cars can produce it becomes even more attractive for all markets (while using this car you only spend 5 Euros to drive 600 kilometers while for the same distance a normal car would cost you around 80 Euros, which is 16 times more!).
All companies involved in the production of this electrical car and its spare parts will certainly have a significant increase of orders, revenues and will need to recruit additional workforce in the next year or two, so it is also preventing and slowing down the brain drain. Furthermore, this industry is also fully in line with one of the most important world megatrends, which is environment protection and it certainly has a very promising future if kept far away from politics.
Whether we speak about HUB387 or about Nikola Tesla, if carefully managed, in the next year or two, these companies will become regional success stories. They could easily also become recognized case studies for business schools demonstrating that even in the most difficult of business environments in Europe it is possible to succeed.