Regional Innovation Startup Center Vranje opens

The Regional Innovation Startup Center has been opened in Vranje.

– This center should provide an impetus for creating ideas that will turn into concrete projects, but also act as a platform for connecting education, economy and science – Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovation in the Government of the Republic of Serbia Bela Balint said on this occasion.

According to him, this institution should be an incentive for young people to dream bolder, for entrepreneurs to believe in their ideas, for teachers and professors to transfer their knowledge and encourage creativity, and for all of us to support this endeavor together, according to a statement from the Government.

Mayor of Vranje Slobodan Milenkovic said that the establishment of the Regional Innovation Startup Center opened a space in which the ideas of young people would grow into driving forces of development, adding that it created conditions for Serbian talents not to look for opportunities far from home, but to find them in their own city and region.

The director of this center in Vranje, Dragana Maksic, said that it was the beginning of a great vision, which represented a bridge between the idea and its realization.

The director of the Science and Technology Park Nis, Milan Randjelovic, pointed out that the state had recognized the need to regionalize and decentralize the field of innovation.

– Thanks to the support of the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation and the Government of Serbia, we have moved forward with the development of institutions to support innovation in smaller cities, which are, above all, district centers with potential for the development of an innovation ecosystem – he emphasized.

Minister Balint and Mayor of Vranje signed an agreement on the occasion of the opening of the Regional Innovation Startup Center Vranje, within which the Ministry will finance the purchase of equipment necessary for the operation of this center.

At a meeting with Milenkovic, representatives of the municipalities of the Pcinja District, the director of the STP Nis and the director of the Regional Innovation Startup Center Vranje, Balint emphasized that the Ministry would strive to provide full support for the further development of the newly opened center and help with networking and entry into the system of science and technology parks in Serbia.

The mayor of Vranje pointed out that the Government of Serbia had allocated more than 2 million dinars for the purchase of equipment necessary for the operation of the Regional Innovation Startup Center.

The initiative to establish regional innovation startup centers began in 2018 as a response to the need for developed systems of support for innovation in regions of Serbia where there were no developed levels of support, such as science and technology parks, the statement said.