It Is Necessary to Skip Steps for Croatia to Keep Up with Global Trends

During the first round table of the Lider conference ‘Smart Cities’, discussions were held on strengthening the competitiveness of the tourist destination as well as the social, economic, and ecological prosperity of citizens. Participants in this panel discussion included Andrea Novaković, director of the Development Agency of the City of Dubrovnik – DURA d.o.o., Sanela Vrkljan from the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, director of the fund for environmental protection and energy efficiency Sven Müller, Damir Zec, director of IBM Croatia, Krešimir Dvorski, co-owner and director of the Public Bicycle System d.o.o., and once again Ivica Perica.

Vrkljan emphasized that what would please her the most at this moment would be a smart region modeled after Italy and Spain, not just smart cities.

– While in Lika 40 percent of hospitality providers do not have a website, it is somewhat pointless to talk about smart systems. We must start from the basics first – said Vrkljan.

Perica responded that this should be viewed progressively, and that steps should be skipped for Croatia to be immediately in line with global trends. Otherwise, we will lose the battle, believes Perica. Dvorski thanked Sven Müller’s fund for being the first to recognize the segment of sustainable mobility, while Andrea Novaković boasted about the implementation of a series of pilot projects in Dubrovnik, the leading Croatian ‘smart city‘.

– The goal of all tourism professionals is to offer as many ‘smart services’ as possible to the people coming to the city. This way, they will keep coming back. Take New York or Lille with their special application for the disabled as an example. It is not enough to just standardize the infrastructure; you must create loyalty among your guests – believes Zec.

Anita Lovrić from Infodom warned about the importance of standardization after the panel discussion.

– Standards help in all phases of the process of establishing Smart City. Since it is the future that inevitably awaits us, you need to start today, define your vision, and select the standards that can help us the most – she concluded.

The most important document of public authorities is the budget, but its importance is inversely proportional to its comprehensibility. The solution is the tool Croračun, presented by Dejan Gambin. It is an interactive visualization system that allows for easy comparison and tracking of budget trends of local and regional self-government units. It performs detailed analytics of a city, contains up-to-date data including the budget plan, and offers users an interactive overview of the data.