Interaction in education today is imperative. When a learner is placed in an active position, they are no longer just an observer, but also a kind of bearer of activity. With this new role, learning becomes more thorough, and the acquired knowledge more applicable.
Challenging times bring with them a strong need for adaptations. Startups, with their flexibility and innovative thinking and realizations, bring changes that make life easier. Startup Nobula brings changes in the functionality, efficiency, and performance of learning.
The best ideas are born out of necessity. When you decide to take action regarding a detected need, you are no longer an observer. You become a mover. You become an entrepreneur. Zoran Milas, co-founder of the startup Nobula, shared his story.
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—– After completing my medical studies, like most colleagues, I tried to obtain a specialization, which was very problematic in the nineties. In fact, the problem was getting any job, so for a while, I did all sorts of things. I spent several years trying my hand at public service, realized it wasn’t for me, and then spent more than 10 years in a global pharmaceutical company – says Milas.
– Upon finishing university, I realized I needed an additional source of income, and over a few months, I mastered the basics of programming. That’s where my love for IT was born, and I also took my first entrepreneurial steps – says Milas.
In the pharmaceutical industry, Zoran learned the business part of the story, which was extremely useful for the continuation of his entrepreneurial career.
– The job I did required frequent stays at domestic and international congresses, symposiums, and various trainings. There, I noticed that technology was not being used enough. So, I very early launched the first independent portal for the education of healthcare professionals. We were the first to use video in education and the first to hold a completely virtual congress in 2011, and in 2012, the first hybrid congress – recalls Zoran.
The next step they envisioned (and realized) was interaction in education. They transformed the most common, ex catedra form of lectures into a more interesting, interactive form for participants.
– We created a prototype of an application that functioned on large, touch screen monitors and offered it to the market. The reaction was excellent. But at the moment we thought we already had a product that would conquer not only the domestic market but also the markets of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia, the pandemic hit. Everything stopped in an instant. That’s when we realized that the way we function was changing. We decided to go in a new direction. We launched a startup. Our goal was to develop an application that could function on any platform, that would be easily scalable, and that could be implemented into existing learning platforms – Zoran tells us.
Alongside Zoran, the startup Nobula Technologies was founded by Vladimir Šoštarić and Jovo Skorupan, both experienced programmers with many years of experience. Today, Zoran, Vladimir, and Jovo form the core of the company, which also includes several younger programmers and external collaborators.
– Developing such a project is quite demanding and expensive. For now, we are financing ourselves with our own funds, and partly from custom projects – says Zoran about the challenges of financing.
Currently, Nobula Technologies is developing two applications, Nobula Interactive Case (which they are working on and intend to work on for quite some time) and their new product Nobula Event, an application designed for the rapid generation of hybrid or virtual events that they launched recently.
The types of events that can be created using this application are diverse – from congresses (hybrid and virtual with a combination of live and pre-recorded lectures), to symposiums with live broadcasts, product launches, online courses with pre-recorded lectures, and even those with interactive case solving. This application is also ideal for holding virtual and hybrid advisory board meetings.
The advantages of this application are speed, security, self-administration, and excellent branding opportunities, say Nobula.
In the next year, the goal of this startup is to achieve sales results sufficient for self-financing, which will facilitate attracting new colleagues to the team. This would allow them to operate in the territory of the European Union in the short term, and then globally.
– In five years, we want the Nobula Interactive Case application to be a standard in education – says Milas.
