The Faculty of Organization and Informatics and the City of Varaždin Launch the First Pre-Incubation Center in Smart Industry in Croatia

The news about the restoration of the historic Villa Oršić from the 19th century in the center of Varaždin, which was taken over and restored by the Faculty of Organization and Informatics (University of Zagreb) by the decision of the City Council of the City of Varaždin, quickly spread through the media, considering that nearly one million euros were collected and invested for it, thus saving this valuable historical building from decay and putting it into function for new teaching concepts. FOI is now taking a step further – together with the City of Varaždin, it has prepared a project for the construction of a Pre-Incubation Center in smart industry, which is to be built next to Villa Oršić.

Externally, the historical appearance of the Villa is fully preserved, while internally it ‘hides’ the application of modern learning and teaching models based on Work Based Learning, Problem Based Learning, and Project Based Learning concepts. The Villa has expanded FOI’s spatial capacities, but more importantly – it has marked an even more intense continuation of the development of innovative methods of transferring knowledge and experience from the industry to students of the IT and economic verticals of FOI’s study programs.

At the official opening, the dean of the Faculty Prof. Dr. Nina Begičević Ređep, during whose term this Villa was completely restored and saved from decay, announced a new project of FOI, the City of Varaždin, and surrounding cities and municipalities called the Pre-Incubation Center in Smart Industry. The main goal of the project is to institutionally strengthen activities for early recognition and development of innovative entrepreneurial ideas, development of digital and entrepreneurial knowledge and smart technologies, and participation and support for their development and commercialization.

—

Nina Begičević Ređep

photo

—

– Through education, consulting, mentoring, and encouraging innovation, in collaboration with students, with the help of think tanks, mentors, and advisors, startup ecosystems will be created as an added value for the economy and society of Northern Croatia’ – said Dean Begičević Ređep.

The regional pre-incubation center is designed as a platform that will encourage new forms of cooperation between entrepreneurs (beginners) and SMEs – cooperation between the business, scientific, and public sectors. The center in the pre-incubation segment discovers innovative concepts through various instruments and raises awareness, educates, and provides support in the application of new technologies and the latest technological achievements – from idea to realization and from pre-incubation to incubation.

This is a six million euro project for the construction of the Pre-Incubation Center in smart industry, which was prepared by FOI at the beginning of 2023 and submitted to the ITU mechanism together with the City of Varaždin. The plan is for the Center to be located next to the plot on which Villa Oršić is positioned, which would mean the first such pre-incubation center for smart industry in Croatia, and precisely in Varaždin.

FOI, a constituent of the University of Zagreb, has positioned itself here in northern Croatia as a leader in the education of IT and economic professionals, and for the past decade, it has been building the IT scene in northern Croatia.

– Our 2,700 students come from all over Croatia, and most of them start building their careers while studying. Our partner IT companies, many of which have also started establishing companies or branches here in Varaždin – did so because of the quality workforce that comes precisely from FOI. These are our students to whom, as a multidisciplinary faculty in Croatia, we transfer IT knowledge, but also knowledge from organization, business, and entrepreneurship, and involving employers in all processes of the faculty and transferring practical knowledge and experience is a priority for FOI. We apply work-based learning as an approach in which employers assign students specific problems from practice as well as project-based learning, as it is important for us that our students prepare projects as a team. Intensive programs held by employers are also an important part of learning and teaching – emphasizes the dean of FOI.

In these companies, more than 70 percent of former FOI students work, and in the Technology Park Varaždin, of which FOI is a co-founder – most of the companies were founded by FOI graduates. Through a series of activities and exceptional connectivity with companies from the industry, FOI encourages the development of the so-called ‘entrepreneurial mindset’ among students, and through the Startup@FOI program, just last year, they launched three student startups into the world of entrepreneurship, which today work for large clients in Europe, the USA, and even Asia.

The dean claims that the logical continuation of such a vision of the Faculty is precisely the Pre-Incubation Center in smart industry, which should unify the processes of education in incubation and acceleration of startup companies in one place.

– We are working on gathering an international team of professionals who will transfer their domestic and foreign experiences from practice and encourage our students to develop and realize entrepreneurial ideas. Along with in-house expertise in business process development, we have also formed the Economic Council of FOI, which will help us in this, consisting of experts from practice, people in leading positions in our strategic partner companies – emphasizes Begičević Ređep.

—

Hajdi Ćenan

photo

—

Among the names in the startup scene is also Hajdi Ćenan, co-founder and director of the AI startup airt and president of the CRO Startup Association, who believes that in the startup world, the most important thing is to first achieve the so-called product-market fit, which is best achieved through feedback from the market, and the Economic Council of FOI sees precisely this market that indicates its real needs and helps with guidelines on the knowledge and skills needed from the workforce being formed in educational institutions like FOI. The development of the Pre-Incubation Center supports this and emphasizes that startups are the most vulnerable in that very early initial phase.

– Having continuous support from such a Center that follows them from the idea and helps them in those first phases is of immense help – believes Ćenan.