Participants

Dave Birss feels uncomfortable being asked what he does because he’s never entirely certain himself. He envies those people who can describe what they do in an elevator ride. He can kind of do it in a wheezing climb up 17 flights of stairs. So this is an incomplete and rambling summary. Dave writes books. His latest book, Friction, which he co-wrote with Soon Yu, is causing a stir in the digital industries. He’s also the author of How To Get To Great Ideas, Iconic Advantage and A User Guide To The Creative Mind. And he’s currently writing a book in collaboration with ChatGPT. Dave is also an educator. He has several courses on LinkedIn Learning. And he’s also started releasing his own courses on davebirss.com. During lockdown he launched Virtual Presenting Academy to show people how to come across professionally on a webcam. His approach has gained him a lot of attention and he now advises companies on their pitches and virtual events. He’s also a film-maker, father, international catwalk model and occasional liar.

Milovan specializes in providing legal advice in M&A transactions (i.e. company purchase and sale procedures, various types of reorganization and restructuring and status changes) and other business transfer procedures, with a special emphasis and experience in ownership and management transition procedures in family companies. In addition to the above, Milovan also provides legal advice in complex issues of company and contract law, as well as advice on labor law issues to domestic and international clients, i.e. subsidiaries of global companies operating in the region. Milovan completed official training as a mediator and consultant within the ASEE Center for the Development of Family Companies.

Aleksa gained his first work experience as very young when, during the summer vacations, he and his sister helped in the family company. These were jobs in the store, production and warehouse. During his studies in hotel management, he worked at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Belgrade, and after finishing his education, he got his first assignment at Art Ival, as a kind of retail coordinator. In the following years, he also took over sales to corporate customers (branded packaging, private label production), and after a few years, wholesale, and then export. He is currently working as a commercial director in charge of sales, procurement and marketing, and has been working for the company for 12 years. Married, used to play basketball, and for more than a decade played folklore in AKUD Ivo Lola Ribar from Belgrade.

Rade Vučićević, together with his wife Tatjana, founded the Art Agency in 1989, which organized manifestations and events for children and theater performances, and in 1992 they registered the company Art Ival, which was engaged in the trade of coffee in a small building on Zvezdara. Since they were selling high-quality coffee, and in the desire to differentiate themselves from the competition from the very beginning, they included chocolate delicacies in their offer, and so began a story that has been going on for three decades. Four years after the establishment of the company, they launched their trademark called “Premier”, which is protected by the Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia. Today, they employ about 40 people who handcraft more than 200 chocolate products with a unique taste, and their products can be found on the shelves in Germany, Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro.”

Branko Nešić is a serial entrepreneur and founder of the Rakia bar, Belgrade Urban Distillery, and the initiator of the Belgrade Night Market. He started entrepreneurship in 1998, when together with his brother he renovated his grandfather’s basement and opened a convenience store under the name Vesela dolina. The Rakia bar has been located in the same place since 2006, which was created as a unique concept in which the finest fruit distillate is drunk always with meze, a creative snack in a modern space. Today, Rakia bar is a protected trademark behind the artisanal production of premium fruit brandies, specialized stores – Rakia&Co, several Rakiabars and the most famous brandy festival, Rakija Fest.

Fredrik Haren is The Creativity Explorer. He has spent the last 25 years traveling the world to learn as much as he can about human creativity. He is the author of ten books – including “The Idea Book” which was included in “the 100 best business books of all time”. Fredrik has been invited to speak more than 2000 times in over 70 countries on 6 continents. As The Creativity Explorer, he aims to discover more about human creativity, be it from innovators in Silicon Valley or nomads in the desert of Mongolia in order to help more people discover their full creative potential.

Aleksandar Nastevski is the founder and director of the company NB Soft, which has been supporting the improvement of its clients’ e-commerce business for 13 years through the e-commerce platform NB Shop, which has more than 20 million registered customers, more than 4 million users per day and more than 200 million completed orders. They are present in over 14 different markets. Guided by the motto “Be better today than yesterday” as a system architect and senior developer, Aleksandar still likes to solve the challenges of electronic commerce, and he finds confirmation of a job well done in the satisfaction of merchants and their employees during operational work on the NB shop platform.

He graduated from the Faculty of Law in 2009, and as a child from a family of lawyers, his career path was mapped out. He dealt with commercial and labor law for ten years, and at the end of 2019, he decided to embark on the path of entrepreneurship. In 2020, Kadrovska (kadrovska.app) is launched. That was the beginning of the end of my career in law and the beginning of my career in IT entrepreneurship. Kadrovska is a SaaS, a combination of IT and law with the aim of digitizing and speeding up all processes in personnel and HR services. Together with his wife, he founded MojSavetnik (mojsavetnik.rs) in 2021, which represents professional support for users of Kadrovska. He loves Jazz, books and playing PS4 with his son Mateja.

Born in Niš, where he graduated from the Svetozar Marković Gymnasium – a specialized department for gifted mathematicians, and then the Faculty of Electronics with an average grade of 9.56. In addition to formal technical skills, he also has extensive informal education and broad knowledge of business, primarily business processes and information systems implementation. 20 years ago, he founded Logik business software, a company that today has more than 3,000 clients offering business solutions for business monitoring, retail sales and fiscalization as well as on-the-go work for businesses that have a lot of activities in the field. Socially active and prominent member of numerous business associations: SAM (Serbian Association of Managers), Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Association of Electronic Communications and Information Society, NiCat (Niš Cluster of Advanced Technologies). Member of the Council of the Professional Association of Software Producers of Serbia and president of the Section of Software Producers PKS Niš of the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia. Frequent lecturer at business conferences.

Vladimir Zarić has a degree in electrical engineering. He trained professionally at The IDM Institute, London, UK, where he completed specialist postgraduate studies in digital marketing. Digital Director with over 20 years of regional and global experience in various verticals and industries. Dedicated and passionate about the development and implementation of complex digital projects for world-famous brands, corporations, media houses, advertising agencies and startups. He has worked for the British Council, MTV, Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, and currently holds the position of Account Director of the Four Dots agency. He is the winner of numerous professional awards and recognitions in the country and abroad. He has been working as a leader in the field of digital communications and digital marketing for more than 10 years.

Marko Ilić is a web site and application designer with many years of experience working with internatiinal companies. He has collaborated with small and large companies over variety of industries including: technology, telecommunications, media, catering, healthcare, sports, music and a few others. Some of the solutions he worked on are used today by companies and organizations such as the NBA, Kia, Formula E, Warner Records, Deity Microphones, and others.

Marijana Borković graduated in economics from the Faculty of Business Studies of Megatrend University. She has been building a career in the field of digital marketing for 10 years, working in creative agencies and productions. She has been part of the RNIDS marketing team since the beginning of 2022 and leads the Domen.rs project, the organization of the DIDS conference and other projects.

Dragan Marković is a professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Belgrade, head of the Department of Agricultural Mechanical Engineering, corresponding member of the Academy of Engineering Sciences of Serbia and president of ITN Group.

Prof. Dr. Dragan Marković graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade in 1982, then received his master’s degree in 1987, and defended his doctoral dissertation in 1991. After graduating in 1982, he got a job at the company 14. oktobar Kruševac – Belgrade Development Institute, where he worked on the development of construction and agricultural machinery. Since 1984, he has been working at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade, at the Department of Agricultural Mechanical Engineering, first as an assistant, since 1993 as an assistant professor, since 1998 as an associate professor, and since 2002 as a full professor. In engineering and professional work, he is a member of the Chamber of Engineers of Serbia, the author of 14 patents, 6 of which have been realized and are being serially produced today.

In 1992, he founded, with his wife Vera, a private company – ITN Group. Created with the vision of developing and implementing new technologies and techniques in agriculture and the food industry:
– ITN Group today is considered a regional leader in: – Engineering and distribution of specialized agricultural machinery in agriculture
– ITN AgroTech, – Engineering, design, production and assembly of complete technological lines and equipment, industrial refrigeration systems, electrical equipment and software for the food and beverage industry according to the “turnkey” system
– ITN FoodTech, – Processing, final packaging and export of frozen fruits and vegetables directly to hypermarkets around the world – ITN Eko Povlen.

ITN Group employs young, highly educated personnel. It mainly exports its products and services (over 70%) to the EU, UK, Russia and many other countries. All projects of ITN FoodTech are carried out according to the turnkey system: Frikom, Friglo, Carnex, Agrokor, Podravka, Pik Bečej, PKB-Al Dahra, Nectar, Podrum Palić, IMLEK and many others.

Aleksandar gained his first work experience working in companies outside the ITN Group, which included working in a multinational company in the brewing industry (ABInBew, the largest beer producer in the world). After completing his education abroad and gaining his first work experience, Aleksandar joined ITN Group and started his career as an assistant in the sales and marketing department, later going through other sectors within the company. He is currently the director of Budimka (the newest member of the ITN Group) and is the executive director of the ITN EkoPovlen sector (frozen fruit factory in Kosjerić), and is actively involved in the strategic planning and development of the ITN Group as a whole. He currently manages around 240 employees in these two sectors of the Group with total revenues of over 25,000,000 euros.