In the Educational and Cultural Center Vuk Karadžić in Tršić from September 25. until September 29. in 2023, five-day workshops “Building the capacity of government representatives for the development of startups, “incubation” of companies and the business environment” were organized for participants from the City of Loznica and Brčko District of BiH within the project NESESER – “Newly established Start-up Enterprise SERvices”.

The workshops were prepared and organized by the consultant Marija Suzić, who also gave a lecture, while the workshops were also held by experts in the field of entrepreneurship – Marijana Grković and Bojan Milenković. Also, at the workshops, participants had the opportunity to listen to the successful story of the business incubator from Osijek, as well as to hear successful examples of individual entrepreneurial stories. The knowledge gained at the workshops will be used by representatives of the state administration and the project team during the establishment and development of two business incubators – in the Brčko District of BiH and the City of Loznica.

Project manager Ana Milenković points out that the workshops had multiple positive effects on everyone present. Primarily, the participants gained new knowledge about entrepreneurship, “pre-incubation” and incubation of companies, which will be of great use to them for the further development of entrepreneurship in their local communities, with a special focus on female and youth entrepreneurship. Also, the networking of participants from these two cities and the continuation of their cooperation in the future is of great importance.

According to Miroslav Marić, a specialist in financial issues, various organizational forms for the establishment of a business incubator, the structure of employees, expected income and expenses, as well as the potential “ideal” activities of tenants were analysed. “We visited the building where the incubator is planned to be installed in Loznica, which has just been built and partially equipped. The very end of the workshop was perhaps particularly interesting to us because the topic of marketing and advertising in entrepreneurship through social networks was covered in detail. Practical examples were shown, which was particularly interesting for everyone”, said Marić.
The successfully implemented workshops are part of the NESESER project – “Newly established Start-up Enterprise SERvices” implemented by the Development and Guarantee Fund of the Brčko District of BiH, the City of Loznica and the Institute for Development and Innovation – IRI, and co-financed by the European Union within the framework of the Pre-Accession Assistance Financial Instrument (IPA II) through the Cross-border cooperation program Serbia – Bosnia and Herzegovina 2014 – 2020. The contracting body of this project is the Ministry of Finance – Department for Contracting and Financing Programs from the European Union.