BH Futures Foundation along with local and international industry partners (JS Guru, Softhouse, Masterwerk, Ebtikaar, PSI, Culture4Innovation, Bit Alliance, DevStudio & USAid, hosted the IEEE Industry Engagement Committee’s “IT & Engineering Business. in Banja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina. More than 50 companies were present and over 120 attendees came out for this spectacular gathering.

The event was a pilot program launched by the IEEE Industry Engagement Committee in order to stimulate industry activity at conferences. Bosnia & Herzegovina is one the 6 countries in which we will trial this method, the others being Brazil, UK, USA, Morocco and Japan.In this case the Conference on Medical & Biological Engineering (CMBEBiH) held in Banja Luka was the platform from which this business forum grew.

The format of the forum gave the opportunity for 10 companies (local & international) to present in a 5 minute format an overview of their work, including opportunities, collaboration, challenges etc. This format allowed the 120+ attendees (80% industry, 20% academia) to get a general sense of opportunities where collaboration could spark. Individuals and companies which presented at the forum were:

Eddie Custovic (IEEE Industry Engagement Committee)
Himzo Music (Softhouse, Sweden)
Andrej Kaurin (JSGuru, Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Martin Trtilek (Photon System Instruments, Czech Republic)
Petar Stojanov (Ebitkaar, United Arab Emirates)
Muamer Babajic (Masterwerk, Germany)
Emir Dzanic (Culture4Innovation, UK)
Nemanja Vujanic (DevStudio, Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Sanjin Arifagic (USAid Diaspora Invest)
Tatjana Vucic (Bit Alliance, Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Haris Selmanovic (BH Futures Foundation)

The Information technology & engineering industries (design, research & development, manufacturing) are the backbone of many global economies. Bosnia & Herzegovina has a long history of excellence in these fields. Modern technologies have enabled even the most remote communities to be connected to the global economic pipeline and the search for talent is growing exponentially. We believe that with the 1.5 million + diaspora, of which a large proportion is highly qualified, influential and experienced, can be a game changer for Bosnia & Herzegovina. Furthermore, the extensive networks of our diaspora ensure that no corner of our planet can’t be reached and influenced. This was strongly emphasised at the forum.

Below you can see which other companies were present:

Banja Luka - IT & Engineering Business Networking Forum - A huge success