Page 27 - bne Magazine August 2022

bne August 2022 Companies & Markets I 27
He references the “huge potential” of the 50% of installed solar capacity owned by individuals that is not currently part of the market. “The only way to manage it is by using blockchain. We created a system that validates the source, validates the data from source and connects data to the individual,” Petrovic explains.
The other standout area within the Serbian tech sector is game development. According to data from the Serbian Games Association, there are currently about 130 teams
and companies in Serbia that are actively working on the development of games and other services closely related to the gaming industry. The organisation estimates that more than 2,200 people work in the video game sector, with another 450 jobs set to be created in 2022. Overall the Serbian video game industry had a turnover of around €125mn in 2021.
Among the most successful local companies is Belgrade-based mobile games developer Nordeus, creator of Top Eleven Football Manager and strategy game Heroic – Magic Duel. The company was acquired by Take-Two Interactive for $378mn in 2021.
Bjelotomi€ believes Serbian game developers can get even bigger. “Maybe we don’t have a unicorn in gaming but at least have really big global players in the market. And you never know, a single hit can make difference,” he says.
Food and agriculture
He also points to biotech and agritech as an area where Serbia has strong potential, given that “we are still predominantly an agricultural county”. New technologies to increase food production and – the other side of the coin – to reduce food waste are becoming increasingly importance
in the context of climate change and the need to feed the world’s growing population.
Serbia’s second city of Novi Sad is home to the BioSense Institute that works on projects that span bio systems and
IT. The institute, now an important research centre with hundreds of international partners, started out as a small group of people who believed in the idea that IT and bio systems would meet in the future, director of the institute Vladimir Crnojevic said in an interview with bne IntelliNews in April. That was back in 2005-06. “At that time it was science fiction,” he says. However, he adds, focusing on that area “was a really good bet, because now it’s completely melting. The borders between bio systems and IT are getting lost”.
Today, the institute is organised in three research centres: the centre for bio systems, the centre for sensing technology and the centre for information technology. Technologies developed under its research projects are used in Serbia and elsewhere.
Another aspect of feeding the world’s growing population
is reducing food waste, an issue tracked by Serbia startup EatMeApp, developer of a smart assistant that helps users make educated decisions about how and when to use their food.
“Our grandmothers and their attitude about food are our inspiration. They built into our DNA that throwing food
away is not under any circumstances a reasonable thing to do. So, one day in front of my open refrigerator it struck
me while I was getting ready to throw away a chicken filet (again!) – what if we have an app that sends reminders about food expiration dates?” says co-founder Aleksandra Lazovic- Lønningen, explaining how the company came into existence.
“Eat Me App conceptually grew since then, but its core mission is to assist people in making conscious and educated food consumption decisions,” Lazovic-Lønningen adds. “The result is less food waste, less CO2, more disposable income.”
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