The second Knowledge Sharing Session of the #Collab4HySustCCI project was an invaluable gathering that united  mentors with 15 carefully selected teams across various countries. This online event served as a platform for practical networking and knowledge exchange, with a particular focus on fostering innovation in the Southeast Europe region’s creative and cultural sectors.

Event Highlights:

• Connections: Participants engaged in presentations and discussions that facilitated meaningful connections. The event showcased numerous exciting projects, underscoring the creative and cultural sectors’ potential in Southeastern Europe for cultural sustainability and audience development.

• Insights: Expert-led sessions delved into audience dynamics within the Creative Industry Value Chain. Furthermore, discussions centered on aligning each pilot’s cultural impact with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2030. Participants gained practical tools for enhancing collaboration aimed at sustaining activities and engaging audiences. Special recognition to experts Maider Maraña and Michael Panayotis for their contributions.

• Support: Open discussions fostered a supportive community where ideas flourished, and solutions emerged. To ensure no participant left empty-handed, CCIs and mentors received a toolkit developed by Intercultural Consult to aid in their pilot pre-assessment sessions.

Looking Ahead: The success of this session sets the stage for the next gathering, which will take place in May 2024 in Belgrade, adopting a hybrid format to accommodate both physical and online participation. Individuals interested in supporting the #Collab4HySustCCI pilots or contributing to the incubation support for cultural and creative organizations in Southeast Europe are encouraged to reach out.

Project Details:

• Project Name: #Collab4HYSyst
• Partners: Materahub, Intercultura Consult, Det Flyvende Teater, Syn+ergasia
• Funding: Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the EU and the National “Culture” Fund of Bulgaria, with support from the Plovdiv municipality as an associated partner.

Conclusion: The Knowledge Sharing Session 2 of the #Collab4HySustCCI project proved to be a pivotal event, fostering collaboration, sharing insights, and providing essential support to participants. As the project progresses, it continues to pave the way for sustainable growth and innovation in the cultural and creative sectors of Southeast Europe.

Nova Iskra participated in the European Creative Industries Summit (ECIS) in Bilbao last month.
The summit was held under the slogan Decolonizing Innovation – Decolonizing the Mind, emphasizing the need for a critical reevaluation and reshaping of our perspectives, knowledge systems, and innovation approaches to promote inclusivity, diversity, and fair practices. By decolonizing our way of thinking and innovation processes, we can create a more inclusive and transformative future for all.
Additionally, the summit provided a platform to raise questions about how we use innovations, especially in the context of the transformation of our planet towards ecological, digital, and social changes. The importance of recognizing the value of traditional and local knowledge systems, heritage, and crafts in the green transition was highlighted.

Nova Iskra participated in the Creative Skills Week in Vienna this October. This event put a focus on the Cultural and Creative industries and the issue of skills gaps within the CCIS sector.

Creative Skills Week was a hot spot for strategic-thinkers, policymakers, cultural workers and networks, creative and cultural hubs, and creative and artistic practitioners to co-create plans addressing urgent and future skills needs.

Creative Skills Week 2023 was an initiative of the EU Pact for Skills for the Cultural and Creative Industries Ecosystem, the Alliance for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills CYANOTYPES and the European Creative Hubs Network.

Within the project MADE IN we attended an enlightening seminar presented by Drugo more, where we delved into the fascinating relationship between nature and human activities. This thought-provoking event took place on Friday, October 13th, offering two sessions at 11:00 AM and 5:00 PM.

Venue: Filodrammatica, large hall,Korzo 28/1, Rijeka

In the first panel, we explored the intriguing use of natural resources in construction and how traditional techniques and materials could find relevance in our modern world. We also addressed the critical issue of local deforestation, seeking sustainable solutions.

The second panel examined the sea’s allure as a powerful force in the tourism industry, transforming both coastlines and the sea itself for moments of short-lived pleasure.

The seminar featured a lineup of esteemed speakers.

We enjoyed engaging in stimulating discussions about the interaction between humanity and the environment. For more information, you can visit the website to read the highlights of this insightful seminar.

📸 Photo Credit: Tanja Kanazir / Drugo more

Our colleagues, Kristijan Šujevic and Ivan Manojlović, recently embarked on a journey to Dijon to participate in the 3rd Glammons Consortium Meeting. Over the course of two days, the consortium partners engaged in discussions about the project, sharing insights on survey results, research objectives, and the selected case studies (museums, archives, galleries, and libraries) that will be the main focus of our research in the coming months.
Stay tuned for the latest updates on GLAMMONS

Exciting News: MADE IN has been honored with the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award in the Education, Training & Skills category! The award ceremony took place on September 28th in Venice as part of the European Cultural Heritage Summit 2023, organized by Europa Nostra in partnership with the European Commission.

MADE IN was celebrated for its outstanding contributions to safeguarding and preserving European heritage. The Public Choice Award 2023 winner was Via Transilvanica.

Congratulations to all the partners involved in this remarkable achievement!

Learn more about the ceremony and winners: Read More

📸 Check out photos from the event: View Photos

Images taken by MADE IN team

From June 8 to 13, Luna Jović and Mila Rubežić, managers of Nova Iskra Savamala and Zemun, embarked on a visit to our twin hub – CRU Hub in Porto.

This visit was made possible through the Twin Hubs program, supported by the European Creative Hubs Network, and it provided an exciting opportunity to share innovative ideas and forge new connections.

The trip allowed for an exploration of Porto’s coworking spaces and facilitated discussions on both similarities and differences. Moreover, it served as a platform to introduce the Nova Iskra Creative Hub to the local community.

One particularly noteworthy event was the gathering at Bombarda, where the aim was to foster critical dialogues about the world and the neighborhoods in which we reside. It served as a powerful reminder that, as individuals united by the ideas of creative hubs and coworking spaces, we actively shape and create brave new worlds.

Coworking spaces hold significance as meeting points for the exchange of ideas and as incubators for innovative practices. They play a vital role in nurturing a collaborative and forward-thinking community.

Photo: Matilde Cunha

The European Commission and Europa Nostra have announced today the winners of the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards 2023. This year, 30 outstanding heritage achievements from 21 countries have been awarded Europe’s top honour in the field (see the full list below). Among this year’s winners is MADE IN: Crafts and Design Narratives (AT, HR, SI, RS), a European platform that brings together designers, researchers and curators dedicated to exploring heritage through contemporary production, as well as promotes the invaluable role of crafts in shaping local identities and ensuring the sustainability of communities

The 30 winners were selected by the Jury, composed of heritage experts from across Europe, upon evaluation by the Selection Committees that are responsible for examining award applications, which this year were submitted by organisations and individuals from 35 European countries.

MADE IN: Crafts and Design Narratives, Austria/Croatia/Slovenia/Serbia

MADE IN is a European platform that brings together designers, researchers and curators, who are all dedicated to exploring heritage through contemporary production. The platform’s multifaceted approach encompasses research, mapping and the archiving of local crafts, as well as collaborative co-creation programmes and participatory knowledge exchange initiatives. MADE IN promotes the invaluable role of crafts in shaping local identities and ensuring the sustainability of communities.

Conceived in 2014 by the OAZA Art Organisation in response to the decline of small crafts and workshops in Zagreb, MADE IN made its debut during the BIO 50 exhibition in Ljubljana, organised by the Museum of Architecture and Design. This initial exploration laid the foundation for a partnership among six organisations: OAZA, the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb (Croatia), the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana (Slovenia), the craft and trade association Werkraum Bregenzerwald (Austria), Nova Iskra and Mikser (Serbia).

MADE IN stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and its potential to bridge traditional crafts with contemporary design, nurturing a vibrant ecosystem of creativity and heritage.

“Through the effective utilisation of digital technology, the MADE IN project skilfully showcases the intangible heritage of evolving craft skills. The website, thoughtfully designed and easily navigable, offers a wealth of engaging information. However, the project goes beyond being just a digital tool as it fosters connections between craftspeople and contemporary designers. The emphasis is on the continuation and evolution of these time-honoured traditions, ensuring their relevance for future generations. With a long-term vision and a strong drive to expand its reach, this relatively new network is poised for growth, reflecting its progressive and innovative approach to the intersection of art, crafts and design”, the Awards’ Jury stated.

“This pan-European project highlights the common threads of our shared craft heritage while embracing a regional flavour through close collaboration with local communities. The intergenerational aspect of the project is notable, bringing together young designers and seasoned craft practitioners. This creates a vital connection between heritage and the creative industries, addressing timely social and commercial changes and offering opportunities for sustainable growth”, the Jury added.

For additional facts and figures about the Awards, please visit the Awards website.

Nova Iskra is thrilled to share the remarkable experience of hosting a transformative 5-day visit, where creative minds from CRU Creative Hub, Createch Bulgaria, and our vibrant community came together to embark on a journey of exploration, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. This unique gathering allowed us to delve deep into the realms of community management and the profound impact of Media Arts within our local context.

Under the umbrella of the Twin Hubs and P2P Learning Program, generously supported by the European Creative Hubs Network, this exchange brought forth a dynamic space where boundaries were pushed, innovative ideas were exchanged, and new connections were forged. Our shared commitment to pushing the frontiers of creativity propelled us towards engaging discussions and valuable insights.

Captured against the backdrop of our vibrant workspace at Nova Iskra, located in the heart of Dorćol, Belgrade, Serbia, this visit epitomized the excitement and energy that permeated throughout the week. The inspiring atmosphere and collaborative spirit allowed us to explore our common ground, exchange ideas, and uncover fresh perspectives on community management and the transformative potential of Media Arts.

As we navigated through thought-provoking discussions, we found ourselves immersed in profound conversations that not only deepened our understanding but also sparked innovative approaches and strategies. The diverse range of backgrounds and expertise among our participants contributed to the richness of these exchanges, fostering an environment of shared learning and growth.

The impact of this visit extended beyond the 5 days, as it laid the foundation for future collaborations and ongoing dialogue between our communities. The connections formed during this transformative journey will continue to strengthen the bonds between CRU, Createch, and Nova Iskra, fostering a network of like-minded visionaries dedicated to propelling the creative industries forward.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the participants, as well as the European Creative Hubs Network for their unwavering support. Together, we are charting new territories, igniting creativity, and shaping a brighter future for the creative ecosystem.

Friday, 31 March 2023, 9.00 -17.00
Japanisches Palais (Japanese Palace), Palaisplatz 11, Dresden/Germany & Livestream

The conference organised by State Art Collections Dresden, Museum of Decorative Arts (SKD) is the official kick-off event of the Europe-wide MADE IN Platform for Contemporary Crafts & Design. The participating partners will along with international experts from the fields of crafts, design and research discuss the future of crafts as an instrument for social and ecological change as well as manners of passing the knowledge of craftsmanship and heritage to future generations. How do we want to live in the future? How can social community be shaped with the help of craftsmanship? How can craftsmanship, design, technology and research work together constructively to achieve this? Project pitches, a panel discussion and round tables will offer the opportunity to find out about the current situation and explore more with the experts present.

More about the project find here.

February 20-24; Organised by Cyprus University of Technology
Fifth event on Bricks Made of Words project is dedicated to mechanisms of creating EU youth policies. Participants will have structured debates on topics such as migration and human rights, youth employment and euroscepticism.
Empowering youth fro undertaking structured dialog they will be encouraged to learn more about public speaking, mind flexibility and openness to different cultures. During co-creation sessions starting point of the co-creation sessions will be that Euroscepticism is not a problem but as a process that can provide useful points of views for the creation of the Europe of the future. Finally participants will be creating a statement document to present at the final event in Brussels.
Participants from Serbia: Anastasija Đukić, Iva Kojić, Miona Dimitrijević i Jovan Aksentijević.

Bricks Made of Words aims to bridge the gap between young Europeans and the Union’s policy makers, through allowing a better understanding of Eurosceptics’ arguments as well as Euro-supporters’ triggers.

The project process aims to foster the civic engagement of European youth. The overall project idea is based on the concept that Euroscepticism can be considered as a challenge and a resource to detect possible solutions to the problems Europe is facing today, and to set the bases of a new Europe, meant to be the Europe of all its Citizens.

What are key European values and policies and how citizens can make a difference are core questions that the project “Bricks Made of Words: building Europe again through dialogue” will try to answer through 6 events held in Italy, Republic of Serbia, Romania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Belgium and Cyprus, where local citizens, policy makers, experts, facilitators, students will meet and discuss together to debate different point of views, find common grounds and design together new perspectives and policy proposals.

On the 17th and the 18th of October 2022, “Resilient, sustainable and participatory practices: Towards the GLAMs of the commons – GLAMMONS”, a three-year project funded by the European Commission (Horizon Europe Research and innovation on cultural heritage and CCIs) was launched in Berlin, hosted by the partner Technische Universität Berlin. 

The outbreak of the pandemic created unprecedented challenges for galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs), which were already struggling during the last years with issues of underfunding, increased maintenance and operational costs and challenges imposed by over-tourism. 

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a wake-up call to rethink how cultural production and consumption are organized and articulated with different sets of actors and local contexts, towards safeguarding sustainability, access and the well-being of the sector, its workforce and surrounding communities. Long before the pandemic crisis, European cultural policy already encouraged museums to embrace participatory governance and digitization, to become more financially self-reliant and to diversify their income-generating activities. 

GLAMMONS involves 8 European partners: Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Greece), leader of the project, Stichting CREARE Social (The Netherlands), Inpolis Urbanism GmbH (Germany), Technische Universität Berlin (Germany), ESC Dijon Bourgogne – Burgundy School of Business (France), European Creative Hubs Network – ECHN (Greece), Mazomos Landscape and Heritage Consultants BVBA (Belgium), and NOVA ISKRA Creative Hub (Serbia). They propose to map pre-pandemic practices across the sector, to fully account for the pandemic effects on the sector and to explore novel solutions that will inform GLAMs response and adaptation to the post-pandemic era, under a new conceptual paradigm that will advance GLAMs as the agents of change.

Conceptually developed around the theories of the commons, the GLAMMONS project aims to provide answers to the above challenges and advance research and information-related policy. The project will provide an in-depth analysis and evaluation of ongoing shifts (with a specific focus on both pandemic-driven transformations and digitalization) in the field of GLAMs. It will also explore and assess practices (concerning management, finance and participation) that emerge around small-scale, community-led GLAMs and the possibility of transferring relevant knowledge to other cultural institutions to secure the sustainability of the sector. 

The following three years will see the delivery of GLAMMONS; an ambitious work program, rooted in a track record of internationally recognized research excellence and world-leading practice, allowing the development of a novel conceptual approach: the GLAMs of the commons.

The Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) has selected the ICE Partnership to establish the EIT Culture & Creativity. The ninth Innovation Community is set to start operations in 2023 with the mission to boost the competitiveness of European Cultural and Creative Sectors and Industries (CCSI) and strengthen their role as drivers of prosperity for Europe.

The ICE – Innovation by Creative Economy partnership, coordinated by Fraunhofer and chaired by interim CEO, Bernd Fesel, was selected from among five consortia in a process finalized on June 22nd, in Budapest, Hungary. The winning proposition is designed to unlock the latent value of the cultural and creative sectors and industries to become a gamer changer for Europe’s Green, Digital and Social Transformation. EIT Culture & Creativity will receive over 150 million euro support from the EIT over two seven-year periods before becoming self-sustainable.

Upon the “Created in Europe” motto, the ICE partnership assembles a carefully crafted pan-European consortium of 50 excellent universities, research institutions, companies, investors, and associations relevant to all CCSI in 20 nations. “Diversity is the front door to innovation. We are proud to have built a consortium that is diverse in many ways, but especially one that honours the nature of European CCSI: ours is a sector made by a multitude of SMEs and very small players”, says Bernd Fesel, Interim CEO and spokesperson of the winning team. 

The CCSI are key drivers of economic growth and job creation across Europe. They account for 5.5 percent of the EU’s total GDP and 6.2 percent of Europe’s workforce, 80% of all 2.9 million CCSI companies are small and micro-enterprises. At the same time, they are not just business -they stand for European diversity as well as its unity. EIT Culture & Creativity will be key to supporting Europe’s recovery and cohesion. “This will be an Open innovation Community: open to entrepreneurs, artists, freelancers, social innovators, cultural agents. Innovation and change are possible when all the players -the large and the small, for-profit and non-profit meet- at eye level in collaboration spaces for addressing pressing societal challenges”, concludes Fesel. 

With headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, EIT Culture & Creativity will have six subsidiary offices, called Co-Location Centres, in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bologna, Helsinki, Kosice, and Vienna. These regional hubs will realize this open vocation by engaging and channeling the needs and expectations of local and regional ecosystems and providing relevant KIC services suited to each ecosystem and stakeholder groups, including students, startups, VC investors, and policymakers.

About Knowledge Innovation Communities

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) strengthens Europe’s ability to innovate by powering solutions to pressing global challenges and by nurturing entrepreneurial talent to create sustainable growth and skilled jobs in Europe. The EIT is an EU body and an integral part of Horizon Europe, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.  The Institute supports dynamic pan-European partnerships, EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities, composed of leading companies, research labs and universities each dedicated to solving a pressing global challenge, from climate change to health, to renewable energy. Together with their leading partners, the EIT Community offers:

• entrepreneurial education degrees and courses across Europe that transform students into entrepreneurs such as Dora Palfi of imagiLabs, whose helping introduce coding to young women and girls, supported by EIT Digital.
• business creation and acceleration services that take ideas and budding businesses to the next level such as Northvolt manufacturing the world’s greenest lithium-ion batteries, supported by EIT InnoEnergy
• innovation driven research projects that turn ideas into products connecting partners, investors and expertise, such as Diabeloop – D4Kids, an artificial intelligence system to improve type 1 diabetes management for children, supported by EIT Health.

The EIT is Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem bringing together close to 3,000 partners from top business, research and education organizations across Europe in over 60 innovation hubs across Europe. The EIT has powered more than 3,800 start-ups and scale-ups, created more than 1,400 new products and services that have gone to raise more than EUR 3.9 billion in external capital. More than 3,800 students have graduated from EIT labelled master and doctoral programmes and over 100,000 have participated in EIT Community entrepreneurial trainings

Find out more: https://eit.europa.eu/.

Idea4Istanbul has embarked on its 30-month-long journey with the kick-off meeting held last month in Istanbul.

During this long journey, the project partners will contribute to developing the creative hub that will offer to the industrial design sector in Istanbul and neighbouring cities.

REA Consultancy leads the project in collaboration with the Chamber of Industry, Istanbul Development Agency, and Istanbul Technical University, in addition to Consortium partners İKADA Consulting, Next Mannheim, and Nova Iskra.

In this new post-pandemic phase, with new winds of war and the risk for the new generations of a departure from European values, finally, it is at its starting line “Bricks Made of Words: building Europe again through dialogue”, a project co-founded by the Europe for Citizen Programme of the European Union and promoted by organization in different European countries: Arci Valdarno APS, Comune di Cavriglia and Agenfap (Italy), CONEXX-EU (Belgium), BRAVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Ofensiva Tineilor (Romania), and Nova Iskra (Serbia).

“Bricks Made of Words” is a project dedicated to young European citizens interested in sharing knowledge and perspectives about actual key themes relevant for their future as well as for the European Union’s future, aimed to foster the civic engagement of European youth. It will involve young participants from the age range of 18-24, coming from both international and local communities, engaging them in a multidimensional dialogue to connect them with EU history, values and future through visits to places of memory, gamification and structured debates, using virtual reality, Lego gaming and storytelling.

To achieve the objectives of the project, the involved organizations will select 28 youngsters (18-24 years old) from 7 different EU countries, according to their orientation, Eurosceptics or Eurosupporters,  towards EU policies related to the selected themes (EU bodies | civic rights and duties, EU values, Civil rights and media freedom, Migration and human rights, Youth policies) and will bring them together in 6 Events held in Italy, Republic of Serbia, Romania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Greece or Cyprus and Belgium. During the mobilities the young participants, through laboratories, workshops and study visits, will develop critical thinking on sensitive matters (environment, migration, youth employability, civil and human rights, and more), debating and exchanging their thoughts for finally developing a document containing all their ideas and recommendation to be presented in Brussels to the EU policymakers during the last event.

There is time until July 27, 2022, to apply for the selection and participate in Bricks made of Words. 

All the information about the call can be found here.

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A great number of cases are showing that team is one of the top three reasons for startups’ failures. The challenges are numerous and diverse:

Lack of work experience – very often startups are founded by people soon who are professionally inexperienced but highly focused on the idea development. It is common that startups are not aware of the importance of the team and people capacities while creating value for the market. 

Lack of skills for the real implementation of the business idea – usually startup founders are coming from the same fields and have the same backgrounds. They often lack business, marketing and sales skills and capacities. 

Low capacity for collaboration – teams have a better predisposition to innovate, spot mistakes and problems faster and easier, and find better solutions to challenges by making suggestions for improvements. At the same time, teamwork can be frustrating, stressful and inefficient. The roles, responsibilities and communication between team members are often unfit and flawed, not adequately adapted to the existing resources and circumstances.

Low level of understanding the team’s capabilities and flaws – Having a lack of work experience is often connected to unrealistic projections and judgments. It can lead to being unable to identify real challenges, and to take for granted some strengths already accumulated within the team. 

Specifics of the local business culture – some business cultures are putting emphasis on success and on the results. There is little or no focus at all on the quality of the process, the so-called way the business is run. The need is to create balanced conditions where the growth of the business will organically be connected to the team’s culture, values and purpose.

Having that in mind, Nova Iskra Innovation Lab created a capacity-building program TEAM FTW (for the win) that is fully focused on empowering individuals to become more valuable team members but also amplifying the potential of collaborative processes and to innovate, create and collaborate better. 

The training was conducted two years in a row within the PLAYING NARRATIVES program generated by the Serbian Games Association. The program is especially intended for comic artists, illustrators, animators, creative writers, as well as those who deal with computer modeling or sound design. In short – everyone who can be a valuable member of the team that develops the concept of a video game, to meet and start the practical collaboration on their own game concepts. 

TEAM FTW training is focused on understanding the powers and flaws in the team, designing the process in relation to the values, connecting with the purpose, making the right decisions and creating a real value for the users. Creating a team that is ready to grow and evolve in order to be ready for the new challenges and opportunities occurring in the local, regional and global markets. 

Nova Iskra is a partner in the project Post Social Media Club which investigates and explores the post-social media landscape using the methodology of speculative design. Post Social Media Club brings together young European creatives for a programme to investigate and speculate on alternative futures. More process than result-oriented, the programme offers creatives an interdisciplinary journey into understanding the mark that social media has left on the world and speculating on the post-social media landscape. 

Our next step in the project will premiere a custom-developed laboratory for artistic research on the social media landscape exploring topics such as media and tech disobedience, digital legacy and digital nostalgia. 

The Lab is a 5-day activity for 25 participants and 5 partner organization representatives that will take place at STPLNs premises in Malmö, Sweden. Over the weeklong “hackathon” styled activity, the participants will apply the knowledge gained on the project so far to produce art pieces on the theme of Post Social Media. The participants will work in dynamic interdisciplinary teams and will have access to different facilities and equipment to produce their ideas. The program will be curated to include inspirational talks, intercultural social activities and short, vibrant workshops. 

The project is run by a partnership of creative hubs between STPLN, Volumes, Nova Iskra, ATÖLYE and Bios. The project is run by five members of the European Creative Hubs Network : a peer-led network with a mission to enhance the creative, economic and social impact of hubs around Europe and neighboring countries.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

The EU Knowledge Valorisation Week will showcase excellent examples of policies and tools that promote the uptake of research results and science-based solutions for the benefit of all. Universities, business associations, research organizations, arts institutions, and other stakeholders have helped shape the programme by sharing their best practices in knowledge valorisation.

The Week will bring together stakeholders and policy makers across Europe. It will stimulate the exchange of experiences and dialogue on ways to improve investments, capacities and skills for knowledge valorisation in the European Union. 

Nova Iskra is taking part in the program – Put Citizens in the Picture: Arts Facilitating Knowledge Valorisation.

Participation by registration here.

The EU Knowledge Valorisation Week is organised by the European Commission, Directorate-General Research and Innovation, EU Member States and EEA countries.

At this year’s Balkan Architectural Biennale, Studio Obe has been awarded the Grand Prix and the first prize in the category Interior Design for the project Nova Iskra Workspace Dorćol from September 2019!

The third space Nova Iskra Workspace opened, and the best-equipped coworking space in the city is located in the Upper Dorćol district. This location is the first coworking space in Belgrade with an accompanying restaurant and bar, as well as an event space that is completely isolated from the working area.

A talented duo from Studio Obe, architects Jasna Kavran and Ksenija Pantović, helped us turn our interior into a pleasant working environment that fits our community’s desires and needs. The girls decided to go with pastel tones and curved lines in furniture and lighting. 

We invite you to visit us at the Cara Uroša 18 Street, try one of our meeting rooms, organize your event or taste some delicacies in the Branč restaurant!

Congratulations to Studio Obe for the great realization!

Digital Serbia Initiative and the American Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched the Venture an Idea project, which will, in the next four years, together with the following partners – Startit, PWC, Faculty of Organizational Sciences and Nova Iskra, develop various partnerships and activities with the aim to support both existing and future entrepreneurs on their path from innovative ideas to world-renowned startups. 

The consortium gathered around the Digital Serbia Initiative will focus on the promotion of entrepreneurial thinking, strengthening the link between the academic community and the private sector, encouraging multidisciplinary approaches in the development of innovation and other topics important for the further development of the innovation ecosystem of Serbia.

“One of the main elements of the Venture an idea project is to help young people to transform their business ideas into real products and to make a business out of them. The United States gives support to this initiative because we believe in the innovative potential of Serbia, and we want to encourage the change of the old way of thinking. We want the best and smartest in Serbia not they have to go abroad to realize their dreams and ambitions, ”said the American Ambassador Anthony Godfrey.

Nova Iskra, within the project, will focus on some of the aspects of development and improvement of knowledge exchange in the startup ecosystem, work with international professionals, digital nomads and co-founders who are recognizing Belgrade as the digital and innovation hub in the region. 

Through Belgrade Gets Digital platform, Nova Iskra will provide relevant and important information about the local ecosystem, legal and administrative procedures, but also about the culture and business opportunities for the entrepreneurs and professionals already living and working from Belgrade or the ones that are thinking of choosing this city as their desired destination to work from. 

Alongside this digital platform, Nova Iskra initiated a physical meeting point for this community, creating in this way new opportunities for sharing knowledge, creating connections, collaborations and partnerships within the local ecosystem.

The opening of the exhibition MADE IN: Crafts – Design Narratives is happening on November 4th in Schneeberg, Germany.

MADE IN is an international platform for research, design and cultural heritage, devoted to new possibilities of cooperation and exchange of knowledge between artisanal workshops and creatives. Co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme, craftspeople, designers and theoreticians had the opportunity to investigate questions around artisanal traditions and production conditions in today’s societies.

The Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts) of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden together with the Applied Arts Schneeberg, Faculty of the University of Applied Sciences Zwickau present the results of this creative and artistic exchange for the first time in Germany. The exhibition is part of the regional program PURPLE PATH of the European City of Culture Chemnitz + Region 2025. For the station in Schneeberg additional exhibits from the degree program Wood Design of the Faculty of Applied Arts Schneeberg enrich the exhibition.

The slogan “Made in …” usually refers to industrial production, which is almost anonymous and in large parts fully automated. In our current times of technological transformation and a limit of resources, we feel the need to know more about the origin of our products: where are goods produced? Who fabricates them? What are they made of? Craftsmanship and artisanal traditions provide answers to these questions. Central to the exhibition is an “artisanal archive” which presents the works and histories of almost 40 craft businesses in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. Departing from this, project groups of these artisans and creatives from all of Europe have dealt with specific themes and challenges of their regions. The results of their work come in various shapes and forms and contribute to the exhibition.

Within this year’s Social Impact Award, a competition aimed at creating the community of young people who transform their intentions into actions, 10 teams passed an incubation process and had an opportunity to work on setting goals, creating business plans, developing the prototypes and marketing strategies, together with their mentors. 

Nana Radenković, Program Manager and Co-founder of Nova Iskra, was one of the jurors and, together with remarkable professionals experienced in different fields, had the opportunity to meet young initiatives, organizations and collectives in the process of developing socially responsible concepts that would answer the challenges we’re facing.

This Thursday, October 22nd from 5 PM we will find out who are going to be this year’s SIA winners. Join the online “ceremony” via this link.

This year’s participants of School of Urban Beekeeping school received their certificates at Nova Iskra in Savamala, on October 7th, 2020. The course was aimed at everyone interested in educating themselves about, and taking an active role in nurturing nature and the most important creatures on the planet – bees. The Ekonaut organization, based on their last year’s experience, created improved theoretical and practical content, while the capacities of the school were also enlarged since the interest and applications topped last year’s interest, when the course was organized for the first time. After the applications were closed in June, around 150 people applied, while 30 planned spots were extended to 37, while ten unemployed participants were subsidized instead of five. 

Since May 20th, the media campaign was launched together with other partners, promoting the planting of honey plants as an ecological and socially responsible way for decorating public and private spaces across the city, and should include principles of keeping biodiversity and decreasing pesticide pollution. We interested the media to educate the public about the possibilities and welfare of green areas which primarily planted those plants rich in nectar and pollen, without a need for too much maintenance or hydration, and without a need for pesticides. Instead of shortly trimmed lawns without ecological functions, that are hard and unprofitable for keeping in these times of rapid climate changes, it is more sustainable to have flower perennials that are easy to keep and that represent a shelter for local insects. This initiative was initiated together with the Embassy of Sweden in Serbia and other partners, including the Association of Beekeeping Organizations of Serbia, WWF, Nova Iskra, MN Studio landscape architects, Bee Farm Slađan Simonović, Kreativa Unlimited agency, associations Belgrade Flower Festival and Supernatural, project Wild Belgrade. 

Through the #honeygarden campaign on social media, Ekonaut educates about the setting of bee hives in cities, and that bees are not dangerous for people, while the honey in urban areas is of high quality and without harmful substances. Setting the bee hives in open spaces such as roofs or other areas with needed conditions is not dangerous for people nor bees. Ekonaut is continuing to work on its mission of raising standards of our green infrastructure as the great potential of a greener and healthier city Belgrade could be. 

In collaboration with the partners, a new cycle of urban beekeeping school should be organized in 2021. This is due to the interest for these skills is expanding, but also in keeping biodiversity of all bees and pollinators, regardless of the economic benefit, Ekonaut will work on spreading the topics of educational programs connected with beekeeping and plant growing. Also, they will continue popularizing eco-social entrepreneurship, through their services for keeping and setting the green areas, based on the principles that respect nature. 

The program of the school is supported by the Government office for environmental protection of the City of Belgrade within the project “SOS for Bees”, developed by the Ekonaut and its partners Kreativa Unlimited and Nova Iskra Creative Hub. 

After successfully completing the first module of the Youth Media Hub project, as part of the international regional programme “Dialogue for the Future”, on the last weekend of September Nova Iskra, in collaboration with Intera organization from Mostar, organized the first two-day online youth camp. 

So far, the project gathered numerous experts active in the field of classic and online media, digital literacy and activism. Over 70 participants completed the media and digital literacy course, led by Jovana Gligorijević, Milena Popović, Uroš Krčadinac, Višnja Kisić and Goran Tomka, Tamara Skrozza, Bojan Perkov.

Participants of this camp were young people who previously passed the course organized within the first module of the project. Within the first online camp all participants had the opportunity to learn about the relationship between communications, media and storytelling, as well as how to choose and recognize relevant topics in their wider communities, but also how to create online content. These two-day gatherings were reserved for meetings between the young people from both countries, while creating the teams who will work together on the basic idea formulation. The teams are going to work together on defined topics and challenges, especially during the second online camp in October.

During these two days they have additionally learned about the team culture, presentational skills, PR, and other topics that will help them in the next step – creating media content on their own.

In the two-day online camp, the lecturers were Lazar Džamić (Faculty of Media and Communications) and Dejan Ilić (Fabrika knjiga), as well as those whose podcasts, projects and blogs we enjoy. Participants had the opportunity to gain insight in practical experiences of Galeb Nikačević and Marka Žvaka duo – Dušan Šaponja and Dušan Čavić, through presentations and dialogue. 

Every lecturer approaches the subject in inspiring and interested way for young people, so Lazar Džamić shared useful knowledge about stories in modern media, while Dušan Šaponja and Dušan Čavić, who are standing behind The Marka Žvaka project, looked back on their own experience in choosing socially relevant topics, pointing that there is no such thing as boring topic, only that matter is how we tell the story. Galeb Nikačević talked about creating successful content, and at the end of the online camp the participants met the mentors Dejan Ilić and Goran Karanović, who will lead them during the second camp and help them create and place the content.

The project is realized within the joint regional programme Dialogue for the Future (DFF), led by UNDP, UNICEF and UNESCO, and funded by UN PBF.

The exhibition entitled “What you didn’t know existed. Endangered food from around the world” reveals our European roots through the story of foods at risk of extinction. From Stockholm to Turin, passing through Belgrade, until arriving online: the traveling exhibition “What you didn’t know existed. Endangered food from around the world”, organized within the framework of the European project Food is Culture and set up in recent months in Sweden and in Serbia and which will arrive in Turin in October as part of Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, is finally accessible via the web. Everyone can discover its contents with a simple click.

Searching for our European roots in food

To understand the meaning of – let’s call it – “version 2.0” of this exhibition, it is necessary to take a step back and explain the reasons that prompted Slow Food, together with its partners, to work on this project.

The objective of the Food is Culture project, which launched in 2018 and that is now close to completion (scheduled for the end of December 2020), is to raise awareness of food issues and the protection of this heritage at a global level among European citizens, offering them useful tools to better understand its richness and uniqueness.

For years Slow Food has been committed to the protection and promotion of the cultural value of this enormous food biodiversity: an example of this is the Ark of Taste, with which we catalog products that are at risk of disappearing from all over the world.

Food can be an extraordinary means of communication, capable of conveying messages better than any article or video: it can do so if we listen to what it has to tell us, that is its story. A story that takes us back in time to the discovery of the common European roots. A story that is not a simple straight line, but rather a wavy curve, continuously enriched by precious cultural (and gastronomic) contaminations due to migratory phenomena.

The traveling exhibition “What you didn’t know existed. Endangered food from around the world” was born from the desire to enhance this story. To engage with visitors, a multimedia work dedicated to European food heritage was set up and based on the contents of the Slow Food’s Ark of Taste.

Now, to make this content accessible to all European citizens, a completely online version has been created, available in Italian and English.

The competition for chefs and… the winners of the citizen’s contest

In short, the methods used to achieve the intended results of the exhibition change, but not its goal, which is still that of increasing the awareness of the cultural value of food biodiversity and promoting European gastronomic heritage through the Ark of Taste catalog.

Not only this: on the website, in addition to the virtual exhibition, users have a lot of other content available, such as the recipes proposed by 47 chefs (from Italy and Sweden) who, inspired by the European Year of Cultural Heritage and the work of Slow Food to protect biodiversity, provide suggestions on how to cook traditional foods while giving priority to local products.

Also as part of the Food is Culture project, in recent months, a contest has been organized for European citizens who have been invited to report on new products that are to be included in the Slow Food Ark of Taste catalog, foods that belong to a culture, to the history and the traditions of their territory and which are at risk of extinction due to the industrialization of agriculture, genetic erosion, the transformation of food styles, climate change, abandonment of rural areas. About a hundred products were reported and boarded the Ark, two were selected as winners based on their link with their territory, the risk of disappearance and the manual skills required for their preparation: let’s find out more about them!

• In the first place, is the verata goat, a breed typical of Extremadura, the independent Spanish community located southwest of Madrid. This goat, which was once quite common in those areas, in recent years has been registered in the register of breeds at risk of extinction: the reason for this is the progressive abandonment of farming practices. With the decrease in the number of animals, the production of queso de La Vera, the typical cheese prepared with the milk of the verata goat, also risks being lost.

• In the second place, is buffeddhi, a traditional Christmas cake from the Greek community of Aspromonte, in Calabria. It is a kind of sweet “panzerotto”, which has a filling made from sweet potatoes, honey, cinnamon, cooked grape must, cloves and mandarin peels. The low availability of sweet potatoes and the long preparation necessary to obtain the cooked must are putting at risk a dessert that is almost, if not the only one of its kind.

As a prize, the two people who have reported these products will win a kit for a Taste Workshop, organized by Terra Madre Salone del Gusto and the opportunity to take part – online – in a cooking class, again as part of the 13th edition of the most important event dedicated to good, clean, healthy and fair food.

The Food is Culture project is co-financed by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union with the contribution of the Cassa di Risparmio di Cuneo Foundation. The project partners are Slow Food, Europa Nostra, Kinookus, Nova Iskra Creative Hub, Transpond AB.

Within the Creative FLIP project and its second round of peer-to-peer exchange program for creative hubs and communities across Europe and its neighborhood, CRU Cowork from Porto will be hosting guests from Nova Iskra in Belgrade.

Within this exchange guests from Belgrade, Nana Radenković (Co-founder and Program Manager of Nova Iskra) and Dragana Jevtić (Co-founder and Director of Creative Mentorship, a member of the Nova Iskra coworking community) will share their experiences and insights on benefits and values of mentorship for creatives.  

What is mentorship? Is it for me? What can I learn and gain from it? If i become a mentee or a mentor, what impact will it have on my personal and professional development? Should I find a mentor for myself? And if yes – how? These are just some of the questions we will discuss jointly with participants and the audience, in an interactive presentation and Q&A session. This program will focus on various topics around mentorship and its specific value for personal and professional development to the upcoming leaders in the field of culture, art and media.

Creative Mentorship was developed in Serbia 8 years ago as a bottom-up initiative, from the need which was recognized by initiators. Since then, through every new cycle and new generation of mentees and mentors, the program has been further developed and improved.  Creative Mentorship promotes  mentorship as a way of lifelong learning and exchange of knowledge and experience between established professionals, mentors and emerging professionals, mentees. So far, 5 cycles of the program were realized with more than 250 participants..Our network  represents 250 ambassadors of the idea of mentorship, knowledge and experience sharing, and mutual support. 

Nova Iskra gathers various initiatives, entrepreneurs and professionals from the field of creative industries. Nova Iskra  We design spaces and experiences for people, organizations and businesses to work, learn, innovate and create together. We are taking an active role in shaping the ways in which, as a society, we will live, learn and work.

Dragana Jevtić is the founder and director of Creative Mentorship program, and has great experience in understanding the specific needs of professionals within the creative sector, She has devoted her time and focus to raise awareness on the value of mentorship and importance  overall personal development within the creative community. Nana Radenković is one of the co-founders of the creative hub Nova Iskra, where she is focused on creating mentoring programs, trainings and workshops for individuals, organizations and companies interested in taking an active role in the processes of transformation – not only of their projects and businesses, but also through creation of new ways in which we could learn, live and work in the future. 

The P2P (peer-to-peer) exchange program within the CreativeFLIP project aims to engage the leading, established and innovative creative hubs with colleagues from emerging hubs across Europe, as well as with relevant educational institutions. The idea of ​​the exchange program is to seek new formats of cross-sectoral cooperation between creative hubs and the education sector, to launch joint projects or plans, as well as to exchange knowledge and expertise across Europe through public, educational events. In 2019-2020, CreativeFLIP organizes and supports 50 exchanges between creative hubs across the EU, but also the neighboring countries. Each exchange will support a team of two hub representatives – a hub team member, as well as hub community member – providing an opportunity for a total of 100 individuals to experience working in another creative hub, city and state, and engage in transfer of knowledge and experience. 

CreativeFLIP is a pilot project co-financed by the European Union and led by the Goethe-Institut. It seeks to support healthy and sustainable ecosystems related to finance, learning, innovation and patenting (FLIP) in the domain of creative industries (CCI).

We are very much looking forward to meeting all interested professionals and future professionals from the field of arts, culture and creative industries in Porto and sharing our knowledge, experience, passion and enthusiasm.

MADE IN: Crafts — Design Narratives exhibition is a result of a two-year project by the six partnering organizations within a larger initiative – the MADE IN platform. 

Within the final exhibition of the project, which had its premiere in February 2020 in Zagreb, the activities realized since the end of 2018 are presented in two sections: the “Crafts Archive” with 41 craftspeople from the region presented through photo documentation and stories; and eight “Crafts — Design Narratives” realized through collaborations of more than 30 craftspeople and more than 40 designers from all over Europe, which raise the questions about the nature of production in our contemporary world. 

The premiere of the exhibition was presented in Zagreb (Museum of Arts and Crafts – MUO) in February, after which the scheduled presentation in Ljubljana was postponed because of the current pandemic situation. Finally, it got exhibited at Slovenia’s Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in May of this year. The exhibition continues its journey to Andelsbuch, Austria, to the exhibition space of Werkraum Bregenzerwald, where it will be on display from October 2nd 2020 until January 23rd 2021.

At the same time, the project partners released two important publications. Design and Crafts in Dialogue: Critical Reader is a digital publication that collects interviews, reflections and transcripts of conversation that took place throughout the project, especially within three seminars held in Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia respectively. Renown curators, designers and authors from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Austria and many other countries have participated. The reader is available for free download at the following link. All the while, the main project publication is the 500-page project/exhibition catalog, with a goal of presenting all of the activities of the two-year process to the wider audience, and featuring professional photo documentation of all crafts workshops and commissioned projects. The catalog design as well as the exhibition setup itself were designed by the members of the OAZA Studio, one of the partners on the project.

The topics that are connected with the project will be discussed within one of the panel discussions at this year’s Mikser festival in Serbia, on October 9th.

MADE IN: Crafts-Design Narratives is a two-year collaborative project involving six organizations dealing with different aspects of crafts and design research and production: Studio Oaza and Museum of Arts and Crafts from Zagreb (Croatia), Werkraum Bregenzerwald from Andelsbuch (Austria), Museum of Architecture and Design from Ljubljana (Slovenia), and the creative hub Nova Iskra and Mikser organization from Belgrade (Serbia). Since October 2018, many professional meetings, mapping exercises, design residencies and workshops have been held in all four countries, bringing together professional designers, craftspeople, design students, scholars and other experts related to the fields. 

The MADE IN project is co-founded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union, as well as by the Ministries of Culture of Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, KulturaNova Foundation, City of Zagreb, Embassy of The Netherlands in Croatia and Slovenia’s Centre for Creativity.

Nova Iskra was founded as a creative hub at the beginning of 2012, thanks to the dedicated work of several co-founders and their close associates and, above all, friends. We know that none of what we have accomplished over the past eight years would have been possible without dedicated teamwork, through which we have all learned a lot, became more advanced as professionals and most importantly – better people. We can freely say that we are proud of all the members of our team so far. Over the past few years, we have proudly sent off some of them onto new professional challenges, and thus we have met new colleagues who brought us fresh perspectives and enriched the experience of working at Nova Iskra in every possible sense.

This month, after eight years of active and dedicated work within our team, one of our co-founders and International Cooperation Manager Relja Bobić is pursuing a new challenge that awaits him with SGA – Association of Video Game Industry of Serbia, where he will be working as the Program Director. We are looking forward to new programs and projects that will enrich an important niche within the Serbian sector of creative industries sector, bearing in mind that Relja has made key contributions to the program development of Nova Iskra, as well as our international positioning as the leading creative hub of our region.

Relja’s role as International Cooperation Manager at Nova Iskra will be taken over by our dear colleague Ivan Manojlović, who has been successfully conceiving and implementing multidisciplinary, international projects and programs with us for almost two years now, enriching them with his specific curatorial and artistic perspective. In the meantime, Relja will remain fully committed to the strategic development of Nova Iskra, alongside other co-founders and our management.

We congratulate both of our colleagues, as well as SGA which, as we believe, has made the right choice in order to realize the great potential of the domestic gaming sector, as well as for the development of the organization itself.

Conference entitled “Creative Explorations: From Social Entities to Ubiquitous Systems“ will be focused on how we connect and relate to each other, especially when it comes to creative and artistic processes. It will be broadcasted online from Athens and other European cities on September 24th and 25th and will present, among others, eminent participants such as German sound artist Robert Henke, professors Jovan Čekić and Uroš Krčadinac, as well as the artistic duo TeYosh from Serbia. 

The third and final conference within the Connect for Creativity project – Creative Explorations: From Social Entities to Ubiquitous Systems – will bring together experts and decision-makers from across Europe to explore the impact of digital technologies on how we connect and relate to each other, especially focusing on creative processes and collaborations, as well as creator-audience relations and the impact of social media on creative and artistic fields.

Due to the current pandemic situation, the conference will be held online on September 24th and 25th, while the main location will be the creative hub Romantso in Athens, in charge of the final conference (the first one was organized in June 2019 by Nova Iskra in Belgrade). With participation of national and international actors from the digital technology communities as well as policy makers, Creative Explorations conference aims to enable exchange of information, opinions and experience, and to foster new collaborations amongst the participants from Greece, Serbia, Turkey, the UK and beyond, by means of workshops, group sessions and panel discussions. 

Some of the prominent lecturers and artists from Serbia will be taking part in the conference, including professors Jovan Čekić and Uroš Krčadinac from Faculty for Media and Communications, as well as the noted and successful Serbian-Dutch artistic/design duo TeYosh, whose work is closely related to the topics relating for the conference. 

Registrations are now open! The two-day conference is open to the public and free of charge. Registrations for the conference can be submitted through Connect for Creativity website (connectforcreativity.eu) until Sunday, September 20th.

Could design and technology impact the way we relate to each other? 

One of the main aspects of human nature is the need for contact, while the way we communicate has been evolving since our very existence. Today, we live in a culture that fosters hyperconnectivity, the pace of technological creation is faster than the pace of our understanding and the development of critical thinking. As computational creativity continues to emerge, cultural and creative sectors lean on technology to find new ways to make culture more cohesive, relatable and accessible. Social distancing has accelerated the use of technology and due to this, many new creators came into view. However, the way they communicate and relate to the world has also shifted. Technology and omnipresent systems are issues that raise many questions: Are we trying to escape reality? Develop a new social model? Do we create technology or is technology creating us?

The conference will focus on the convergence between the creative industries and digital technologies, and will explore its impact on how we connect with and relate to each other.

Since February 2019, when the project started, two international conferences were held in Serbia and Turkey, as well as several individual events and three parallel art and technology residencies in Belgrade, Athens and Istanbul, with 12 participating artists. After exhibitions in each of these cities, the final group exhibition was organized in London, in collaboration with one of the oldest independent new-media institutions in the UK – Furtherfield. On the top of that, the research dedicated to the role of intercultural dialogue in the creative hubs ecosystem was conducted and published (it is also available on the project website), while the representatives of the different institutions from Serbia, Greece and Turkey had the opportunity to visit London and Cardiff in March this year, and interact with some of the important British creative and technology hubs in these cities. 

Connect for Creativity project is led by the British Council, in collaboration with ATÖLYE and Abdullah Gül University in Turkey, bios in Greece and Nova Iskra in Serbia. The project is part of the Intercultural Dialogue Programme that is led by the Yunus Emre Institute and is co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey. 

“Design and Crafts in Dialogue: Critical Reader” is a digital publication bringing together critical texts and interviews that were created during the two-year project co-founded by the Creative Europe program of the EU, and realized as a partnership between design-based organizations from Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Serbia. The publication features prominent authors active at the crossroads of art, design and crafts, such as Glenn Adamson, Louise Schouwenberg, Evelien Bracke, as well as many designers who took part in the project. 

MADE IN: Crafts-Design Narratives is a two-year collaborative project involving five organizations involved into different aspects of crafts and design research and production: Studio Oaza and Museum of Arts and Crafts from Zagreb (Croatia), Werkraum Bregenzerwald from Andelsbuch (Austria), Museum of Architecture and Design from Ljubljana (Slovenia), and the creative hub Nova Iskra and Mikser organization from Belgrade (Serbia). Since October 2018, many professional meetings, mapping exercises, design residencies and workshops have been held in all four countries, bringing together professional designers, craftspeople, design students, scholars and other experts related to the field. 

A kick-off conference and two professional seminars were realized, as well as four design residencies in which renowned designers had a chance to develop new projects in collaboration with the traditional and modern craftspeople, as well as to work with local young talent. All of these efforts resulted in the final, traveling exhibition that has, so far, been presented in Zagreb and Ljubljana, and will be traveling to Andelsbuch later in 2020. The project website brings together documentation on all of the activities, as well as detailed profiles of 40 diverse craft workshops from all of the countries involved, with impressive photographic coverage of the workshops, the people behind them and their stories. 

Design and Crafts in Dialogue: Critical Reader is the second publication within the project, following the 500-page exhibition/project catalog co-edited by all four partners, which showcases all of the projects that emerged within the two-year process, the crafts mapping and many additional interviews and critical reflections. Some of these have also found their way into the reader, which aims to offer a critical contribution to working within, and dealing with the elusive crossroads between crafts and design. A valuable addition is a previously published text (in Aeon Magazine) by Glenn Adamson, one of the leading scholars exploring the design-crafts crossovers. The critical reader also features previously unpublished contributions from prominent curators and authors, such Louise Schouwenberg and Evelien Bracke, as well as many of the designers who took part in the Made In project – Jenny Nordberg, Studio Unfold, Andrea de Chirico, Alexandre Humbert, Chmara.Rosinke Studio, Mischer’Traxler Studio, Lucas Wegwerth and Tamara Panić. 

The Made In critical reader is available now for free download on the Nova Iskra website, as well as for online browsing on the ISSUU platform.

The project as a whole was also recently awarded – twice! – primarily for the design aspect of the project by Studio OAZA. First of all, due to the excellence that covers several areas of design practice, the award was given within the 55th Zagreb Salon. Studio OAZA designed the catalog of the exhibition, as well as its setting and the website of the exhibition, which also functions as a multimedia archive. As such, this design project represents a total design that includes components of research, curatorial conception and the establishment of an international network of craftsmen and designers. In addition, the project won the award of the Croatian section of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) for its entire three-year implementation, as well as the previous long-term local research on which Studio OAZA worked. AICA emphasized the multi-layered importance of this project – pointing out the endangerment of traditional crafts, using an interdisciplinary approach, connecting different generations and searching for a solution in the future.

The MADE IN project is co-founded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union, as well as by the Ministries of Culture of Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, KulturaNova Foundation, City of Zagreb, Embassy of The Netherlands in Croatia and Slovenia’s Centre for Creativity.

European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) launched the first research on the effects the COVID-19 crisis has had on workers, working in the fields of the cultural and creative sectors in Europe.

The main objective of the research is to understand the ways in which cultural and creative workers are dealing with the changed conditions of work and everyday life in times of the pandemic. It will provide preliminary insights to help key stakeholders develop effective policies and support mechanisms that will ease the negative effects of the crisis.

The research is covering all 27 EU countries, UK, Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine and Moldova. It concerns all CCI sectors: Architecture, Landscape architecture, Film / Audio / Video, Photography, Music, Fashion design or Textile design, Graphic design, Product design, Service design, Advertising, Marketing and Communication, Software development and Video game development, Research and Development, Performance arts, Visual arts, Media, Literature, Publishing and Library Science, Creative crafts, Creative tourism, Museums and Cultural heritage.

This research is part of MAX project (Makers’ Mobility Pilot project, co-funded by the European Commission and coordinated by European Creative Hubs Network in partnership with Fab Lab Barcelona, UPTEC and Makery). In order to obtain concrete data and have comparable figures between countries, we need to reach 35.000 completed surveys across Europe so we ask you to please share the survey and help us reach our goal.

Nova Iskra, as one of the founders and members of the ECHN network, is this survey’s ambassador in Serbia. Therefore, we invite all the professionals in cultural and creative industries to fill out the survey and contribute to the most comprehensive research so far, in order to perceive the consequences of Covid-19 crisis on our sector and develop policies and support systems on the European, as well as on the local level.

The survey is available on the following link https://www.1ka.si/a/271744, while all the responses will be anonymous. The survey will be open until the 19th of August and results will be published in September.

Dear members, colleagues, partners, friends and visitors of Nova Iskra programs,

We would like to inform you about the steps that Nova Iskra is taking according to the general recommendation for behaviour due to the risks of increased spreading of coronavirus:

– All Nova Iskra team members are working from home starting today, except for some minimal duties at our workspaces;

-Our restaurant “Branč” will stay closed, according to the recent and future decisions of relevant institutions;

-All three Nova Iskra Workspaces stay open only to their members, while all future decisions will be made according to the general instructions and based on our continuous communication with our members;

-Since last week, all the official recommendations of the World Health Organization have been applied at all Nova Iskra Workspace locations, in relation to personal hygiene and “social distancing”

-All the planned programs at Nova Iskra have been indefinitely postponed. You will be notified about new dates in due time. We will also notify you about any potential online programs and activities that Nova Iskra will realize in the coming weeks;

-All Nova Iskra activities abroad, including activities of our partnership projects in Slovenia, Greece and Belgium that were planned for March, have been cancelled or postponed.

We would like to thank everyone for their understanding and solidarity in this challenging situation. We would also like to give support and encouragement to all of you, especially when it comes to taking all the reasonable and responsible steps to stop the spread of the virus as much as possible, especially having in mind about our elderly citizens, grandparents, parents and children. 

Hoping to see you soon at one of our spaces, we wish you all the best and invite you to get in touch with us in case you have any questions about our workspaces or any other activities. 

Yours faithfully,

the Nova Iskra Team  

The second round of P2P exchange program, which implies the hosting of creative hub representatives and their community members at other European or Mediterranean hubs, will include 30 exchanges that have met the open call criteria. The creative hub peer-to-peer (P2P) program is designed to share the best practices and transfer knowledge, by connecting creative hubs and the education sector. Each of the exchanges lasts 4-5 days and ends with an educational event that the hosting and visiting hubs collaboratively realize.

A total of 72 applications were received, of which 66 were eligible for evaluation (45 applications for the visiting hub role and 21 applications for the hosting hub role). Selected applications that did not find the appropriate “hosting” hab will be contacted directly in the coming days and linked to the hosts that have applied for that role.

As part of this competition, Nova Iskra has proposed to connect with CRU Cowork in Porto, while Milan-based hub BASE has proposed a visit to Nova Iskra. Both applications were shortlisted and were selected for implementation during May and June of this year.

The “Creative FLIP” project is run by the Goethe Institute in Brussels, while the European Creative Hubs Network is a member of the project consortium. The project is co-financed by the European Union. For more information, please visit https://creativeflip.creativehubs.net/.

Update: Due to the new developments around the COVID-19 situation, the entire P2P exchange program has been postponed until further notice. We will publish any new updates in due time. 

The traveling exhibition MADE IN: Crafts — Design Narratives, is a result of two-year activities conducted by six partnering organizations: Museum of Arts and Crafts , OAZA (Croatia ); Museum of Architecture and Design (Slovenia); Werkraum Bregenzerwald (Austria); Nova Iskra, Mikser (Serbia), within a larger MADE IN Platform initiative ( www.madein-platform.com ). The exhibition showcases the Crafts Archive of 40 craftspeople from the region through photo documentation and stories, and raises questions about the production in the contemporary world within eight Crafts — Design Narratives realized through collaborations of more than 30 craftspeople and more than 40 designers from all over Europe. The premiere is scheduled on the 17th February 2020 at 8 p.m. in the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb. The exhibition opening will be followed by Dialogues discursive program with project curators and participants on the 18 th February, at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb. The exhibition will continue its traveling during the 2020, to Ljubljana, Belgrade and Andelsbuch, with a perspective to visit other European cities during 2021.

MADE IN is a research, design and heritage platform that proposes new collaborative practices and knowledge exchange between the traditional craftspeople and contemporary designers. It engages craftspeople, designers, researchers, curators and theoreticians on a quest to pose relevant questions about the topics of heritage and production in today’s society through research and archiving of local crafts, conducting workshops and residencies and promoting ideas through a travelling exhibition.

WHY MADE IN?

The MADE IN syntagma in the title carries a reference to anonymous and to some extent non-human production of today, which is taking place in the countries of the Far East. It emphasizes the position of design within the current market oriented neo-liberal capitalist paradigm, with a reference to its source — craftsmanship and making, from which the discipline was inseparable up until the advent of industrialization. Today, on the brink of a technological revolution there seems to be a need to pose the questions about our physical and virtual space again: WHERE is it made? WHO is it made by? WHAT is it made of? FOR whom is it made? WHERE does it come from?

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION AND THE DIALOGUE PROGRAM
MADE IN: CRAFTS — DESIGN NARRATIVES EXHIBITION

The exhibition showcases the Crafts Archive of 40 craftspeople from Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Serbia through photo documentation and stories, and raises questions about the production in the contemporary world within eight chapters, Crafts — Design Narratives realized through collaborations of more than 30 craftspeople and more then 40 designers from all over the Europe. The curatorial concept is built upon the idea of expending the MADE IN platform through future exhibitions. The potential hosts are encouraged to contribute to the Crafts Archive by mapping locally specific crafts and conducting new Crafts — Design Collaborations.

CRAFTS ARCHIVE

In order to understand the values that crafts carry for the future, but also to problematize the fact that most of the traditional crafts knowledge and skills, especially those referring to the embodied knowledge transferred from the master to the apprentice, are disappearing, the Crafts Archive part of the exhibition brings a selection of 40 knowledge holders and their traditional crafts from Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Serbia, documented through texts based on unstructured interviews and photography, explaining their background, history, materials, tools, techniques, processes and key products. This starting selection of craftspeople — ten per each country — although small, serves as a showcase for status of local crafts in four countries. The participating craftspeople were chosen for their superior craft knowledge, the level of endangerment of their craft, their representativeness for the area, but also for their geographical position. Thus, the research area varied from state-wide to regional, as covered in Slovenia and Austria, to smaller distribution throughout city quarters in cases of Serbia and Croatia.

CRAFTS — DESIGN NARRATIVES

Crafts — Design Narratives refers to eight specific narratives that emerged through a two-year process, carried by each country separately, addressing issues specific to the local production context. The narratives are results of the workshops and residencies conducted through collaborations of design professionals and craftspeople, mediated, co-mentored and curated by individuals from the involved partnering organizations, and are presented through different formats and media.

“CAN SOCIAL DESIGN STIMULATE LOCAL PRODUCTION IN ORDER TO BUILD A STRONGER
COMMUNITY?” workshop SUPERLOCAL: Crafting the Everyday conducted by designer Andrea de Chirico (SUPERLOCAL) and Art and Design Collective OAZA from Zagreb opens the topic of production in an attempt to mobilize remaining local crafts community in the City of Zagreb to engage with young designers and new technologies, and thus contribute to the debate on the need for establishing new models of collaboration that address the reactivation of production in the urban zones.

“HOW CAN DESIGN AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES CHANGE OUR RELATIONSHIP TOWARDS
PRESERVATION OF CRAFTS?” is manifested through a short film by design studio Unfold and Alexandre Humbert, A Combmaker’s Tale, in “which we follow the story of two passionate makers: Antun Penezić , 82, Croatian last living comb maker who will retire this year without a successor, and Franka, a brand new robot, dedicated to follow in his footsteps and learn as much as it can from Antun in order to preserve this age old craft from disappearing”.

“HOW CAN RESEARCH INTO LOCALLY SOURCED MATERIALS ADDRESS WIDER SOCIAL,
ENVIRONMENTAL AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS?” focuses on the issue of raw materials, particularly earth, from sourcing, legislation, production to social and financial networks behind its cycles of research and use. The workshop Crafting Data led by designer Lukas Wegwerth resulted in two interconnected parts: the sourcing of raw material and experiments conducted by workshop participants and craftsman Urban Magušar and the research film by artist Giulia Bruno.

“CAN DESIGN RECONNECT WITH RAW MATERIALS THROUGH CRAFT?” questions the sourcing, processing and exploitation of metals from metal ores and their use in our everyday life. Designers mischer’traxler together with stonemason Beno Ogrin created a series of objects under title Ratio, that work as communication tools revealing tangible data about stones and their hidden metallic mineral components.

“WHAT CAN DESIGNERS LEARN FROM THE PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE OF CRAFTSPEOPLE
AND THEIR LONG-LASTING RELATIONS TO OBJECTS?” explores repairing and maintaining of crafted objects, which adds layers of patina and creates long lasting relationships between objects and subjects. The workshop Crafting, Cleaning & Caring by Dutch designer Rianne Makkink explored the materiality and immateriality of such relationships and looked into methodologies of doing things informed by the practical knowledge and the daily work routine of craftspeople. In collaboration with local craftspeople, producers and makers, the participants worked with traditional techniques and experimentation.

“HOW CAN DESIGNERS REINTERPRET TRADITIONAL CRAFTS BY USING NATURAL AND
CULTURAL RESOURCES OF THE REGION?” is based on extensive research by design studio chmara.rosinke that sought to include specific traits of the Bregenzerwald in their design process from the perspective of reinterpretation. Together with a group of craftspeople, they designed a formal kitchen setting Mobile Kitchen that showcases the characteristics of the region’s landscape and its architectural language.

“WHAT MAKES AN EQUAL AND INVESTIGATIVE DESIGN — CRAFT RELATIONSHIP?” puts the topic of human touch and empathy at the center of collaborative interaction. In the workshop named Design<by>Doing, which was mentored by Serbian designer Tamara Panić, design students and Belgrade craftspeople left their individual presuppositions aside and opened the space for genuine
understanding of “the other”.

“CAN OBJECTS CAPTURE THE ESSENCE OF DESIGN — CRAFT COLLABORATIONS?” focuses on the position of design in the context of increasingly problematic mass production in contemporary society and the need to remodel the designers’ aspirations towards meaningful and socially aware design processes through diverse collaborations with master craftspeople. The topic is illustrated by perfume The Ghost, made through collaboration of designer Jenny Nordberg and Nenad Jovanov of Belgrade’s perfumery Sava.

MADE IN DIALOGUES PROGRAM

The exhibition opening will be followed by Dialogues discursive program with project curators and
participants on the 18th February, at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb.
————————————————————————————————————————————-
Dialogues program
Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb
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19.00 – 19.30

HOW CAN DESIGN AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES CHANGE OUR RELATIONSHIP TOWARDS
PRESERVATION OF CRAFTS?

Claire Warnier and Dries Verbruggen (Studio Unfold, Belgium) / 30′

19.30 – 20.00

HOW CAN DESIGNERS REINTERPRET TRADITIONAL CRAFTS BY USING NATURAL AND
CULTURAL RESOURCES OF THE REGION?

Maciej Chmara (Studio chmara.rosinke, Austria) / 30′

20.00 – 20.30

Guided tour through the exhibition by the members of the curatorial team

DESIGNERS:
Mischer’Traxler Studio, Studio Unfold with Alexandre Humbert, Jenny Nordberg, Rianne Makkink, Chmara.Rosinke Studio, Andrea de Chirico, Lukas Wegwerth with Giulia Bruno, Tamara Panić
+ + +
Halligrimur Arnason, Theresa Binder, Michael Dorfer, Anastasia Eggers, Anna Gramberger, Sandra Holzer, Philipp Kolmann, Lukas Kopf, Anna-Amanda Steurer, Julia Obermüller (AU); Anđela Brnas, Lola Buades, Clara Bunge, Ivy Castellano, Sara Dobrijević, Andreja Lovreković, Lucija Mandekić, Lucija Matić, Ela Meseldžić, Marko Mišković, Marin Nižić (HR); Đurđa Garčević, Marija Kojić, Strahinja Kolobarić, Milena Stanimirović (RS); Patricia Bascones, Patrik Benedičič, Emily Dietrich, Florian Fend, Rok Oblak, Joana Schmitz, Eva Štrukelj, Jera Tratar (SI)

CRAFTSPEOPLE:
Bechter Licht, Devich Holzschuherzeugung, Holzwerkstatt Faißt, Holzhandwerk Helmut Fink, Schneiderstüble Manuela Maaß, Tischlerei Mohr, Oberhauser & Schedler Bau, Tischlerei Wolfgang Lässer, Tischlerei Rüscher, Schwarzmann — Fenster und Türen aus Holz, Ofenbau Voppichler, Sennerei Mühle-Hub (AU); Cerovečki Umbrellas, Močvarni hrast, Bookbindery 1924, Mala Arta Ceramics, Clockmaker Lebarović, Lapidarium Jewellery Making and Fine Metalsmithing, Antun Penezić Combmaker, Havel Metallspinning, Hat making Škrgatić, Stjepan Zagorščak (HR); Bosiljčić Candy Makers, Boya Porcelain, Grbović Bookbinding, Studio Vilenica Textile, Nenad Jovanov Sava Perfumery, Rade Hats, Tatjana+, Xylon Wodwoork, Petrof Bookbinding, Bane Shoemaking, Naša Posla Leatherworking (RS); Franc Jaklič Woodenware and Vessel Making, Silvo Jelenc Art of Blacksmithing, AK Alojz Kraner Shoemaking Workshop, Joži Košak Straw Hat Making, Erik Luznar Beekeeping, Urban Magušar Manufaktura Ceramics, Beno Ogrin Stonemasonry, Petra Plestenjak Podlogar – Škofja Loka Baking Honey Breads and Hand-carving Moulds, Rural Development Cooperative Pomelaj, Štefan Zelko Pottery (SI)

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Connect for Creativity’s third and final networking conference titled ‘Creative Explorations: how digital is changing the way relate to each other’ will take place in Athens, Greece on 2nd and 3rd April at Romantso. The two-day conference, which will host many prominent speakers from Greece, Serbia, Turkey and the UK, will be open to public and free of charge. Travel and accommodation costs of a limited number of participants will be covered by the project. Applications can be submitted through Connect for Creativity website and the deadline is 20 February.

Connect for Creativity project, led by the British Council, in collaboration with ATÖLYE and Abdullah Gül University in Turkey, Bios in Greece and Nova Iskra in Serbia, is currently running an open call to apply for its third and last networking conference. The conference titled ‘Creative Explorations: how digital is changing the way relate to each other’ will take place in Athens, Greece on 2nd and 3rd April at Romantso and will bring together academics, artists, creative and cultural professionals and policy makers.

Can creative industries and new technologies be used for greater social good?

The conference, which will host many pioneering academics, entrepreneurs and culture professional as speakers from Greece, Serbia, Turkey and the UK, will focus on the convergence between creative industries and digital technologies and explore its impact on the way we connect with and relate to each other.
The two-day sessions will focus on the digital shift taking place in cultural and creative sectors in a world where digital has pervaded every part of our lives. The conference will examine the advantages that these new technologies provide to make culture more accessible, engaging and life-enhancing and how these advantages can be translated into greater social good through creativity.

By bringing together creative and cultural professionals, start-ups, brands, local, national and international actors from the digital technology communities and policy makers in Athens, ‘Creative Explorations’ conference aims to enable exchange of information, opinion and experience and foster new collaborations amongst participants from Greece, Serbia, Turkey, the UK and beyond through workshops, group sessions, keynotes and panel discussions.

Open call for participation to ‘Creative Explorations’ conference

All academics, artists, creatives, technologists, creative and cultural professionals and policy makers across the UK, Europe and Western Balkans can participate in the conference by applying the open call. Travel to and from Athens and up to two nights’ accommodation in Athens will be covered by the project. The participants will finance the other expenses on their own.
Participants can apply to the conference through connectforcreativity.eu website; the deadline for applications is Thursday, February 20th until 23:59.
Conference will be open to public and free of charge. Those who wish to participate in the conference at their own expense, must register through connectforcreativity.eu website.

European Creative Hubs Network just announced the open call for support on peer-to-peer exchanges between creative hubs and their communities members across Europe. This biggest peer-to-peer exchange for hubs so far is realized within Creative FLIP project, led by Goethe Institute together with the partner consortium, including ECHN and is co-funded by European Commission. 

40 exchanges between creative hubs will be supported, while all the hubs from EU could apply, as well as all the hubs from the countries involved in Creative Europe program (including Serbia) and hubs from countries that are part of ENP (European Neighborhood Policy), no matter if they are ECHN members or not. The concept of the exchanges is that a hub nominates one member of its team and one member of its community to spend 4 or 5 days together at a hosting hub in another country and create conditions for exchange and knowledge and experience transfer between hubs themselves, but also between their members, therefore, to realize one educational event together. Hubs that don’t have a concrete hub they would like to go in, could still apply and ECHN will find them a matching hub, if they pass the selection process. In this round of peer-to-peer exchanges around 80 members of European creative community will travel, and about 200 creatives will take part in the program. 

The program covers travel, accommodation and stay costs. Deadline for applications is February 1st 2020, while the exchanges could be realized between March 15th and June 15th this year. All the details, as well as impressions of some pilot peer-to-peer exchanges that have been realized during last fall, are on the website https://creativeflip.creativehubs.net/. 

Creative FLIP project also announces the conference dedicated to the financing process of the creative industries – Flipping the Odds, that is going to be held on January 28th and 29th in Brussels, organized in collaboration with European Commission. Check all the details on the following link: https://creativeflip.creativehubs.net/2019/12/03/flipping-the-odds/. 

Another activity is realized within the “Food is Culture” project – creative and educational workshops “Ark of Taste is Coming to Schools!”, aimed at children ages 7 to 10.

During October and November, Nova Iskra realized a series of activities in elementary schools in partnership with Kid Hub, named “Ark of Taste is Coming to Schools!”, within the Food is Culture project, funded by the Creative Europe program. 

The workshops were realized in 10 elementary schools in Serbia and, in interactive and creative ways, brought to the pupils methods for interpretation of local identity, a unique capability to observe and experience the community they are a part of, no matter if it is in an urban or rural context. The pupils learnt about how everyday life and our capability to understand our local region could be an efficient solution for a number of food quality problems and those affecting agricultural biodiversity. 

Utilizing the methodology developed by the Slow Food organization, the leading partner of the project, across 4 classes the pupils had the opportunity to find out what biodiversity is, how it is maintained, but also what clean food and taste are and how culture affects its formation. The final part of the workshop was a “competition” within which pupils were encouraged to collect old recipes or traditional methods of food preparation from their parents and/or grandparents. Furthermore, these recipes enter the competition on the European level, representing our country. Selected recipes will also become a part of the exhibition created during the project, and will be presented in several European cities. 

Elementary schools that took part in the projects were:

Montesori, Belgrade

Branko Radičević, Belgrade

Isidora Sekulić, Belgrade

Vlada Obradović Kameni, Belgrade

Boško Palkovljević Pinki, Belgrade

Dimitrije Todorović Kaplar, Knjaževac

Knez Sima Marković, Barajevo

Sveti Sava, Bare

Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, Svilajnac

Filip Filipović, Belgrade

More about the project:

With “Food is Culture” project, Slow Food organization and its partners intend to revitalize groceries and dishes that are forgotten or near to disappearance, enabling the public to discover them and to virtually visit places that those groceries come from, and to listen to stories about them. “Food is Culture” has the goal to bring awareness to the citizens of Europe about how gastronomical heritage is a remedy to express their common European belonging, and a better understanding of wealth and uniqueness of European cultural diversity. We need to pay more attention to the preservation and promotion of our common food heritage!  

“Food is Culture” is a project funded by the EU program Creative Europe, with contribution of the Fondazione CRC di Cuneo, and led by the Slow Food organization in partnership with Kinookus, Europa Nostra, Nova Iskra Creative Hub and Transpod AB. https://novaiskra.com/en/food-is-culture-f-uture-2/

More about the Ark of Taste Library:

“Ark of Taste” is an online catalogue that is growing every day through suggestions and nominations by the people who are witnesses to the disappearance of the food products and tastes of their childhood. Everyone can contribute to the fight against oblivion by nominating a product or donating to the library. More information is available at the official “Ark of Taste” website: https://www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/what-we-do/the-ark-of-taste/about-the-project/.

An international conference that dealt with the role of universities in the process of creating and empowering creative industries was organized within “Connect for Creativity” project. Conference entitled “Creative Catalyst” was focused on creativity, interculturality and development of skills for the future, and was held on December 5th and 6th at Abdullah Gül University, Kayseri, Turkey. 

The conference gathered numerous experts, leaders, professors, educators, decision-makers and creative hub representatives from Turkey, Greece, UK and Serbia, who researched and discussed through a series of panels, presentations and workshops about what the role of higher education in the creative economy could be.

Nana Radenković, our Co-founder and Program Manager, presented Nova Iskra at the conference through participation in the panel Skills for the Future, which started a discussion about the role of higher education in creative economy and how creative industries could take over an active role in creating and developing education of the future. The discussion’s participants were also experts from the UK, Serbia, Greece and Turkey: Rozina Spinnoy (Director of Belgium Design Council), Vasilis Avkidos (Panteion University, Economic and regional development Department) and  Burak Asiliskender (Abdullah Gül University, Department of Architecture). 

Nana Radenković also held a workshop entitled Collaboration as the Source of Frustration for conference participants.

“Connect for Creativity” is a two-year project led by the British Council Turkey, in partnership with ATÖLYE and Abdullah Gül University from Turkey, bios from Greece and Nova Iskra from Serbia. 

Branč is open for business!

Nova Iskra Workspace powered by Rent24 just opened its first restaurant within its newest Belgrade location.

Having in mind how important healthy eating is to the members of our community, Branč restaurant will offer fresh and nutritious meals for breakfast and lunch, that change daily providing 3 different and diverse lunch options every day. Our menu consists of healthy salad meals and vegetarian dishes, traditionally cooked meals as well as different international dishes.

Branč restaurant is located within our newest Nova Iskra Workspace location in Dorćol (Cara Uroša 18). After a positive feedback from our community, who immediately fell in love with Branč food, the restaurant is now open for all visitors. 

We invite you to drop by Branč and find out what lies behind the culinary magic of our talented chefs.

Branč restaurant and bar is open every working day from 8AM to 8PM. Drinks, as well as sandwiches and sweets at the bar, can be ordered throughout the whole day, while breakfast is served from 8 to 11 AM, and lunch from 12 to 4 PM. 

Welcome!

Nova Iskra took part in one of the panel discussions at this year’s “Ilucidare Playground” conference, held on November 20th.

Kristijan Šujević, our Co-founder and Nova Iskra Studio Manager, participated in the panel entitled “Heritage as a Resource for Innovation”, where he spoke about the importance of understanding the past of the cultural heritage on the way to the future. Kristijan also presented some ways in which Nova Iskra is developing as an organization, using new ideas and methods in its work through innovative projects and constant education. Other participants on the panel were Sergiu Ardelean (Co-founder Artivive), Gaia Redaelli (Director at PAX) and Charlotte Trigance (Co-founder of Studio Sherlock).

“Ilucidare Playground” creates unique space for unconventional discussions, networking, international exchanges and innovations. By strengthening professionals from cultural heritage domain, researchers, innovators, policy-creators, activists and volunteers in their collaborations, the goal of the event was to contribute classification of international and EU actions for cultural heritage and cultural relations.     

From November 12th to 15th, the city of Ljubljana will host the Creative Forum Ljubljana, which will bring together established and emerging creative entrepreneurs and hubs across the Mediterranean region. European Creative Hubs Network and Nova Iskra will be included in a special program aimed at hubs, and for the first time will be joined by hubs from countries such as Egypt, Israel, Algeria, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria Tunisia, Mauritania, Jordan and Morocco.

Creative Forum Ljubljana is organized by the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Union for the Mediterranean. The Forum is a unique platform that connects the Southern Mediterranean and the Western Balkans through creativity. It will provide capacity building, networking, as well as space for discussion and review of policies related to the realm of creativity and the creative industries. The forum is intended to be an advocate and catalyst for policy changes that would create a conducive environment for the cultural and creative sectors at the regional level, the Mediterranean cultural space.

In its first edition in April 2018, the Forum reviewed the regional situation in the cultural and creative sectors, while this year it will lay the groundwork for joint action. Titled Creative Capital United, it is a call to unite forces – regionally and sectorally – from education to economy and policymaking.

The forum will provide an opportunity to connect with policymakers and creative communities from as many as twenty countries! It will bring together representatives of creative communities from countries such as Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Montenegro, Morocco, Northern Macedonia, Palestine, Serbia, Slovenia, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

European Creative Hubs Network, the first and only European creative hub network active since 2016, will, together with the conference organizers, implement a special program for hubs on Wednesday, November 13th, with a focus on program development of creative hubs, the position of creative workers and policy models and funding related to hubs. Within this program, Nova Iskra will deliver a workshop dedicated to the program development of creative hubs, while the entire event will be held at the space of the first Slovenian creative hub, Poligon.

The competition for European citizens starts today

Food is culture project is starting a new challenge: After the contest for chefs and elementary school students, comes an opportunity for all European citizens to actively participate in this contest. From today to March 15th 2020, anyone can nominate a unique food product from their local gastronomic traditions to become a part of Ark of Taste. This initiative of the Slow Food organization, a catalog of products threatened with extinction and that are a part of the culture, history and tradition of the entire world, currently has over 5,000 entries. The Ark of Taste catalog was created to point out the existence of these products and draw attention to the risk that they might disappear within a few generations.

The rules of participation are very simple, just click the following link (https://www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/what-we-do/the-ark-of-taste/nominations-from-around-the-world/nominate-a-product/) and provide as much information as possible about the product that you are applying for: its name, how it is used in the kitchen, how it is related to the local culture and history and the characteristics that make it unique. At the end of the competition, the jury will select one exceptional product to exhibit at the international exhibition Food is Culture, dedicated to the Treasury of taste and biodiversity protection. The exhibition had its first appearance in Stockholm, and was staged in Belgrade from October 11 to 27, after which it will travel to European museums. The competition winner will have the opportunity to spend a weekend in Lange and Roero in the northern Italian region of Piedmont.

The rules of the competition can be found here https://a2e5c2y9.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Contest_cittadini_Food_Culture_ENG.pdf

The Food is Culture project aims to make European citizens aware that food heritage is a means of expressing their belonging to Europe and better understanding the wealth and uniqueness of Europe’s cultural diversity. We must pay more attention to safeguarding and promoting our shared food heritage.

Food is Culture is a project funded by the European program Creative Europe, with the contribution of the Fondazione CRC di Cuneo, led by Slow Food with its partners Kinookus, Europa Nostra, Nova Iskra Creative Hub, Transpond AB. The Belgrade exhibition was supported by the Ministry of culture and information in Serbia.

David Ohlsson and Dit-Cilinn, are this year’s Designer and Residence participants, that will present their solo exhibition „Flood“  on October 26 at 7pm at the Transformart Gallery. The exhibition will be opened for viewing until October 31st. 

“Flood” is a performance sculpture inspired by the muddy embrace of the Sava and Danube rivers. It shows the mass of intertwined bodies that are stretched across a metal structure. Bodies are in a collective dream, drawn by an invisible current. It is unclear whether these individuals were forcibly forced or captured or willingly surrendered to a force greater than themselves. The masses and its movements are the embodied desire for existence downstream of the flow of things, not opposite to it.

(from the artist’s text)

In their artistic oeuvre, David and Dit-Cilinn explore the concepts of mythology and ecology through poetic precision-executed installations in which they contrast nature and culture. Working with topics such as human existence and spirituality, their work is the negotiation between today’s urban life and the desire for something transcendent.

David Ohlsson (born 1985) graduated from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, with a master’s degree from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He is the recipient of the 2013 Barclay Simpson Award as well as the 2012 Murphy & Cadogan Fellowship Award and Scholarship. He has exhibited his work at solo exhibitions in Stockholm, Turin, Los Angeles, Rotterdam, Brussels, Gothenburg and San Francisco, as well as significant group exhibitions such as Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Nordic Contemporary Art Collection, Sculpture Unleashed and many others. David Ohlsson often works and exhibits as part of an art duet with artist Ditt-Cilinn.

Dit-Cilinn (born 1983) attended the Valand Academy in Gothenburg and the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. She completed her master’s studies at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She has exhibited at the For-Site Foundation, Nevada City, and the Oliver Art Center, Oakland, USA, Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg and Gothenburg Art Museum. In 2014, Dit-Cilinn was the recipient of the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Grant. In 2017, she completed her two-year residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.

We invite you to follow our programs of public presentations of this year’s Designer and Residence program.

The aim of Swedish Instute Innovation Leaders program (SIIL)  is to contribute to the innovation ecosystem in the western Balkan region. The goal is to create a platform for knowledge exchange and problem solving between innovation field experts within private sector, public sector and academia, with the help of Swedish expertise and experience.

The countries that participate in the program SI Innovation Leaders during this first year are Bosnia Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia. By the end of the program the idea is to create strong network of innovation ecosystem experts for a strong and innovative future in the western Balkan region.

Each participant country is consisting of two groups, Country Advisory Team (CAP) and Country Innovation Projects Team (CIP).

Country Advisory Team is represented by: Nana Radenković (Nova Iskra), Nikola Andonov (FabBelgrade) and Lazar Lekić (Ministry of Education), while participants of the Country Innovation Projects team are: Marina Blagojević (Cluster manager/Project coordinator at ICT Network Serbia), Iva Cvjetičanin (Design Hub Coordinator at Tetra Pak), Nikola Komšić (Independent Advisor for Innovations at the Innovation Department at Chamber of Commerce), Petar Vrgović (Associate professor at Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad), Bojana Borković (Business Development Enthusiast at Strawberry energy) and Miloš Paunović (CSR Specialist at Nordeus).

The primary goal of these participants is to create a strong link between local expertise on innovation ecosystems and the program. Knowledge of ongoing projects, risks and opportunities, political agendas, needs and obstacles for adaptation to changes, unofficial networks and contacts between potentially participating organizations – all this is of extraordinary importance to the successful development of a program focusing on systemic change.

So far three modules of program were realized – Kick- off in Belgrade (April), First module in Sweden (June) and Second module in Sarajevo (October 2019.)

Nova Iskra Workspace powered by Rent24, the leading coworking provider in Serbia, has officially opened its third location last Thursday in Belgrade – Upper Dorćol district, in the Cara Uroša 18th Street.

On more than 1.200 sqm the community of 130 people, among whom are freelancers, but also established companies from different backgrounds in IT as well as creative industries, have found their perfect workspace. 

Our newest Nova Iskra Workspace location expands on several levels and incorporates a multifunctional event space, suitable for different events and meet-ups. This new event space concept is completely isolated from the working areas and designed to provide a unique experience for up to 80 guests with a cinema-like seating area. The whole presentation area is equipped with state of the art technical equipment and available to rent for different kind of events.

In addition, highlights of the Dorćol location are conference rooms, “open space” work areas, private offices, relaxation and fun areas, a rooftop terrace, and a unique urban garden in the reception area. This location will be the first coworking space in Belgrade with an accompanying restaurant and bar.

In September 2018, Nova Iskra Workspace became part of Rent24’s international network, a global coworking and coliving provider, whose portfolio currently boasts around 60 locations across three continents.

Marko Radenković, founder and general manager of Nova Iskra, says that with the opening of the Dorćol location, Nova Iskra Workspace stepped up when it comes to the features that coworking spaces have to offer. He also said that Nova Iskra Workspace looked for the right partner to share their vision of growth and development, and now, together with rent24, Nova Iskra Workspace is able to realize their vision, and the new Dorćol location is just the beginning. 

Robert Bukvić, founder and CEO of Rent24, adds: “It’s not without reason that Belgrade is perceived as the new ‘Silicon Serbia’ and that Rent24 has the pleasure to further strengthen that image with new coworking space and drive innovation.” He also expressed his personal joy about the opening of the location in Dorćol, saying that the Balkan region has developed strongly in recent years and that Rent24 is proud to be part of that positive process.

The cocktail event gathered numerous invitees and a lot of media representatives. 

Led by the British Council, in partnership with ATÖLYE and Abdullah Gül University in Turkey, Bios in Greece and Nova Iskra in Serbia, Connect for Creativity project will host an Art and Technology Residency which will take place simultaneously in Athens, Belgrade and Istanbul between 7 October – 17 November 2019. Deadline for applications is 28 July and application form can be found in Connect for Creativity website.

The project is co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey through the Intercultural Dialogue programme that is led by the Yunus Emre Institute. Connect for Creativity aims to form a network of creative hubs across Europe to foster creative exploration and collaboration that contributes to building a more cohesive, open and connected civil society.

The goal of the Connect for Creativity Art and Technology Residency Programme is to bring together artists from Turkey, the UK, Greece and Serbia with a focus on the intercultural collaborative experience. Held simultaneously in Athens, Belgrade, and Istanbul, the residency will host one participant from each of the four participating countries in each city, for a total of 12 participants in the programme. Throughout the immersive six-week programme, participants will also explore how a networked culture can develop cohesion to deal with the uncertainty and change that pervades modern life.

The curatorial statement for the residency will be developed by the project’s curator. The participants will then be expected to respond to this statement through their own perspective and practice. Working individually and/or in small groups, the participants will showcase their newly created artworks at each residency location for approximately two weeks at the end of the programme. Following the exhibitions at ATÖLYE, Nova Iskra, and Bios, artworks chosen by the curator will also be featured in a final exhibition in the UK in spring 2020.

The residency is open to participants from Turkey, the UK, Serbia and Greece who work in the disciplines of Architecture, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Design, Literature, Music/Sound and Video/Film/New Media. Applicants must be 18 and over, and demonstrate an interest in cross-disciplinary international collaborations. Applicants must also commit to participating full-time in the residency, which will take place between 7 October and 17 November 2019.

Applications will be assessed by the project team of representatives from the British Council, ATÖLYE, Nova Iskra and Bios. The shortlist formed by the project team will then be reviewed by the project curator, who will select the 12 artists for the residency programme. Artists chosen to participate in the six-week programme will have their accommodation, travel and artwork expenses covered by the project, and they’ll also be provided with a 600 Euro fee.

Those wishing to apply for the residency should fill out the online application form before 24.00 on Sunday 28 July. For more information on the residencies and to access the application form, visit the Connect for Creativity website.

For more info or questions:

Emre Erbirer, Events Lead & Project Manager, ATÖLYE

emre@atolye.io

Ali Özgür Arslan, Communications Lead, ATÖLYE

ozgur.arslan@atolye.io

#connectforcreativity

#interculturaldialogue

#creatingnewstories

This year’s WebizEdu conference taking place from June 7th to 9th in Novi Sad had Nova Iskra’s representatives participating in two program units. Kristijan Šujević, co-founder and manager of Nova Iskra Studio gave a lecture How design thinking can be helpful in the digital transformation of an organization, while co-founder and manager of the program Nana Radenković took part in a panel How to transform a small business into a leader of digital transformation? Other participants of the discussion were: Ivana Todorović, Manager of Marketing and Communications Department / Societe Generale Serbia; Branislav Sekulić, General Executive and Cofounder / Vrtlari; Aleksandar Stepanić, Coowner / Carpe Diem Dairy; and Jovana Vasiljević, General Executive / Dr Gifing Center, all of whom are the finalists of the Generator program.

The goal of this edition of Webiz education was to offer a fresh perspective to business leaders while demonstrating a successful way of moving forward by merging technology and business, and emphasizing the importance of learning to adapt and overcome.

This occasion had the city of Novi Sad welcoming a number of experts sharing their knowledge and experience through lectures and panel discussions about the importance of the new ways of being a leader, adopting agile methodology, timely and affordable validation of ideas, creating value in digital economy, shaping the future with IoT, as well as about conjunction of technology and organizational culture, and adopting innovative solutions.

23 innovation experts from Bosnia Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia, covering academia, public and private sector took part of the first edition of the Swedish Institute Innovation Leaders program in the western Balkans organized in 24-25th April in Belgrade this year.

The aim of SI Innovation Leaders (SIIL) is to contribute to the innovation ecosystem in the western Balkan region. The goal is to create a platform for knowledge exchange and problem solving between innovation field experts within private sector, public sector and academia, with the help of Swedish expertise and experience.

Nana Radenković, Nova Iskra program manager is one of the Country Advisory Team members along with Lazar Lekić from Ministry of Innovation and Ivan Andonov from Polyhedra Fab Lab Serbia.

The selected SI Leaders are coming from various organizations, companies and clusters: Marina Blagojević, Acting director/Project coordinator, ICT Network, Serbia; Bojana Borković, Co-founder and Business Development Executive, Strawberry Energy, Serbia; Iva Cvjetićanin Design Hub Coordinator, Tetra Pak, Serbia; Đorđe Đorđević, Innovation Manager, ICT Hub, Serbia; Nikola Komšić, Independent Advisor for Innovations, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia, Serbia; Miloš Paunović, CSR specialist, Nordeus, Serbia; Ivana Stančić, Social Innovation Program Manager, Smart Kolektiv, Serbia; Petar Vrgović, Associate professor, University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Serbia;

By the end of the program we will be a part of a strong network of innovation ecosystem experts for a strong and innovative future in the western Balkan region.

By the middle of 2020, Nova Iskra is participating in the intercultural project entitled “Connect for Creativity”, together with partners from Turkey, Greece and Great Britain. “Creative Backslash: from precarious individuals to resilient organizations”, a three-day conference dedicated to the future of creative work, will be organized in Belgrade from June 12th to 14th.

Connect for Creativity is an 18-month project led by the British Council, in partnership with three creative hubs – ATÖLYE in Turkey, Bios in Greece, Nova Iskra in Serbia and Abdullah Gül University in Kayseri. The project aims to form a network of creative hubs across Europe to foster creative exploration and collaboration that contributes to building a more cohesive, open and connected civil society. The project is co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey.

Connect for Creativity project is part of the EU-Turkey Intercultural Dialogue Programme, led by the Yunus Emre Institute and co-financed by the European Union and Republic of Turkey. The Programme aim to strengthen cultural exchanges and dialogue between EU -Turkey by bringing different institutions with different cultural backgrounds together. Connect for Creativity project aims to form a network of creative hubs across Europe to foster creative exploration and collaboration that contributes to building a more cohesive, open and connected civil society.

The programme will include a series of activities; a research into the growing importance of creative hubs and their role in promoting intercultural dialogue, three networking conferences in Belgrade, Kayseri and Athens, a study visit to the UK, simulatenous six weeks long art and technologu residencies in Istanbul, Athens and Belgrade followed by an exhibition in the UK.

The project helps establish links between Turkey, the United Kingdom, Greece, and Serbia and offers a variety of opportunities for global networks, said Relja Bobic, Founding Partner of Nova Iskra. “For us, this project is a natural development of relationships we have been developing with partners such as bios, ATOLYE and British Council over the past years, as well as a chance to further enhance the intercultural dialogue between our countries, and to connect the cultural and creative actors active in our respective communities. At least in the Balkans, we are too often looking up only to creative and artistic achievements coming from the north and the west, while there are extremely rich cultural contexts unfolding in our proximity, in the directions of south and east. I would say that is the most exciting aspect of this project for us, presenting those rich cultural landscapes of Greece and Turkey to Serbian audiences and creative professionals.” he said.

Connect for Creativity enables students, academics, artists, professionals from creative and cultural industries and policy-makers to benefit from international business development and collaboration opportunities in Europe, engage in the transfer of experience and knowledge, and participate in creative research on the principles of empathy, inclusion, and empowerment.

The project offers travel grants for participants attending business visits, business development conferences and in-residence programmes on arts and technology, and also provides funding for these individuals to help them realize their works. To receive detailed information on project activities, which will take place in London, Manchester, Istanbul, Kayseri, Belgrade and Athens, as well as for applications, please visit:

In the framework of the international project “MADE IN: Craft Design Narratives”, this May Nova Iskra organizes several activities for students at Belgrade craft workshops, as well as a residency in which the Swedish designer Jenny Nordberg will collaborate with Belgrade craftsmen on a brand new project.

MADE IN: Craft Design Narratives is a two-year international project dealing with the relationship of contemporary design and the field of crafts, supported by the EU program Creative Europe. In addition to Nova Iskra, Museum of Arts and Crafts from Zagreb, Museum of Architecture and Design from Ljubljana, Studio Oaza from Zagreb, Werkraum Bregenzerwald from Austria, and Mikser organization from Belgrade also participate in the project.

So far, a kickoff conference and two seminars in Serbia and Croatia have been held, bringing together leading European organizations, actors and educators dealing with cross-sections of design and crafts, including Crafts Council Nederland, Atelier Luma, SPOK or BIO Biennial of Design, as well as authors such as Andrea de Chirico, Henriette Waal, Anna Gudmundsdottir, Sanja Rotter, Ivana Fabrio, Emelie Rondahl and many others.

In parallel, in all four countries the partners mapped out 10 craft workshops, whose profiles will soon be presented on the website www.madein-platform.com. It is these craft workshops that will be involved in the upcoming activities – residencies of established European designers in Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Andelsbuch, as well as workshops for students that will be facilitated by designers in cooperation with craftsmen. The results of the residences and these workshops will be showcased within the final exhibition of the project, which will be presented in all partner cities, including the Mikser Festival in 2020. Workshops that were included in the research in Belgrade include Sava perfumery, Kape Rade hat workshop, shoemaker Bane, Xylon carpentry, Naša posla leatherwork, Vilenica studio, Tatjana + light workshop, Boye Porcelain, traditional candy maker Bosiljčić and the book binding workshop Petrof.

The guest of the Nova Iskra as the resident designer will be Jenny Nordberg from Sweden (http://jennynordberg.se/). Jenny is an industrial designer who lives and works in Malmo. Her work is focused on research, examining the boundaries of the design process, the results of which vary from experimental and conceptual to commercial projects. Jenny works in various domains of applied arts, including conceptual design, product design and experimental design, generating ideas and strategic development. In her work, she often examines the ways in which manual labor, crafts and industrial and mass production can be enlarged. One of the main goals of Jenny Nordberg as a designer is to try to expand and upgrade the role of designers themselves. Her work includes personal projects that are often experimental, research and craft-oriented, lectures held on different designs and architectural schools, as well as projects that work for clients, which are most often in the domain of strategic development or in the domain of sustainable, productive and consumer design.

Jenny will be working in Belgrade in May and June, while at the same time several workshops for students will be organized, in cooperation with craft workshops Naša posla, Boya Porcelain and others. Workshops will be facilitated by Vesna Pejović, our prominent industrial designer and professor of industrial design at the Faculty of Contemporary Arts, together with the craftsmen. Details of the workshops and the method of application will be published on May 6th. The workshops will have a limited capacity of 12 participants in total, and will be held from May 20th to 24th.

Nova Iskra also has the pleasure to present four webinars/lectures produced during the Design & Craft in Dialogue conference in Belgrade last October, where Thomas Geisler (Werkraum Bregenzerwald), Maja Vardjan (BIO), Anna Gudmundsdottir (SPOK) and Ivana Fabrio (Studije dizajna Zagreb) delivered engaging presentations.

The attendants of the Entrepreneurship in Culture seminar organized by Center for Anti-Authoritarian Studies took part in the Entrepreneurship and Creative Businesses workshop realized by Nana Radenković, Nova Iskra’s educational program manager. The workshop was directed toward young creatives, managers in culture, activists, and entrepreneurs from different domains.

The very seminar was realized through a series of lectures and workshops offering the participants a stronger understanding of the culture market, launching startups, writing business plans, sustainable financing, and marketing in culture.

The seminar was held in Belgrade on April 20th and 21st at the premises of Papergirl gallery.

Since its launch in 2009, the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) programme has helped to facilitate more than 7,000 collaborations between new and experiences entrepreneurs across the EU, enabling over 14,000 entrepreneurs to benefit from this EU-funded programme.

In 10 years, the programme has helped entrepreneurs to stimulate innovative business practices, develop new products and services, and expand into new markets.
Christophe Leitl, President of EUROCHAMBRES – the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry, which acts as the Support Office of the programme, reaffirmed the support of the European business community: “This programme plays a crucial role in boosting entrepreneurship in the EU. Since its inception, EUROCHAMBRES has supported this unique entrepreneurial initiative and we will proudly continue to do so in the future! We need to build on the achievements of this successful programme: more people and businesses benefiting, more countries to connect with, more entrepreneurs in Europe! ”
Director for the COSME Programme at the European Commission in the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Kristin Schreiber, added: “Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs is highly appreciated by entrepreneurs because it helps them boost their business in a tangible way. It helps to create new companies and jobs, and supports entrepreneurs on their path to growth. For example, between 2014–2016, over 250 new companies and more than 2,000 jobs were created thanks to the EYE experience. I want to see this programme grow in importance, with more and more successful entrepreneurs, more start-ups and more SMEs growing and scale-up within”.
The EYE programme facilitates the exchange of entrepreneurial and management experience across the EU. It matches a newly established or potential entrepreneur with a well-experienced entrepreneur running a small business in another country. The exchange is partially funded by the European Union under the COSME programme, Europe’s programme for small and medium-sized enterprises.
To mark the impact of the programme, Nelly Davtyan and Ioannis Polychronakis were selected as the EYE Entrepreneurs of the Decade during the award ceremony that took place in Brussels on 18 March. The event brought together the network of nearly 200 local contact points that implement the programme across Europe, as well as Members of the European Parliament, and representatives from the European Commission, the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME).

About the winners

Nelly Davtyan (Armenia) was awarded as EYE New Entrepreneur of the Decade. In 2016 Nelly put together a team of experienced IT developers and founded ‘IT Solutions’, a company for mobile and web-based applications. After her exchange in Malta in 2018, Nelly has managed to turn her start-up into a sustainable growing IT business with the help of the EYE programme and her host entrepreneur. She aspires to encourage more young women from small countries to run their own business.

In the EYE Host Entrepreneur of the Decade category, the prize went to Ioannis Polychronakis (Greece). Ioannis runs a family business in the design and construction sector, offering customised design/building and consulting services on the island of Crete. The company focuses on the natural preservation, implementing environmentally friendly house solutions (energy passive houses, green energy solutions, recycling solutions). Since joining EYE in 2015, Ioannis has hosted 5 new entrepreneurs from various countries.

The three-day gathering for the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) will be held from April 11th to 13th in Athens. It is the first annual meeting of the newly-established network of European creative hubs, as well as the launch of Creative FLIP, the first major project that the network is involved in. Belgrade-based Nova Iskra is one of the founding members of the network and played a key role in its establishment.

The partners of the Creative FLIP project are pleased to announce the Opening Conference of the project in Athens, Greece. The event will take place from April 11^th to 13^th in Athens and will in parallel host the European Creative Hubs Network first annual General Assembly. The Creative FLIP Opening Conference will highlight the question of how to improve the existing ecosystem for CCIs, with specific focus on Finance, Learning, Innovation and Patenting.

A full programme of plenary meetings, workshops and activities will aim to generate ideas on how to strengthen CCIs’ capacities for growth and development through improved access to finance, value recognition, and capacities to capture value from IP.  It will also strive to connect the CCI with other sectors by demonstrating the transversal relevance of skills and expertise related to creative thinking. The conference will also present respected keynote speakers: Myrsini Zorba (the Greek Minister of Culture and Sports), Sir Peter Cook (the founder of the legendary, avant-garde architectural collective Archigram) and Olga Mink (the director of Baltan Laboratories from Eindhoven). The conference also takes place under the patronage of the European Parliament.

Creative FLIP – Finance, Learning, Innovation and Patenting for Cultural and Creative Industries is a pilot project co-funded by the EU, and implemented by a consortium led by the Goethe-Institut in partnership with IDEA Consult, VVA Brussels, 3s Unternehmensberatung, Institut de la Propriété Intellectuelle Luxembourg and European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN). The general objective of this pilot project is to define and test policies and actions for sustaining and developing cultural and creative industries and to generating cross-sectoral benefits and spill-overs in the different areas and sectors the CCIs interface with.

European Creative Hubs Network is a peer-led network with a mission to enhance the creative, economic and social impact of hubs. It is the first network in Europe specifically tailored to support physical spaces that host and provide services to multiple creative businesses. ECHN aims to enhance the ecosystem that supports the development and growth of the creative and cultural sector by supporting the subsistence and growth of creative hubs in Europe, creating a community of experienced creative hubs leaders across Europe from a variety of sectors and promoting hubs as innovative models to support the creative economy in Europe.

The exhibition What you didn’t know existed. Endangered food from around the world will be launched March 29^th (6 to 9 pm) at the Stockholm Spritmuseum and will be visible until the April 8. The work officially inaugurates Slow Food activities within the project Food is Culture, funded by the European program Creative Europe, with the contribution of the Italian Fondazione CRC di Cuneo. Artistic installations which allow the public hands-on experience the displayed products, a touchscreen to virtually meet the producers and the possibility to discover the products catalogued on the online recipes database Slow Food Ark of Taste website: this is the exhibition that will travel all around Europe in the coming year.

The exhibition highlights the importance of gastronomic heritage and diversity, and the substantial risk of it being lost. Every visitor has the possibility of printing a special recipe made with some Ark of Taste products. Alongside the artworks, at the opening visitors will be invited to enjoy the so-called Food Tales, based on the internationally-recognized concept of the Human Library.

The exhibition What you didn’t know existed: endangered food from around the world is designed by Slow Food in collaboration with experience designer Josefin Vargö. The exhibition will also be hosted in Belgrade (Serbia, October 2019), Brussels (Belgium, Spring 2020) and Pollenzo (Italy, Summer 2020) but is open to requests from any museum that would be interested in hosting it.

Through the Food is Culture project Slow Food and its partners want to give a new life to the products in question, giving the public the possibility to discover them, to visit the places whence they originate, and listen to their stories. The Food is Culture project aims to make European citizens aware that food heritage is a means of expressing their belonging to Europe and better understanding the wealth and uniqueness of Europe’s cultural diversity. We must pay more attention to safeguarding and promoting our shared food heritage.

Food is Culture is a project funded by the European program Creative Europe, with the contribution of the Fondazione CRC di Cuneo, led by Slow Food with its partners Kinookus, Europa Nostra, Nova Iskra Creative Hub, Transpond AB.

The Ark of Taste is an online catalogue that is growing day by day, gathering nominations from people who see the flavors of their childhood disappearing, taking with them a piece of the culture and history of which they are a part. Anyone can contribute by suggesting a product or making a donation.  For more information, please visit the Ark of taste website .

Nova Iskra offers a new opportunity for pan-European collaboration between Serbian companies and experienced entrepreneurs with young entrepreneurs from seven European countries through Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program!

During 2018 and 2019, Nova Iskra is participating in the project Excite 2.0, a program dedicated to the international professional exchanges in Serbia and Europe. The exchanges are realized through the European Union program – Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) – and gives the opportunity for 9 Serbian companies or experienced entrepreneurs to host young entrepreneurs from Sweden, Germany, Spain, Slovenia, Austria, The Netherlands and Slovakia during 2019, as well as the same number of young entrepreneurs from Serbia to spend a couple of months in one of those countries.

The focus of the Excite 2.0 program is on the cultural and creative industries field (CCI), with a goal of the knowledge, new entrepreneurial ideas and innovations exchange, as well as the opening of the opportunities on the European markets, what makes internationalization and business development possible in these sectors. The program provides monthly scholarships for stays of the foreign entrepreneurs in Serbia, which means that there are no costs for domestic companies when it comes to participate in this program. The focus is on the experience exchange, collaboration, interpersonal support, with a goal of the development of the entrepreneurs, but the companies they are hosted by.

The role of Nova Iskra is to be the local coordination and support point dedicated to these entrepreneurs (individuals) and host companies, especially active in the field of cultural and creative industries, in order to find complementary entrepreneurs from European countries to connect with. Study stays will be realized throughout 2019, with a duration of 1, 2 or 3 months, depending on circumstances and possibilities.

All the interested companies and registered entrepreneurs from Serbia that are active in the cultural and creative industries field (including IT companies and related works), can apply for participation in the program, by sending an e-mail to the program coordinator at relja@novaiskra.com. Interested companies should send a short company profile and any relevant links. Soon after the application, you will be contacted by Nova Iskra about further details and preparation of the company profile for the online system of the EYE program, within which the “matchmaking” of the companies and entrepreneurs is taking place. The open call for the companies is constantly open, but there is a greater chance to host an entrepreneur in the next year if you apply earlier, ideally by the end of 2018 or not later  than January or February 2019.

Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) is international exchange that gives an opportunity to new, ambitious entrepreneurs (New Entrepreneurs – NE) to learn from experienced entrepreneurs (Host Entrepreneurs – HE), that run micro and small businesses in partnership countries. The exchange of the experience is happening during the study stay with experienced entrepreneurs, who are helping the new entrepreneurs to develop new skills needed to run a small company. Hosts are having an opportunity to get a new perspective of their own work, but also an opportunity to collaborate with foreign partners and learn about new markets. The stay of the new entrepreneurs is partly financed by the European Union. Since 2009, when the program is launched, the mobility of the entrepreneurs is increased what impacts positively on the European economy. The researches show that program develops entrepreneurial ability of the participants, as well as the competencies that are very important for their new established businesses.

Find out more details about the Excite2.0 project and Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program on Nova Iskra website – https://novaiskra.com/excite-2-0-creative-exchange/

Nova Iskra, in line with the increased volume of activities on the international level, continues to extend its team.

We are looking for an experienced, multifaceted and capable project manager who has the capacities to lead the entire department of international cooperation within Nova Iskra, with a focus on EU projects and partnerships, as well as fundraising of non-profit projects.

Within this field of activity of Nova Iskra, a number of projects are under way, in partnerships with organizations from Sweden, Turkey, the UK, France, Germany, Italy , Portugal, Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and other countries, while several projects are in the phases of preparation or further development. Furthermore, Nova Iskra plans the development of additional network projects, as well as taking on the project leader position in some of the upcoming Creative Europe calls.

Among the noted projects that Nova Iskra has realized or initiated are also European Creative Hubs Network, Designer in Residence, Folkk, Smart Living Challenge, Excite2.0, Digital Cities or Zajedničko.org. Most of them are realized through partnerships with international cultural centers and organizations, but also with the support of European and international funds, such as Creative Europe, Erasmus+ or Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, as well as of Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Ministary of Education, Science and Technological Development, or the Development Agency of Serbia.

For more details on Nova Iskra projects, please visit this link:

https://novaiskra.com/en/projects/ 

If you have at least three years of working experience in a similar setting and leadership qualities, if you would like to further develop your skills of project development and international fundraising by working with distinguished partners from across Europe and beyond, through working in a dynamic and highly-professional team – apply now! 

In case you do not really know us: Nova Iskra is the first creative hub in the Balkans, made with the idea to connect creative industries, technology and people. Nova Iskra creates spaces, incites collaborations and designs education that is intended for creatives, innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, activists, students, professionals, organizations and companies who would like to take on an active and responsible role in shaping the ways in which we will learn, work and live in the future.

Nova Iskra team is made up of 15 professionals with vast experience in the fields of creativity and culture, but also motivated young colleagues, interns and external associates. Throughout more than 7 years of existence of this hub, hundreds of free education programs intended for the community were realized, as well as numerous projects that connect young professionals, creatives, companies and institutions – in Serbia, as well as across Europe and the world.

https://novaiskra.com/en/about/

We are hereby announcing the open call for the position Manager of International Cooperation and Fundraising (full-time position in Belgrade, Serbia). The call is also open to international applicants.

LIST OF ACTIVITIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• 40 hours a week (full-time position) at the Nova Iskra offices
• respect for the agreed commitments and responsible time tracking
• collaborative work and daily communication with colleagues form the sector, managers of other Nova Iskra sectors, as well as GM of Nova Iskra
• operational collaboration with other sectors of Nova Iskra – marketing, finances, program…
• independence – management of larger projects, including the entire cycle from developing the applications, over implementation to reporting
• program development and preparation of projects and project activities
• continuous communications with project partners, participants, candidates
• making of monthly, quarterly, biannual and annual plans
• agile documentation, administration and internal communication
• planning of the strategic development of the sector
• maintaining of all existing, and developing new partnerships
• participation in partner meetings (locally and internationally), meeting minutes
• preparation of applications for co-financing of EU projects on the national level, as well as fundraising support for other departments of Nova Iskra
• preparation of materials for media and social networks
• agile management of overall project documentation (above all – financial), and meticulous delivery of project reports (narrative and financial)
• preparation, programming and coordination of events and programs that are an integral part of project activities
• following potential sources of funding for the projects that are in preparation, or in realization
• representing Nova Iskra in network organizations and associations, holding presentations at conferences
• developing relationships with civil and governmental sectors, as well as other relevant stakeholders

WE ARE LOOKING FOR A CANDIDATE WHO:

• has at least three years of experience in the domains of fundraising, project management, administration and coordination of international projects
• has specific experience on the position of manager of at least one project from one of the following programs: Creative Europe, Culture 2007-13, Horizon2020
• knowledge of frameworks and regulations of other programs in which he/she might not have had direct experience
• has developed skills of written and spoken communication
• has developed project writing skills
• has experience in project budgeting
• has developed presentation and negotiating skills
• has experience in executive production
• has mastered written (business) correspondence
• is using English language, written and spoken, in an advanced way
• has great knowledge of the MS Office programs
• has developed analytical and creative thinking, as well as capabilities for strategic thinking
• is excellent at planning, and good at delegating
• respects agreed deadlines and timelines
• has knowledge about financial and legal administration in relation to this type of work
• has an agile and lean approach to documentation and administration
• likes to work in a team, through regular and clear communication
• knows well the Serbian, regional and European “scenes” in the domains of art, creativity and entrepreneurship
• has personal affinities towards the arts, design, culture, entrepreneurship, digital domain…

ADVANTAGES

• more than three years of experience in the domains of fundraising, project management, administration and coordination of international projects
• specific work experience in working on projects in more than one EU financing program (Creative Europe – Culture or Creative Europe – Media, as well as Horizon2020, IPA, Erasmus and others)
• experience in curatorial work, or in the domain of creative direction
• deeper knowledge of the local and regional creative scene, with an accent on design and digital arts
• creative/critical writing skills
• advanced use of MS Excel program
• experience in using other software or hardware platforms relevant for this type of work (Trello, Slack…)
• English language certificate. or active use of more than one foreign language
• personal motivation for long-term work on this type of projects, as well as within Nova Iskra as an organization

WHAT WE OFFER?

• full-time job
• regular, appropriate pay
• dynamic surrounding and connecting to the wider creative community
• work in a cozy and functional ambience, as well as informal atmosphere
• serious team work
• collaboration with open-minded, motivated and professional colleagues
• work in two of the best coworking spaces in Belgrade – Nova Iskra Workspace Savamala and Zemun, with the use of all office resources
• new practical knowledge, training and mentoring, as well as support for your professional development
• access to Nova Iskra network and direct communication with experts we collaborate with
• work on creative and socially engaged projects, as well as those with an international significance and an innnovative component
• direct participation in following and creating regional and European trends when it comes to cultural policies, creativity, future of work and related topics
• participation in workshops, lectures and courses organized by Nova Iskra

HOW TO APPLY?

All interested candidates need to fill out the form http://bit.ly/managerofinternationalcooperation, as well as to send their CV, motivation letter and one recommendation letter (all three documents as three separate PDFs) to the address relja@novaiskra.com with the subject “Prijava na konkurs”.

The deadline for submitting applications is Sunday, December 2^nd at midnight. Non-complete applications (without CV, motivation letter or recommendation letter) will not be taken into consideration. Candidates who pass the first round of selection will be invited for interviews in the period December 5^th to 12^th.

Chroniques des imaginaires numériques, a biennial dedicated to the link between contemporary creation and new technologies, is held in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille, from November 9th to December 15th. The visitors of the biennial will have an opportunity to discover unique exhibition circuit that will enable them a different look at our world, and also to take part in the opening and closing special events.

During November, artistic collective Karkatag from Serbia is realizing their stay within the Designer in Residence program also there, in Marseille, organized by Nova Iskra and AMI Center.

Karkatag will take part in the biennial and present their work, that strives incorporating innovative technological options into their interactive creative solutions.

At the same time, Relja Bobić, international cooperation manager at Nova Iskra, will also take part in this biennial, within the panel discussion Educational structures, business incubators and accelerators, living lab, r&d – but where is innovation born? This session is going to be held on Thursday, November 9th and beside represent from Nova Iskra, it will gather eminent curators, artists and academics from France, Canada and Italy. The purpose of that round table is to establish a “cartography” of innovation today. The point is to talk about participants’ point of view, demonstrating how each of them think and work on the “birth of innovation”.

Nova Iskra invites you to apply for a unique internship in digital communication and digital marketing!

If you are devoted, motivated, and ready for teamwork and expanding your practical knowledge – read on!

Practical advice provided by your mentor/manager and fellow colleagues, ready to help you anytime, will allow you to learn a lot and develop practical skills. Day-to-day tasks are practical, educational and focused on communication of projects and programs of Nova Iskra.

Nova Iskra is a pioneering creative hub in the Balkans, created with the idea to incite tangible connections between creative industries, technology, and the people. Nova Iskra creates spaces, initiates collaborations and designs education programs for innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, activists, students, professionals, organizations and companies who are interested in taking an active and responsible role in shaping the way we will live, learn and work in the future. Nova Iskra’s team, consisting of 8 professionals with extensive experience in creative and cultural fields, realized hundreds of free educational programs for the community during the 6 years of Nova Iskra’s existence, as well as a number of projects connecting young professionals, creatives, companies, and institutions. www.novaiskra.com.

Previous work experience is not necessary, neither is experience in marketing. What we do hope to recognize in potential candidates are openness and desire to learn, as well as interest in digital marketing and communication. The tests submitted are used to help us gain a general impression about your skills and resourcefulness.

General description of activities and responsibilities: what will you learn during the internship?

• Collaboration in social media management for Nova Iskra, including accounts, groups, and different projects on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIN)

• Daily planning, generating, editing, and publishing content on websites and social media of Nova Iskra – in English and Serbian (with training and mentorship)

• Writing public announcements and communication with the media (with training and mentorship)

• Communication with followers and the interested in Nova Iskra and its social media activities, via email (with training)

• Creating and following a social media posting schedule (under training and mentorship)

• Doing daily research in the field you will be working in, as well as in the local and global eco-system of creative industries

• Collaboration in creating campaigns for social media and search engine advertising (with training and mentorship)

• Working in Google Analytics and similar tools (with training)

• Conducting email campaigns (with training)

• Working in WordPress and MODX platforms (with training)

• Creative content creation in form of text, photos, or videos

• Following latest trends in digital marketing and communications

• Collaboration with the manager/mentor and the entire team from Nova Iskra

We are looking for somebody who:

• Is familiar with business written communication

• Is great in English (written and spoken)

• Is an advanced user of MS Office

• Understands and takes interest in digital marketing

• Is an active social media user

• Has great written and verbal communication skills

• Is a creative thinker and thinks in terms of visual culture

• Has a responsible attitude toward work and business obligations

• Is an analytical thinker

• Has great grammar and spelling skills, both in Serbian and in English

• Enjoys teamwork, up-to-date and clear communication

• Wishes to begin or advance his/her professional affirmation

• Has great communication skills

• Respects deadlines

• Can commit to a three-month internship, 20 hours a week

Preferred, but not mandatory:

• Familiarity with Adobe Creative Suite or other design softwares

• Familiarity with photo editing softwares

• Being up-to-date with digital marketing trends

• Creative writing skills (please send us examples if you have them)

• Being familiar with the structure and principle of functioning of web presentations and platforms

What does Nova Iskra offer to you?

• Obtaining knowledge under training and mentorship, while developing the skills mentioned

• Working in a cozy and attractive ambient and informal atmosphere

• Devotion to practical knowledge and serious teamwork

• Flexible working hourse, starting from 16 hours a week

• Dynamic environment and connecting with the creative community

• Free participation in workshops, lectures, courses, and trainings held in Nova Iskra

• Access to Nova Iskra’s network, communication with lecturers and experts collaborating with Nova Iskra

• Working on creative and socially engaged projects

• Using our workspace – working in one of the finest coworking spaces downtown

• Free use of conference rooms during the internship

• Unlimited quantities of espresso, tea…

• Nova Iskra’s recommendation for the needs of further professional growth

• Three-month internship, with the possibility of extended cooperation through a professional engagement

If you are interested in this field and would like to work with Nova Iskra’s team, please fill out this form -> http://bit.ly/2G2peHP  before April 4 at midnight!

After the application deadline, we will let you know if you are short-listed for an interview.

Since 2014, Nova Iskra realizes residential stays aimed at designers and multidisciplinary authors from Sweden, France, Germany and Slovakia. At the same time, Serbian authors have an opportunity to spend a month in Marseille. Participants in this fall season are Karkatag (Serbia), Emelie Rondhal (Sweden) and Charlotte de Sedouy (France).

Residential stays are present for a long time in the field of visual arts or dance and literature, but when it comes to design, the number of programs is negligible, on both European and world level.  

In a collaboration with Swedish Institute, Nova Iskra participates in creating the platform Create in Residence, whose part is Designer in Residence program. Year after year, program includes more organizations, so the collaborations are developed with Slovakia, Germany and France.

Beside Nova Iskra, in this year’s program also participate following organizations: IASPIS (Sweden), AMI Center (France), supported by French Institute in Serbia, Ministry of culture and information of the Republic of Serbia and Goethe Institute in Belgrade, and whole program is realized with a support of EUNIC in Serbia (EUNIC AiR).

This year’s participants are Karkatag collective from Serbia, who will spend a month in Marseille, as well as Emelie Röndahl from Sweden and Charlotte de Sédouy from France, who will spend two and one month in Belgrade.

Authors are chosen based on open calls in each country. The residency has “open-end” concept, which means that development and realization of the new project are not expected during their stay. Every participant gets covered transportation costs, monthly scholarship, residential costs and also gets the support from the hosting organization, that helps the participants to get to know with the local creative scene. Residential stays last one or two months, depending on the capacities of the hosting organization.
As a result, there was around 50 public programs in different countries, that are somehow connected to this program, while around 30 authors had participated in it. More than 15 Serbian authors realized their stays in these countries, while more than 20 of them had worked at Nova Iskra and organizing exhibitions, workshops and lectures.

Emelie Röndahl is currently undertaking PhD studies in Crafts at the Academy of Design and Crafts (HDK) in Gothenburg, Sweden. She also studied traditional (Swedish) weaving for two years at two different Folk High Schools, a Scandinavian institution for adult education that functions as a preparatory scheme for higher crafts education. For the moment, she is taking part in the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, creating a collaborative weaving project with participants from all over the world. The project is called Google Weaving Stop-time. During her stay in belgrade, she will realize an exhibition at the Transformart gallery (November 10th to 20th), as well as public lecture (November 1st) and a workshop at Nova Iskra (November 2nd and 3rd). She is also one of the participants at the international conference Craft and Design in Dialogue, which is organized by Nova Iskra within the Made In project. http://www.emelierondahl.se/

Charlotte de Sédouy is a French artist and illustrator based in Marseille. She earned her Masters degree in Graphic Design at the DNSEP faculty in Toulouse. She operates in the field of print as well as in the digital world, but also likes to stage her work as an installation once in a while. She uses her own paintings as the prime material for her collages and animations. She will also realize a mini-exhibition in Belgrade.

Karkatag is Belgrade based Serbian art collective. It exists since 2009. Karkatag includes machines, interactive and autonomous installations and manipulable objects. Karkatag uses industrial materials and technologies in research of different natural and scientific phenomena, interactivity and performativity of machines, sound, motion. Through public actions and performances, by placing installations and machines in space as urban scenography and props, this collective also introduces social aspects of its work. Karkatag participated in numerous of exhibitions, festivals and public performances in Germany, England, Poland, Croatia, Switzerland, Montenegro and Serbia. During 2015, they won couple of prestigious recognitions for their work. Since 2010, they run their own informal residential space in Svilajnac, Serbia. They also started an open workshop Praksa Makerspace Belgrade in artisitic space Magacin in Belgrade.

During their stay in Marseille in November, They will present their work at the digital art biennial Chroniques (https://chronique-s.org/), where will also participate a represent from Nova Iskra, within a panel session of the following conference.  http://karkatag.org/

One of the leading global coworking and coliving providers has acquired a majority stake in a specialized company of Nova Iskra – Novi prostori d.o.o., the popular coworking provider in the Balkan region.

Just two months following the opening of the second Nova Iskra Workspace location in the heart of Zemun district of Belgrade, the popular coworking provider in the region is announcing its acquisition by one of the leading global coworking and coliving providers rent24. The goal of the joint venture is to become a regional leader when it comes to setting up and running innovative coworking and event spaces, as well as coliving locations alike.

rent24 (www.rent24.com) is a global provider of coworking and coliving spaces. The company’s portfolio currently boasts around 45 locations spanning three continents, while new locations are being added almost on a weekly basis. The entry of rent24 into the Serbia and the Balkan region is part of a global reach out into new markets, that puts rent24 at the forefront of innovative office and living space providers. The company currently runs locations in cities as diverse as Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, Tel Aviv, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, London and other metropolises in Europe, Asia and North America. For Robert Bukvić, Founder and CEO of rent24 GmbH, the expansion is the next logical step due to the booming Serbian startup scene: “We are entering this market full of confidence. Numerous young IT companies have created a Silicon Serbia of sorts here, which we plan to enhance and support through our services, our community and the flawless working conditions that our spaces offer.”

Nova Iskra Workspace is now a part of the global rent24 network, contributing with two locations (Savamala and Zemun). The launch of a third, premium location in downtown Belgrade before the end of the year is already announced, which will almost double the current capacities in Belgrade, and offer numerous new services and opportunities to the members. They will be able to use any other rent24 coworking spaces around the world under special conditions, while from 2019 companies and startups who are members of any of the Nova Iskra Workspace coworking spaces will have a potential access to rent24’s venture fund for support of startup projects, as well as its blockchain platform Primary (www.primary.io).

The acquisition is a definitive validation of Nova Iskra Workspace (established in 2012) as the regional leader when it comes to coworking services and workspace management. Nova Iskra Workspace will continue to innovate the European coworking market and provide the best possible services in the region, while Nova Iskra (www.novaiskra.com) will independently continue to work on capacity-building, educational, international cooperation and policy development projects focused on the domains of creative industries, information technologies and culture.

Visit https://www.rent24.com/en/locations/belgrade/ for all details on the two current locations in Belgrade, as well as the ones to come!

Starting September 20th the new, third issue of Zent magazine can now be found in the selected bookstores: Beopolis (Dom Omladine), Apropo (Cara Lazara 11) and Booka Store (Cara Lazara 12), as well as in the Palmas Boutique (Mihizova 11) and Nova Iskra, who is also the publisher of this specific magazine. The regular price of the third issue is 900 RSD.

Zent magazine, a magazine for extra-ordinary reflection of the present, is dedicated to the research and examining the issues that deal with the problematization of the “contemporary“ in all of its aspects. Zent is political, insofar as it does not see politics (only) as a matter of institutions, but above all, as a matter of everyday relations between individuals and communities to each other and to the world.

There are different types of texts in this third issue of the magazine: theoretical texts, prose, poetry, visual interventions and artistic projects that, on more than 100 pages, critically thematise “the others” (drugost) in the wide spectrum of its appearances in a contemporary society.

Zent’s language is written in accessible and understandable manner, while it also experiments with forms of expression (from photography, through literature and architecture to theory) with the intention to problematize the relationship between “high”, “popular” and “national” culture, “experts” and “amateurs”, managers and those that are managed.

Zent is for everyone and for all, and before every following issue, the magazine announces a thematic open-call for authors in different disciplines to suggest the text and visual identity for the upcoming issue.

Drop by one of the selected bookstores and sales locations and get yourself the newest issue of Zent magazine, or even some of the previous issues.

Nova Iskra had a pleasure to participate in this year’s Peer Exchange Meetup 2018 in Switzerland, which gathered managers of startup support organizations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Peru, Serbia, Switzerland and Vietnam.

The Meetup is part of the Swiss Entrepreneurship Program implemented by Swisscontact.

The event was held in Biel/Bienne, Bern and Zurich from 4th to 8th June. The aim of the week was a close and inspiring exchange on the state of ecosystems, ideation and facilitating business ideas, acceleration programs and how to push entrepreneurship. The week was a unique opportunity to exchange with and learn from peers from different countries, who worked in country groups as well as cross-regional, enhancing networks and discuss burning topics to further drive entrepreneurship.

Nana Radenković, manager of the Nova Iskra programs, was invited to participate in this year’s Meetup, as one of the guests and representatives of Serbia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

If you are a young entrepreneur from Serbia working in the cultural and creative industries field, Nova Iskra is opening a new opportunity for professionals stays with companies from seven European countries, through Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program. Pre-apply until June 8^th!

Nova Iskra is announcing its participation in the Excite 2.0 project, an international exchange program for study visits of young entrepreneurs across Europe. The exchange is realized via Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) program of the EU, and will offer a chance to 9 Serbian entrepreneurs to realize study visits and exchange of experience with companies and entrepreneurs from Sweden, Germany, Spain, Slovenia, Austria, The Netherlands or Slovakia, as well as 9 Serbian companies to host young entrepreneurs from those countries.

The focus of EXCITE 2.0 is specifically on the domain of cultural and creative industries (CCIs), with the aim to exchange knowledge and new ideas on entrepreneurship and innovation, as well as to provide access to markets across Europe, boosting international access and business development in the cultural and creative sector. Partners based in the mentioned countries provide bursaries for new entrepreneurs wanting to go to another European country in order to learn from an experienced entrepreneur based there.

The role of Nova Iskra is to provide a local contact point and guidance for the highly committed new entrepreneurs (individuals) and experienced host entrepreneurs (companies) particularly active in the creative and cultural industries filed – to find suitable match with counterpart entrepreneurs across the Europe together with its partners. The exchanges will be realized between now and January 2020.

Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) is a cross-border exchange program which gives new or aspiring entrepreneurs (New Entrepreneurs – NE) the chance to learn from experienced entrepreneurs (Host Entrepreneurs – HE) running small businesses in other participating countries. The exchange of experience takes place during a stay with the experienced entrepreneur, which helps the new entrepreneur acquire the skills needed to run a small firm. The host benefits from fresh perspectives on his/her business and gets the opportunities to cooperate with foreign partners or learn about new markets. The new entrepreneurs’ stay is partially funded by the European Union.

All of the interested individuals from Serbia who are active in, or are planning entrepreneurial projects in the creative industries field can now apply with Nova Iskra, express their general interest for the program in 2018, and provide basic information via the online form https://bit.ly/2rG7X2e until June 8^th. The candidates whose profiles will pass the initial matchmaking process conducted by all of the partners, will then be assisted to submit their full applications via the EYE portal.

Since its launch in 2009, the mobility scheme has seen a constant increase in the number of entrepreneurs taking part in the program, leaving a positive impact on the European economy. Key findings showed that the program reinforces individuals’ entrepreneurial attitude and equips the candidates who participated in the program with entrepreneurial skills and competences invaluable for their future or newly established business.

This May, André Pahl is the new guest designer at Nova Iskra, as part of the program Designer in Residence, which in this cycle is realized in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Belgrade.

Designer in Residence is a unique residential program conducted by Nova Iskra, in collaboration with a number of European partners, taking place since 2014 in cities such as Malmo, Marseilles and Belgrade. The partners this year are the largest Swedish organization dedicated to support of artistic production IASPIS, the French Institute and Goethe-Institut in Serbia, AMI/Dynamo from Marseille, and also EUNIC.

Interdisciplinary work, careful planning of each of the residencies according to the needs of their users and the specifics of the host organizations are the main features of the program. Since 2014, more than 30 authors benefited form the program. Besides Serbian designers who had an opportunity to work in Sweden and France, Nova Iskra hosted a number Swedish, French and Slovakian designers and authors, who engaged with the local creative scene, took part in Nova Iskra’s programs and presented exhibitions and events, besides working daily within Nova Iskra’s space.

In 2018, Nova Iskra is welcoming its first German designer in residence, who will be in Belgrade throughout May.

During his residential stay in Belgrade, André will engage with the local design and music communities and take part in a couple of events. The program is realized in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Belgrade. This Autumn, Nova Iskra will also host a Swedish and a French author, selected in separate open calls conducted by partners.

Nelt received the Trag Fondacija VIRTUS Award for a long-term partnership between the business and non-profit sector for the Nelt Educational Program (NEP). Neltu Educatonal program is finishing its 3^rd cycle in cooperation with Nova Iskra and Gallery 12HUB. The award-winning program enables students to gain new knowledge and experience through innovative lectures and mentoring within many innovative projects.

Within the third cycle of NEP 25 selected students have the opportunity to develop practical skills in the fields of creativity and entrepreneurship, as well as to expend their knowledge in critical thinking, team work and project development. From economy and entrepreneurship, critical theory, activism and cultural management to dramatic arts, design and new technologies, students will go through a unique experience which this year takes place under the slogan “THINK FUTURE!”. Reflecting on contemporary concepts and preparing young participants for their future career paths is at the heart of this program.

As part of its corporate social responsibility strategy, Nelt is particularly focused on investing in the young generation because we understand the importance of education, but also the real conditions in which we as a society find ourselves. Empowering young people and enabling them to experience diverse perspectives of technology, culture, art and business through an interdisciplinary program are the basis on which this project is based. Our cooperation with G12 HUB and Nova Iskra is extremely important to us and therefore we are very happy that we received the VIRTUS Award in the category of cooperation. Nelt’s educational program has confirmed that it is possible to engage young people and create means for their creative and professional self-realization in Serbia, “said Nebojša Šaponjić, one of the founders of Nelt.

After the two completed cycles and the third one ongoing, the partnership is continually developing with the goal of optimizing and continuing the cooperation and the programs.

”This unique partnership between our company and civil society organizations has confirmed for years that it is possible even in Serbia to provide young people with a means for their creative and professional self-realization “- said Marko Milanković, Communications Manager of Nelt Group, a company that for years invested in the development and education of young people in our society.

So far, more than 80 young people have participated in this program, the participants assessed the program as a significant instance in their education, giving them the opportunity to better understand the business and social environment in the country.

Thanks to this program, mutual communication and cooperation between educational institutions and a platform for the realization of joint projects among students of different faculties was established.

NEP will continue to develop and grow in cooperation with all partners for the next 5 years.

Nova Iskra has been recognized as the winner of the 2018 Coworker Members’ Choice Award for Belgrade, Serbia.  Members’ Choice award winners were determined based on the thousands of reviews, votes and opinions collected in a single year from coworking space members worldwide.

“Coworker is excited to announce the winners of the 2018 Members’ Choice Awards and celebrate the coworking spaces around the world that are making an impact in their community”, said Leanne Beesley, CEO of Coworker. “By putting a spotlight on coworking spaces that are providing a great environment and creating a community for their members, Coworker gives coworking spaces both large and small the ability to shine and attract new members.”

Nova Iskra Workspace (http://www.novaiskraworkspace.com) is the leading coworking provider in Serbia which currently runs more than 700 m2 of open space with a capacity of 56 working units, and has so far been used by more than 200 members. Within its Green Lab space, located on the terrace of Nova Iskra, 350 plants have been planted including more than 60 different herbal species. Nova Iskra’s interior, designed by the Petokraka, was showcased in numerous international architectural press and professional literature, while in 2015 it was pronounced as the best coworking space in Serbia. This year Nova Iskra is opening its second location for an exclusive community of 120 members.

Coworker, the member-powered platform for the global coworking community, enables people to find & connect with their perfect coworking space wherever they are in the world.

Connecting Cities of Western Balkans and UK Through Digital Technology.

January 19th was the official start date of the Digital Cities project, which uses its broad program of education, mobility and project support to help connect digital hubs and SMEs from Western Balkans with initiatives from the UK. The implementers of the project are Culture Code (Nova Iskra) and Creative England, while city administration representatives will actively take part as well.

The Digital Cities project, organized by the British Council and the British Government, was presented at hotel Splendid in Budva, marking the official start of the project realization. The project aims to connect creative centers (hubs), startups, small and medium businesses from the fields of creative industries, technology and education, as well as local authorities from cities in the Western Balkans with their colleagues and partners from the UK, in addition to initiating collaboration and mutual projects.

Open call for participation was announced in late December, and resulted in 129 Western Balkans organizations applying and as many as 46 of them gaining the opportunity to participate in the project. 21 organizations will have the chance to use the opportunity to undertake study visits to the UK; 39 of them will go through an intensive capacity-building bootcamp, while 14 of them will have the opportunity to apply for financial support for mutual projects with partners from the UK.

The project was presented by Gavin Vesi, Deputy Chief of Mission of the British Embassy in Montenegro, and Larisa Halilović, Director of British Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also the Director of the Digital Cities project. The one-day conference gave the participants the opportunity to gain better insight into recent experiences in this field and good practice examples from the UK, while the lecture presented by John Newbign, General Director of Creative England and one of the pioneers in the field of creative industries development, was met with great interest.

10 city administrations from the Balkans, as well as 43 representatives of digital SMEs and hubs from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo were greated by inspirational and informative program, which included Stephan Kuester of TECH City UK, Lazar Džamić (prominent Serbian digital communications strategist), Charles Armstrong (Founder of The Trampery from London), and Paul Bourne from Cambridge Judge Business School, who engaged the participants in a two-hour collaborative interaction and gave the final touch to the program in the best possible way.

The Digital Cities project contributes to building skills and knowledge in the fields of strategy and business development, planning and networking, while also stimulating capacities and skills of the leaders of digital hubs and companies, giving them the opportunity to exchange knowledge, contacts and experiences with other participants of the project from the UK and Western Balkans region. The representatives of the selected digital centers will have the chance to connect with local governments, exchange experiences and good practice examples, in addition to developing mutual projects with partners from the UK that are working in the fields of digitalization of city administration, education and creative industries.

The Digital Cities project will last until the end of March, while the participants will have the opportunity to reunite from February 21st to 24th in Serbia, when emphasis will be put on developing the participating organizations’ capacities and their networking, in the presence of many experts from both the Western Balkans and the UK. All the participants will get together during the final event to be held at the end of March in the UK, while in the meantime organizations from Western Balkans will have to opportunity to visit their colleagues and partners across England.

Starting today, you can follow the activities of Platform for Theory and Social Practice of Common Goods on the website zajednicko.org, as well as through social media channels of the platform – facebook, twitter, vimeo and mixcloud.

Zajednicko.org gathers organizations, initiatives, and individuals who deal with critical analysis of the role and importance of common, public, and collective goods in the contemporary social and political contexts. Actions and goals of the platform are focused on research, public advocacy, and development of public policies, as well as on different educational and informative programs.

The mission of the platform zajednicko.org is to contribute to establishing a fair, equitable and solidary society on the foundations of participatory democracy and democratic control, participative control approach, cooperative, public and common ownership, as well as economical activities based on the principles of self-organization, cooperation and solidarity.

Website of the zajednicko.org platform delivers content on the topic of common goods, including the already well-known Commonification, as well as various other content – announcements for events and event-reports, analysis of and suggestions for policies, in addition to other educational and informative, research and advocacy-based content, including a video glossary.

The video glossary consists of a number of short films about the terms related to the concept of commons. By defining and connecting the terms through simplified narrative structures, the glossary represents the first step towards learning about ideas, concepts and practices that define the domain of commons.

In a modern political and social discourse, the concept of commons stands halfway between the public and the private sphere. Concepts and practices related to the idea of the commons are an alternative to a never-growing commodification and privatization of resources and services, advocating for resource management and control without direct influence of the market, or the state. The three elements of the common goods are community, resource and management, or to put it more precisely – the concept of commons is connected to the idea of resources being managed and controlled by the community.

The goal of the Digital Cities project is to connect cities of Western Balkans and the UK through digital and creative industries!

After the official start of the Digital Cities project in Montenegro, as well as a number of meetings and events in the UK, digital industry representatives from the Western Balkans had the opportunity to go through an intensive training camp from February 21st to 23rd at Mokrin House, the first and most advanced rural hub in the region.

This project contributes to the creative and digital economy by connecting the professionals working in the field, boosting their skills and networking while also leading to stronger international cooperation.

The three-day stay in Mokrin gave the opportunity to more than 40 digital industry representatives from the region to work intensively on up-to-date topics, shoulder to shoulder with prominent experts from the international scene.

Numerous lectures and workshops covered a number of relevant topics, such as 21st century companies’ enterpreneurship, digital product menagement, team culture, strategic marketing and digital business scaling, development and mapping of the digital community, as well as blockchain.

The training camp was also a great opportunity for everyone who started collaborating with their partners from the UK to get ready for implementation of their collboration projects.

More than 37 hub and digital SMEs’ representatives from the Western Balkans participated in the training camp, with the opening lecture on the topic of 21st century enterpreneurship being held by Habib Lešević, guest lecturer at Cass Business School and Royal College of Arts in London.

The participants were given the opportunity to learn more about different problem solving techniques in everyday work and strategic acting, in addition to receiving insight into the vast experience and knowledge of prominent lecturers, such as Lazar Džamić from the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade; Yiuwin Tsang, representative of the Disruptive Thinking consulting organization from the UK; Jovana Tokić, representative of the Autheos startup from Amsterdam, or Nana Radenković from Nova Iskra.

As part of this event, Mališa Pušonja spoke about the blockchain domain, while Kerem Alper from Atoyle Labs from Istanbul spoke about community mapping and partnership development.

Larisa Halilović, who is the Director of the British Council in Bosnia and Herzegowina as well as the Director of the Digital Cities project, said: “I am incredibly proud of what the participants of the project have accomplished so far. The way they connected, cooperated and shared their knowledge and experiences was truly inspiring. I am especially thrilled by the fact that they will be able to apply the things they are learning here into their everyday work, and contribute to further bonding and collaboration of the UK and the Western Balkans. The creativity and enterpreneurship of these young people is changing the world we live in as we speak, and it is a pleasure to be one of the links that connect them.”

The Digital Cities project will last until the end of the March 2018, while the final conference for all the participants will be held in the UK.

We are proud to present Western Balkans Digital Cities Map which was created at the end of the three-month project DIGITAL CITIES (Connecting Cities of the United Kingdom and Western Balkans through Digital Industry).

The map visualises the connections created between 55 hubs, organizations, startups and companies from 27 cities across the Western Balkans. It represents the powerful potential of the WB region when it comes to the domain of creative and digital industries, social innovation, fintech projects, as well as entrepreneurship at large.

The DIGITAL CITIES project has brought together 226 professionals from the UK and Western Balkans through policy and skills development, city-2-city links and b-2-b collaboration projects. A powerful network of digital industry professionals from 41 cities and 7 participating countries was created, which already serves as a platform for future actions and collaborations within the field of digital industries between the UK and Western Balkans.

The project aimed to contribute to the development of the digital and creative sectors in the Western Balkans by strengthening policies and strategy, facilitating hub and city networks and collaborations, and developing the skills of professionals and hub leaders by developing attachments with their UK counterparts.

DIGITAL CITIES was funded by the UK Government and implemented by the British Council, in partnership with Culture Code and Creative England.

The British Council invites hubs, startups and small and medium-sized enterprises from the Western Balkans to apply for participation in the regional Digital Cities program. The idea of the program is to link UK cities with cities from the Western Balkans region through digital industries, with a focus on innovation in the creative industries and application of technology in the field of education. The project is funded by the British government, and implemented by The British Council in partnership with the Culture Code association (Nova Iskra), and Creative England.

Through this program, the organizers intend to contribute to the development of digital technologies in both the Western Balkans and the UK, through strengthening strategies and policies, facilitating hubs and city networks, as well as via skills development of professionals and hub leaders. The program will connect those who are already developing city-level strategic documents and policies, as well as startups, digital/creative hubs and SMEs working on projects of within the fields of digitalization, creative industries and digital education.

The project participants will have the opportunity to participate in the research of needs of digital industries actors in the region, engage in two events in the Western Balkans focused on capacity building and networking, with participation of experts from the UK and the region. Participants will be able to connect with similar British organizations and visit them within a mobility exchange that will take place in January and February. The project will also support participants to develop collaborative projects with UK counterparts, and apply for grants provided by the British Council. The final event that will gather all of the participants will take place in the UK, at the end of March 2018.

All interested participants can find the detailed application instructions at the British Council website – www.britishcouncil.rs. Application deadline is Saturday, December 30^th.

This week marks five years since Nova Iskra, the first creative hub and coworking space in the Balkan region, opened its doors in Gavrila Principa street 43. On the occasion of this significant anniversary, Nova Iskra presents its brand new website, as well as a full redesign and rebranding.

Nova Iskra is a pioneering creative hub in the Balkans, created with the idea to incite tangible connections between creative industries, technology and the people. Nova Iskra creates spaces, initiates collaborations and designs education programs for innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, activists, students, professionals, organizations and companies who are interested in taking an active role in shaping the way we will live, learn and work in the future.

Our grassroots organization is dedicated to the empowerment of individuals and teams through a process of informal education – the one that broadens our general knowledge and experience, improves our skills and contributes to personal and professional development. Since December 6^th 2012, over three hundred free educational programs and professional consultations were realized, while a number of projects from the fields of social entrepreneurship and creative business were initiated. Nova Iskra creates functional connections between knowledge and the market, and affirms numerous methods, designers, innovators, activists, researchers, entrepreneurs and experts – the ones who are willing to share their knowledge, practice and challenges with the community.

At the same time, Nova Iskra was recognized as one of the pioneering initiatives in supporting the creative industries and the hubs ecosystem in Europe at large, and through the European Creative Hubs Network project (http://www.creativehubs.eu), Nova Iskra established new significant partnerships with similar organizations from Great Britain, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Germany, Belgium, Slovakia, Italy and even China.

Among the most significant activities and results of the first five years of Nova Iskra are the educational programs (more than 300 free programs); development of Folkk brand (http://www.folkk.co); international residential program Designer In Residence; coordination of the Nelt Education Program for students; a number of courses focused on the development of practical skills for young professionals; Studies of Commons, from which the new zajednicko.org network is developing in 2018; Aks Me Anything program of free professional consultations; Green Lab that includes the first urban garden in downtown Belgrade and an open-air classroom; and finally the publishing endeavor ZENT magazine (http://www.zentmagazine.com) which brings contemporary social and artistic theory closer to a wider audience.

Many lectures and workshops were held at Nova Iskra by prominent experts and esteemed creators from Serbia, region and abroad, including: Škart, Nicholas Felton, Borut Vild, Gregory Gage, Miloš Tomić, Lazar Džamić, Igor Bogićević, Tina Frank, Ivan Kucina, Niklas Roy, Uroš Petrevski, Damjan Geber, Samir Alj Failt, Jovan Čekić, Slavimir Stojanović, Jenny Nordberg, Marcel Mars, Bratislav Milenković, Katarina Pejović, Relja Dereta, Karkatag, Tomislav Tomašević, Zoran Jedrejčić and more than 50 other individuals, as well as design studios đukićpavlović, Metaklinika, Chevavlert, OAZA, Antipod, De:work, AUTORI, Polyhedra, TEAMS Design and others.

Among the organizations represented in Belgrade through Nova Iskra’s activities are the globally established centers for creativity and design, such as Fabrica (Italy), Royal College of Arts (London), PolyU School of Design (Hong Kong), Waag Society (Amsterdam), ArtScience Interfaculty (The Hague), School of Visual Arts (New York), Fachhochschule (Salzburg), Hyperisland, IASPIS (Stockholm), Croatian Design Association (Zagreb), Poligon (Ljubljana) or Design seminar Petnica, as well as companies such as Gigo Design, Nordeus, Velux, Lunatronik, Bosch and many others.

On the occasion of its fifth birthday, Nova Iskra proudly presents its completely new website – WWW.NOVAISKRA.COM, including the redesign of its visual identity. Both were designed by Olga Jorgačević (https://www.behance.net/trolga), who has over the last four years visually shaped most of the communication materials of Nova Iskra, and is our Art Director and the designer behind the two other Nova Iskra websites – NI Workspace and NI Studio.

Nova Iskra Studio (http://www.novaiskrastudio.com) has realized a number of challenging projects for clients such as Extraform, NIS, Telenor Bank, Simpo, Delhaize, Coca-Cola HBC Serbiaa, Fund for an Open Society, Hartefakt Fund, Creative Europe Desk Serbia, Ministry of culture of Serbia, Mokrin House, Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit and many others and has, through its specific methodology, brought these clients added value, increased visibility and increased market ompetitiveness.

Nova Iskra Workspace (http://www.novaiskraworkspace.com) is the leading coworking provider in Serbia which currently runs more than 700 m2 of open space with a capacity of 56 working units, and has so far been used by more than 200 members. Within its Green Lab, located on the terrace of Nova Iskra, 350 plants have been planted including more than 60 different herbal species. Nova Iskra’s interior, designed by the Petokraka, was showcased in numerous international architectural press and professional literature, while in 2015 it was pronounced as the best coworking space in Serbia.

The opening of the second location of Nova Iskra Workspace is expected in 2018!

The first creative hub in Serbia, and one of the leading coworking spaces in the region, proudly presents its expanded capacities, its brand new coworking website, new services and special benefits for all new members who join the Nova Iskra coworking community by the end of this year.

Across the five years since its opening in Gavrila Principa street in Belgrade, Nova Iskra – the first creative hub in our region – has managed to gradually expend its capacities and coworking services.

First of all, there is a completely new website www.novaiskraworkspace.com, where you can view the space and membership packages, send a query for renting the space, schedule a personal tour, or use the possibility of a free “test day”. Another separate website of Nova Iskra education activities will also be presented by the end of the year, which separates the coworking service from other Nova Iskra activities and international projects, with the aim to provide clear communication to the potential and future members.

In addition to the new website, you can now register your company at the Nova Iskra address through the new virtual office service. Expanding your professional network, matchmaking and using the advantage of attending a number of educational programs organized by Nova Iskra are all added values of the membership in our unique coworking space.
Until the end of 2017, all new members are entitled to a 10% discount for their first 3 months of membership, while we also have special offers available for teams (of 3 or more members) that join us in the same period.

Since its initial 18 desks, Nova Iskra workspace has reached the capacity of as many as 56 working units since the beginning of this year, which are actually dedicated working desks intended for freelancers, entrepreneurs or smaller and larger teams that are active in the fields of design, IT, architecture, entrepreneurship or business. Each working unit includes a comfortable chair, table lamp, a personal cabinet and a 24 “computer screen. Some of the novelties in the space include more meeting rooms (now a total of 3), a large standing desk, as well as two separate offices dedicated to teams of 4 or 6 members.

The total area of about 700m2 is now rounded up by a fully furnished open-air terrace that can be used both for work and relaxation, as well as the first urban garden in the center of Belgrade (Nova Iskra Green Lab), which will soon be enriched with an urban beekeeping project. Across the entire space, as well as on the terrace, optical 40/40 mbps Internet is provided, while membership plans are available on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

All information can be found at www.novaiskraworkspace.com.

Nova Iskra and Folkk successfully funded their first Kickstarter campaign, collecting 20,000 $ needed for further project implementation and the expansion of their network of craftsmen. Folkk is proud to have joined the exclusive club of local projects successfully funded on the most popular crowdfunding platform.

Folkk is a Belgrade based social business that connects masters of crafts with young designers in the Balkans. On June 12^th, Nova Iskra kicked off a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for expanding Folkk products, and thus empower and support even more local craftsmen. The four-weeks long campaign culminated in the last days when the team exceeded their goal and secured a total of $ 20,983 with the help of 177 backers.

In exchange for pledges on Kickstarter, all backers chose some of the limited edition, hand-crafted, unique FOLKK products: exquisite 100% wool kilims, hand-woven, wool-filled pillows; two-sided, finest-wood multifunctional plate; and a tri-form serving board made from steamed walnut. In the upcoming period, Folkk will start the production of the first series of already developed products that will will be delivered in October to all people who supported and acquired their Folk products through the Kickstarter campaign.

Folkk is committed to sustainable production processes, using 100% of local materials, and providing fair compensation to everyone involved in production. The distribution of the collected funds was defined before the campaign launch, two-thirds of the revenue will go to the current Folkk craftsmen, while the remaining money will be invested in the development of new products and the inclusion of a larger number of craftsmen in the company’s program.

Folkk will then focus on finding and involving even more craftsmen across the Balkans and developing new products.

All Folkk products are available for order at www.folkk.co.

Nova Iskra thanks everyone who supported the project and contributed in any way to the success of this campaign.

Nova Iskra is proud to announce this year’s open call for Designer in Residence program for a month-long residential stay in France, aimed at designers, architects and other authors or researchers active in related fields.

Exchange of authors takes place through the CREATE IN RESIDENCE platform, a multi-disciplinary international program that was initiated in 2014 by the Swedish Institute in collaboration with Nova Iskra, Krokodil Festival and a range of partner organizations. The partners this year are the largest Swedish organization dedicated to support of artistic production IASPIS, the French Institute and Goethe Institut  in Serbia, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Serbia and finally, AMI/Dynamo and LFO/ZINC maker lab from Marseille.

Interdisciplinary work, careful planning of each of the residencies according to the needs of their users and the specifics of the host organizations are the main features of the program. Since 2014, more than 30 authors benefited form the program. Besides the designers who had an opportunity to work in Sweden, this was also the case for writers, cartoonists and translators – through the open call conducted by Krokodil and their “House for Writers” project.

Last year CinR platform expanded its collaborations and exchanges to other countries besides Sweden, so this year Nova Iskra is announcing the open call for Serbian authors for a one-month residency in Marseille (France). The residential stay in Marseille has no fixed thematic framework, but its primarily intended for those interested in expanding their knowledge in the field of digital fabrication. The concept of the program is still “open-end”, meaning that the participants are not expected to realize or complete their projects during their stay, but to use the time spent on residential program for the development of projects relating to these fields. The visiting author from Serbia will have support  from two local organizations, both located in the creative center Friche la Belle de Mai – DYNAMO incubator and LFO/ZINC makerspace.

Travel and accommodation costs as well as a full scholarship are covered, while authors will be required to engage in programs of local organizations during their stay, through public presentations, participation and organization of workshops and other kinds of programs. The residential stays will be realized in the period of October-November. At the same time, Nova Iskra will host one Swedish and one German author, as well as one author from France.

All interested designers, architects, researchers and authors from Serbia can apply no later than September 1st at midnight via the online form http://bit.ly/2sW5tfy. In addition to filling out the form, it is mandatory to send a portfolio and a work plan -proposal of the project that would be developed during the residential stay, that should also include a motivation letter. All the materials should be written in English and sent to the e-mail createinresidence@gmail.com.

This spring, Nova Iskra is participating at several international and regional conferences dedicated to international cooperation and creative industries.

In May, Nova Iskra had the pleasure to participate at the 83^rd TEH conference in Pula, Croatia. The Rojc Association Alliance, as a member of the European network of the independent cultural centers Trans Europe Halles (TEH) is organized the TEH conference at the community center Rojc from May 25th – 28th. The topic of this year’s conference is Culture and Sharing Communities.

The conference covers topics that examine the relationship between culture and sharing communities with the aim of creating responsible communities that stand in solidarity with one another, supporting a better quality of life for the community. With emphasis on the potential of cultural centers for community development, the three days of the conference explore different models of reciprocity and participation. The conference explores how socio-cultural centers can develop a culture of sharing; how these different practices contribute to social and artistic co-creation, the democratization of society, the reevaluation of social values and changing social paradigms as well as how cultural centers as spaces of sharing and imagination become hubs of social innovation and communities of practice.

On Friday, May 25^th, Relja Bobić, Nova Iskra Program Manager, will participate in one of the conference panels entitled Exploring Beyond Space.

http://teh.rojc.eu/

At this year’s Mikser Festival, Nova Iskra had the pleasure of participating in a specially designed program titled Digital Arts Expo Powered By Nordeus.

Besides Nordeus, who is the initiator and a sponsor of the Digital Arts Expo, this special program gathers the following companies: 3Lateral, Bunker VFX, Cofa Games, Crater Studio, Fried, Mad Head Games, Take One, Nova Iskra, Qube 3D and Startit. As a part of the Digital Arts Expo silos, the visitors will have the opportunity to see not only some of the projects these companies have been working on, but also to meet the developers and artists that were working on hits such as Witcher 3, Plants vs. Zombies, The Other Guys, Awakening Of Heroes, Grand Theft Auto V, Top Eleven and many others.

Marko Radenković, Nova Iskra General Manager, will be participating at the panel dedicated to education and talk about various educational possibilities of starting your career in digital arts.

After successfully completed Audience Development course, intended for representatives of and cultural institutions and organizations, Nova Iskra represents its first webinar that was produced during the course, and consists of all six lectures.

This webinar is intended for all professionals in the field of culture who recognize that they are in need of further education in order to successfully operate, i.e. to review and improve their strategies in communicating with audience, both in terms of presenting their programs and in terms of continuous rejuvenation of audience, as well as maintaining the existing audience.

The course was held in November 2016, and was co-organized by Nova Iskra and Desk Creative Europe Serbia. Over 80 professionals applied to the open call, while the course was attended by about 60 participants. All lectures were held at Kolarac, who was also one of the partners in the project.

The aim of the course is to improve the practical knowledge and skills of representatives of organizations and institutions that are related to issues of audience development – in terms of presentation skills and the use of diverse communication tools, but also by reflecting on the communications approach for specific projects. The project contributes to strengthening the capacities and work improvements of cultural institutions through professionalization of employees in cultural institutions as well as professionals that work independently.

Six lectures were presented throughout the course: Nana Radenković (Nova Iskra), Relja Dereta, Slobodan Jovanović (Coba & Associates), Neda Šorak (Sunny Digital), Ljiljana Ilić (CPN) and Aleksandra Ninkovic Tašić (exhibition Pupin). Through this webinar, educational resources on the topic Audience Development will be permanently available to the public, as a valuable contribution to the professional development and education in the field of culture.

All lectures in integral form are available on Vimeo Nova Iskra’s profile:

Nana Radenković – https://vimeo.com/205872852

Relja Dereta – https://vimeo.com/205878712

Slobodan Jovanović – https://vimeo.com/205879661

Ljiljana Ilić  – https://vimeo.com/205884245

Aleksandra Ninković Tašić – https://vimeo.com/205885361

Neda Šorak – https://vimeo.com/206228327

Audience development is one of the central topics of the Creative Europe program of the European Union, and therefore collaborates with Desk Creative Europe Serbia, and the project was supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Serbia.

This March, Nova Iskra will present the first course dedicated to the field of design management in our country. The course is intended for designers, entrepreneurs and micro enterprises. In collaboration with renowned designers and experts from Serbia and Slovenia, the course will address the main aspects of this relatively new field within the design practice. Application is open until March 1st.

For the first time in our region, Nova Iskra is organizing a course dedicated to a relatively new domain, at the crossroads of two major professions – design and management. Traditionally, this domain found its implementation in the management of product design, but it significantly evolved and today includes various aspects of an organization, including operational and strategic levels. This unique course will have exactly this approach, and through two lectures and two seminars intends to introduce some of the key aspects of design management to the local professional audience.

Design Management includes processes, business decisions and strategies that support innovation and create effectively-designed products, services, communications, environments and brands that improve life quality and provide organizational success. The goal of design management is to establish and maintain an effective business environment in which organizations can fulfill their strategy and mission through design. The course represented by Nova Iskra will deal with the place of design management within business systems, process development of “traditional” products, but also challenges and new professions that bring the digital environment and cooperation of creatives and programmers.

On this occasion, the course is designed for designers, entrepreneurs and representatives of micro-enterprises, i.e. those who are willing to upgrade their knowledge in both fields, through lectures and seminars, work with prominent experts from Serbia and Slovenia. The experts are Miha Klinar, founder of studios from Ljubljana Gigo Design and KCDM (Competence center for design management), Jovana Tokić, designer and product/design manager professionally active in the Netherlands, as well as members of the Belgrade branch of the renowned company TEAMS Design (Director Žarko Bubalo, Creative Manager Đorđe Vučković, Senior Industrial Designer Nenad Nenadić and Engineering Manager Aleksandar Mikan).

Gigodesign (www.gigodesign.com) is a multidisciplinary team of designers, programmers and consultants who utilize diverse skills and expertise while working with companies. With over 300 realized projects – from branding and packaging, to design of innovative sailing boats, furniture and cooperations with companies such as Elan, Adria or Slatnar – Gigo is among the most innovative design studios in the region, and beyond.

Miha Klinar, co-founder of the studio, founded Competence Center for Design Management (www.design-management.si) in 2012 , which successfully advocates design management approaches in strategic (re)positioning of companies, as well as the synergy of the business and design communities.  They have achieved impressive business results through the work of 18 Slovenian companies, and the project was awarded first prize at the Design Value Awards established by the Design Management Institute from Boston, the world’s oldest institutions in the field.

TEAMS Design is a consulting firm that participated in defining the term that is nowadays known as industrial design. Since 1956, the company was constantly growing in Esslingen, a small town near Stuttgart, and now has more than 100 employees in five studios on three continents, and works with over 300 clients. The studio in Belgrade was founded in 2004 and since then cooperates with other TEAMS offices in the fields of industrial design and engineering. Today it covers the entire product development process – from the initial sketch to prototypes that precede production. www.teamsdesign.com

Jovana Tokić was born in 1983 in Belgrade. She lives in Amsterdam and works as a Product Manager/Product Owner/Design Manager in the company www.autheos.com. She deals with the design and development of software products and production processes related to the development of digital products and services.

Design Management course will be held in Belgrade between Match 8th and 17th, through four sessions (March 9th,10th,14th and 17th). Participation is free of charge, but the number of participators is limited. All designers, entrepreneurs and representatives of micro-enterprises that are interested can register via the online form  http://bit.ly/2m8xJ9M, until March 1st.

The first lecture within the course will be open to the public – an introductory presentation of Miha Klinar which is scheduled for Thursday, March 9th at 6 PM h at Nova Iskra.

Realization of Design Management course is supported by the Development Agency of Serbia.

This winter, Nova Iskra had the pleasure to participate at several important European and regional conferences focused on creative industries.

Within this year’s biennial manifestation European League of Institutes of the Arts(ELIA) entitled Turning Mirrors into Windows, Nova Iskra presented new models of informal education intended for professionals in the fields of creative industries, especially for those who work in multidisciplinary and collaborative environments. The 14th ELIA conference held in Florence, hosted over 400 participants, presenters and speakers from all over Europe. ELIA gathers around 350 artistic educational institutions in the fields of theater, visual arts, architecture, new media and design from more than 47 countries.

http://www.elia-artschools.org/activities/biennial-conference

Within the Practicing Design conference, Program Manager of Nova Iskra Relja Bobić participated in the New Regional Practices in Design Education panel. Practicing Design conference and the accompanying exhibition were held January 20th – 21th in Zagreb, Croatia. Croatian Designers Assciation presented the final event of the Design in Practice project, with results of the two-year work by seven international partner organizations from the fields of education, business and the civil sector. The project was organized in cooperation with three European professional design organizations, two educational institutions and two companies from Croatia, Austria and Macedonia.

http://www.practicingdesign.info/

After the successful How Work Works conference in Belgrade, Nova Iskra participated at the second consecutive European Creative Hubs Network Forumwhich was held January 26th – 28th 2017 in Athens, Greece. Forum titled syn- was focused on the theme of growth, and was organized by our colleagues from the organizations Bios and Romantso. European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) is a project co-funded by the European Commission, led by the British Council together with consortium partners that includes Nova Iskra, i.e. association Kulturni kod. Relja Bobić, our Program Manager, also moderated one of the panels.

http://creativehubs.eu/syn-european-creative-hubs-forum-athens-press-release-2/

In late January, during the Think Up Culture conference in Palma de Mallorca, our General Manager Marko Radenković presented the operating model of Nova Iskra to the local city authorities and professionals from the field of culture. Together with the organization Creative Edinburgh from the UK, he presented the impact of creative districts and creative hubs in the development of local communities and strengthening of potentials of the creative scene.

The long-awaited second issue of the magazine Zent concentrates on the topic Work, and will be presented on December 30th at 7 PM at Polet (Cetinjska 15),  here you will also be able to purchase it at a promo price of 500 RSD!

Zent, magazine that offers “an extra-ordinary reflection of the present”, brings more than 20 works in its second issue – theoretical texts, prose, poetry and visual art contributions and artistic projects that deals with the theme of work in a variety of ways – its contextualization in contemporary conditions, as well as its transformation that we are currently witnessing.

Visual artist and architect Milorad Mladenović and musician and director Luka Papić (aka Mangulica FM) will speak at the launch event, moderated by editor Maja Kantar and Aleksandra Savanović. After the talks – socializing!

Today when the State itself is telling us that we are lazy and that we should as early as children be prepared to be thrown into the cruel global market, today when everything from TV programmes and lifestyle magazines to university professors instructs us that we can’t work unless we adjust our behaviour, change our attitudes and fill-up our CVs with unpaid internships, today when we are not only obliged to work but should also love it, when we must be cheerful and happy at our workplaces, today when commercial success is the only measure of achievement and failure to succeed exclusively our own fault, today when education is reduced to job training, when leisure has become productive, when human relation and interaction has been commodified, today when the leftovers of the workers cult of the former social (socialist) state are increasingly transformed into the cult of work as such, in this post-socialist desert, the question what is work, and what is labour, as well as how, why and under what conditions we work, stands above us like some sort of giant neon billboard standing on top of a residential building.

We who live in these buildings, in our parents’ apartments, renting someone else’s apartments that we can no longer afford, in apartments we paid with debt for, we for whom the loss of a job means the loss of basic means for survival, wonder what the hell can we at all do?

Authors whose works are published in this issue are: Velimir Andrejević, Franco  Bifo Berardi, Jean Dreager, Ana Filipović, Sofia Gavrilović, David Greaber, Peter Handke, Ljiljana Ilić, Uroš Jovanović, Maja Kantar, Marija Marić, Tomislav Osmanli, Andrea Palašti, Dušan Perić, Jana Rastegorac Vukomanović, Miroslav Ružica, Aleksandra Savanović, Dean Spade, Borislav Stanić, Vladimir Stanković, Mladen Stilinović, Bojan Vasić and others.

Second issue of Zent will be available for purchase at the promo price of 500 RSD from 7 until 10 PM, while free shipping offer for orders made on the site www.zentmagazine.com/poruci/ will be valid until the end of February.

Nova Iskra and Creative Europe Desk Serbia present audience development course. Audience Development is an educational project, a one-month course for representatives of civil society organizations and public institutions in culture, as well as individual professionals. The focus is on those who recognize that additional education is needed to successfully operate, i.e. reassess and improve their communication strategies towards the public, both in terms of presentation of their programs and in terms of continuous rejuvenation and access to new audiences, including nurturing the existing audience.

The aim of the course is to improve the practical knowledge and skills of representatives of organizations and institutions that are related to issues of audience development – in terms of presentation skills and the use of diverse tools to communicate with the audience, but also through the reflection on the strategic communications approach for specific projects. The project contributes to strengthening the capacities of cultural institutions, including professionalization of employees.

The course will discuss the articulation and reflection of the vision, mission and goals of the organization itself or the particular project, introducing the concepts of strategic and integrated communications, new ways of targeting specific groups, visual communications and total design (at the institutional/project level), as well as practical tools and approaches for the use of social networks and online communities in order to popularize projects and seek target groups.

The lectures will be presented by Nana Radenković (Nova Iskra), Relja Dereta, Slobodan Jovanović (Coba & Associates) and Neda Šorak (Sunny Digital). Beside lectures of our prominent experts, examples of good practices will be presented – the project of the exhibition Pupin and activities of Centre for Promotion of Science.

Participation in the program is free, but capacities are limited. All interested parties should apply via this link – http://bit.ly/2fNhQWu until Saturday, December 3rd. Participants will receive confirmations on Monday, December 5th. The course will be held in the premises of Nova Iskra (Gavrila Principa 43, Belgrade) over four Wednesdays in December, from 6 to 8 PM  – December 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th.

Audience Development is one of the central themes of the “Creative Europe” program of the European Union, and thus the cooperation with the Creative Europe Desk Serbia is logical, while the project is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Serbia.

This fall, Nova Iskra was present at several important European and regional conferences focused on creative industries.

Within the Montenegro 2016 conference dedicated to economics, with the topic Development perspective of the western Balkans. Marko Radenković, General Manager of Nova Iskra, took part in the panel Creative economy – the needs of Balkan innovation and start-up business centers, where he presented previous work and organizational model of Nova Iskra .

The conference, organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Montenegro, was held on October 27th and 28th at Hotel Splendid in Budva. The conference was organized in cooperation with the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations from Berlin.

http://www.privrednakomora.me/konferencija-o-ekonomiji

Nova Iskra was also invited to present its organizational model and the process of developing our hub at the two-day B-Creative conference, one of the first events of the European project Creative Tracks, which was held in November in Namur, Belgium. B-Creative is a global event that focuses on cross-cutting nature of the creative sector and its ability to encourage social and economic innovations. Nova Iskra participated on November 2nd in the panel Creativity: Meaningful innovation?, in which Marko Radenković, General Manager of Nova Iskra, presented the current work and organizational model of Nova Iskra.

http://bcreativetracks.com/

Within the two-day conference Sarajevo Unlimited, which was held November 2nd-3rd in Sarajevo, Nova Iskra had the pleasure to present its design brand FOLKK, as part of the Design Unlimited panel, alongside projects Gazzda and Smart Lumies. Sarajevo Unlimited brought together all relevant institutions, companies, organizations, startups and investors in order to promote innovation in business, and the use of startup companies’ resources.

http://weareunlimited.ba/ba/

In October, Nova Iskra’s Co-working Manager Miljan Peljević took part in the first Serbian Co-working conference held October 15th-16th at Mokrin House in Mokrin, alongside 15 other co-working initiatives from all over Serbia. The participants had a chance to meet with each other and exchange past experiences, and plan future common actions which should strengthen the co-working community in Serbia and raise awareness about co-working at the local level. The next conference is expected to be held in April 2017.

Meet up with ideas and established practices which are formed through the approach of the “common good” (commons) and gain experience through practical work in multidisciplinary teams!

The studies will last from November 14th 2016 until April 1st 2017, with classes taking plsce once a week, for 2-4 hours (except holidays). Studies are free of charge for all selected participants, while parts of the program will be open to public.

You can download the program of the study program at the following link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/

Studies of Commons are based on the analysis of existing practices and exploration of possible concepts and solutions for the improvement of work processes, production, as well as the life in communities, especially those conducted by the idea of the general or common good, i.e. commons.

The aim of the study program is to help participants understand what it means nowadays to work and live according to the principles of commons, and through a specially designed, intensive, participatory, collaborative and interdisciplinary program to empower individuals and collectives to gain awareness of general/common goods in their process of thinking and acting.

The program will introduce different views of organisational structures that offer positive results through analysis of good practices in diverse contexts, as well as advice that may be helpful in practice for other local contexts when it comes to the management and use of common resources. At the same time, the program will concentrate on some collaborative practices including developing its own forms and models that are related to the idea of commons.

The participants will be able to hear about different experiences and approaches related to the subject, while some of the renowned lecturers will be Tomislav Tomašević (Institute of Political Ecology, Zagreb), Felipe Duarte (Berlin), Dea Vidović (Kulturanova, Zagreb), Karyotis Theodoros (Viome, Thessaloniki), Tomislav Medak (MAMA, Zagreb), Panayotis Antoniadis and Ileana Apostol(nethood, Zurich) and others.

What can our participants expect from Studies of Commons?
– A chance to meet up with local, regional and international experts, and learn from them about the latest models and practices of participatory decision-making and management,

– A chance to work in a inspiring environment with other individuals who apply, or are intending to apply models guided by the principles of commons,

– Theoretical and practical knowledge used to define specific social, ecological and economic needs in its own environment, and to give potential solutions through the development of collaborative projects concepts,

– Know-how for understanding and articulation of problems and social phenomena, as well as tools and practical knowledge for good collaborative work on dealing with the mapped problems

You can download the program of the study program at the following link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/

Sign up by filling the following application form http://bit.ly/2dGQsZC and by sending your CV to office@novaiskra.com. Deadline is October 31st 2016. The number of participants is limited.

The main criteria for selection of participants will be: multidisciplinary, activism, commitment to the program activities, openness for cooperation and teamwork.

Nova Iskra and the consortium partners of the European Creative Hubs Network project, a project initiated by the European Commission, announce a three-day international forum titled “How Work Works”, from 22 to 24 September, in Belgrade. The event will gather nearly 100 hub organisations from across Europe, Serbia and the region. The rich program will also host lectures from some of the leading educational organisations from the field of creativity – Fabrica from Italy and Hyper Island from Sweden.

The international forum How Work Works is part of the European Creative Hubs Network project initiated by the British Council, cofunded by the European Commission through the Creative Europe program, in which Nova Iskra participates together with partners from Greece (Bios), Spain (Factoria Cultural), Germany (betahaus), the United Kingdom (Creative Edinburgh), Belgium (EBN) and Portugal (ADDICT). More than 150 delegates, hub leaders and a number of European and regional stakeholders will come together in Belgrade, during the first of three planned fora, in order to map the European eco-system of hubs active in the fields of culture and creativity, education, and entrepreneurship, and support their networking, knowledge exchange and capacity building.

The main part of the forum program will be held on the 23^rd and 24^th of Septemberat the Yugoslav Film Archives, and will showcase keynote lectures, study cases, panel discussions, networking activities and several side events. The three main sessions are dedicated to the questions of space, community and business models of creative hubs. As a part of each session, three organisations will be presented, and then take part in a short panel discussion. The program will also host a lecture by professor Jovan Čekić (Faculty of Media & Communications Belgrade), while theatre director Paul Bourne (Cambridge Business School) will guide the participants through an interactive action that explores the nature of networking, communication and creative thinking.  Those present at the opening will be addressed by Michael Davenport, Ambassador of the Delegation of the EU to Serbia.

The conference will be attended by managers of some of Europe’s leading creative hubs from more than 25 countries, including betahaus (Berlin & Sofia), WaagSociety (Amsterdam), Taktal (Glasgow), Creative Edinburgh (Edinburgh), FactoriaCultural (Madrid), Sektor5 (Vienna), Todos (Lisboa), Cable Factory (Helsinki), Stpln (Malmö), The Roco (Sheffield), The Trampery (London), La Vallée (Brussels), Bios/Romantso (Athens), Republikken (Copenhagen), Poligon, Roglab(Ljubljana), MOB makerspace (Barcelona), Atölye Labs (Istanbul), The Fusebox(Brighton), Frappant (Hamburg), Design Terminal (Budapest) as well as numerous others, including all relevant local and regional initiatives.

Through its central theme and question – How work works – the forum will investigate the shifting paradigm of work as seen through the prism of creative hubs, bearing in mind that these organisations have a key role in supporting young entrepreneurs and creative people across the continent and the development of local creative industries. A special publication produced for the occasion – How Work Works: An inventory of effects – will be presented at the conference. It gathers seven critical texts dealing with the ongoing changes in the field of labour, by authors from Serbia, United Kingdom and United States, including visual contributions by the Belgrade-based artist Dušan Rajić.

The conference is closed for the public, but interested audience will have a chance to follow the soft opening of the conference on Thursday, 22 September at 7 PM at Bitef theatre. On this occasion, two lectures will be held by the representatives of Europe’s leading educational platforms from the field of creativity – Fabrica (www.fabrica.it ) and Hyperisland (www.hyperisland.com).

Sam Baron, creative director of Fabrica (“the communication research centre” that was founded in 1994 by the Benetton group and housed in an impressive complex that was designed by the renowned architect Tadao Ando) will address the methodology and the number of outstanding and award-winning projects realized at this leading European centre for design. Jon Barnes from Hyperisland, on the other hand, will dedicate his lecture Organisational Evolution to the modern organisations and innovative strategies for their development and survival in the light of great social and economic changes.

The European Creative Hubs Network project is co-funded by the European Commission, while the How Work Works forum is realized also with the support of Ministry of Culture and Media of Republic of Serbia and other local partners.

Know-How/Show-How is an international summer program for creative thinking and design processes, initiated by the KnowHow Foundation from Amsterdam and the Culture Desk Foundation from Sofia. Relja Bobić, Nova Iskra’s Education Platform Coordinator, presented the Nova Iskra platform, and more specifically the process of development of its first design brand – Folkk. The brand is establishing connections between emerging design talent from the Balkans and the traditional crafts, artisans and knowledge holders.

The theme of the 2016 program is RE-connect – Object in Context and placeed special attention on our present day relationship to objects that shape culture. Designers and artists focus their expertise on the city and the archives and collections it holds, in an effort to re-connect them to the public space. The program was aiming to supports the development of the creative industries by introducing and transferring various methods and approaches in the creative processes. It took place from 11^th to 22th of July, and consisted out of four five-days workshops, with selected international participants and an open public program.

The program was presented by a representative group of design and art professionals from all over Europe with extensive experience in education – René Put & Brigitte Gootink from the design studio PutGootink (NL); Saskia Van Drimmelen & Margreet Sweerts from the fashion project Painted series (NL), the artist Uta Eisenreich(NL/DE), the photographer Vesselina Nikolaeva (BG/NL), the designers Linda Van Deursen (NL) and Jurgen Bey(NL), the curators and rsearchers Clémentine Deliss(DE) and Iglika Mishkova (BG), Relja Bobić (SB) and more.

The partners of the European Creative Hubs Network project are pleased to announce the first European Creative Hubs Forum. The event organized by the leading hub in the Balkan region – Nova Iskra from Belgrade, Serbia –  will take place at the Yugoslav Film Archives in Belgrade from September 22nd to 24th, 2016. It will bring together 100+ managers and representatives of European hubs and creative and entrepreneurial communities from more than 20 countries, as well as all relevant organizations and stakeholders from Serbia and the region of South-Eastern Europe.

An open call for participation is currently running for all interested hub leaders, managers or representatives from across Europe. The deadline to apply is July 20^th2016.

Creative hubs have become new models for creative enterprises to grow, and invaluable mechanisms of change and assets to the creative sector. Creative hubs are uniquely diverse in structure, sector and services, qualifying them as a great driver for growth, competitiveness and innovation in the creative industries. They range from collective and co-operative, to labs and incubators; and can be static, mobile or online. In addition to encouraging collaboration, generating distinctive cultural practice, and offering much needed exhibition and events space, they also bring added value to agendas in regeneration, tourism, inward investment and educations.

The European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) is a project co-funded by the European Commission, led by the British Council in partnership with a consortium of European creative hubs, Bios in Greece, Addict in Portugal, betahaus in Germany, Kulturni Kod/Nova Iskra in Serbia, Creative Edinburgh in the UK, Factoria Cultural in Spain, and the European Business Network (EBN). ECHN aims to enhance the ecosystem that supports the development and growth of the creative and cultural sector by supporting the subsistence and growth of creative hubs in Europe, creating a community of experienced creative hubs leaders across Europe from a variety of sectors and promoting hubs as innovative models to support the creative economy in Europe.

Through this project, Creative Hubs managers from Europe will be able to connect with peers and gain access to a community of hubs, visit and learn from creative hubs across Europe, exchange best practice and strengthen skills, as well as learn about successful and sustainable business models.

How Work Works – European Creative Hubs Forum

Through its central question and theme – HOW WORK WORKS – the forum will investigate the shifting paradigm of work as seen through the prism of creative hubs. The forum aims to map out the diverse eco-system of hubs, and to showcase the richness, diversity and importance of the European hub landscape, having in mind that these organizations play a key role in supporting young entrepreneurs and creative professionals across the continent, as well as beyond the borders of EU.

Beside offering inspiring and insightful keynotes by leading scholars from Europe and Serbia, some of which will be open to the general public, the conference will create a space for networking and sharing of experience between hub managers through three key sessions, dedicated to various aspects of Space, Community and BusinessModels. The working sessions of the conference will also be followed by more informal networking formats, free consultations for local and international experts, visits to the local cultural venues and hubs, optional field trips and other special programs.

Call for participation

An open call for participation at the forum is announced, with the aim to showcase the hub diversity across Europe and offer hub organizations a chance to network, learn and grow partnerships. The European Creative Hubs Forum will come in a condensed format, gathering a maximum number of 150 participants, in order to allow effective direct face-to-face interactions. The official working language of the conference will be English.

The organizers are aiming to enable participants to share personal experiences and thoughts in an environment that caters for a smaller audience and which will include several group work activities, in order to maximise participants’ opportunities to share with their peers. For accepted applicants, the organizers will be able to cover expenses for one representative per organization, which will include travel costs to and from Belgrade and accommodation costs for Sept 23rd and 24th. The full forum agenda will be announced in August.

If you are interested in  participating in the first ECHN forum in Belgrade, please fill in the registration form http://bit.ly/1XKeBQc no later than Wednesday, July 20th 2016 by 23:59 hrs (GMT+1). 

(The organizers reserve the right to run a selection process of participants based on the registration forms, should the number of interested parties be higher than expected. In case that your application is approved, you will be contacted by Nova Iskra staff no later than August 1st in order to organize the logistics). 

On Wednesday, June 15th  Nova Iskra publicly presented the “Green Laboratory” project, a new space that was realized in cooperation with company NIS within through the program “Together for the Community”. Green laboratory is an open-air classroom and the first urban garden in the center of Belgrade, located at Nova Iskra coworking space in the Gavrila Principa Street.

The first urban garden in the center of Belgrade, as well as an open-air classroom dedicated to sustainable development was officially opened on Wednesday, June 15th at Nova Iskra.

In the framework of the Together for the Community program, NIS supported this specific working and educational outdoor space of Nova Iskra, which covers around 250 m2. Until recently, this was only the roof of a nearby object and uncultivated piece of land overgrown with weeds, now has been transformed into an educational and ecological oasis called Green Laboratory, that will be used by the local community and visitors of numerous programs and events at Nova Iskra.

This specific multifunctional outdoor space will be used for the implementation of educational programs, lectures and workshops in the field of sustainable development, as well as an open workshop intended for neighbors and interested individuals who wish to be involved in the maintenance of this sort of urban garden. Belgrade Flower Festival is also one of the partners in charge of the selection of the many crops that were planted last autumn, and now enrich the workspace of Nova Iskra members, as well as the experience of all visitors who participate in programs that are open to the public.

With the aim to improve the quality of life in the communities in which NIS operates, and in the spirit of corporate social responsibility and recognition of the need to connect local communities and major businesses, each year NIS organizes a public competition named Together for the Community. The program is designed to strengthen partnerships with the local communities in which the company operates. In the competition for 2015, 110.5 million dinars have been invested in projects of local communities and NGOs.

The first programs at Green Laboratory will be presented in early September and will address the topics from the field of landscape architecture.

Mikser Festival and Balkan Design Expo open their doors on Wednesday, June 8th at 8:30 PM, including the exhibition of selected brands from the region, such as Gazzda, Extraform, Prostoria, Stuff and others. The event will also present the first public presentation of the FOLKK brand, launched just a few months ago on the Serbian, regional and international markets.

FOLKK will present its complete product offer of home accesories made out of specific types of wood and high-quality domestic wool, which is handwoven in the traditional workshop in Pirot. The products are interwoven with innovative ideas of some of the most prominent designers from our region (Emir Šehanović, Tamara Švonja, Studio Antipod), who have developed successful dialogues with experienced artisans and craftsmen throughout Serbia.

On Thursday, June 9^th at 7.30 pm, FOLKK will be presented by Marko Radenković, General Manager of Nova Iskra, the platform behind the development of this specific brand. During the lecture Meet FOLKK!, he will talk about the three-year process of developing the brand and the first products, the research results of the global market, as well as the specifics of the business model of FOLKK, that carries some of the key features of the social enterprise model.

FOLKK is a brand based on the unique heritage of the Balkans, but it does not stop there. The first four collections of products rely on the supreme qualities of local, natural materials and traditional skills, encountering innovative design and contemporary visual language. PLATO and TAPA are multifunctional wooden products for food serving or storing of small items, while the RESA rugs and MENTpillows carry iconic patterns that will enrich and personalize any interior. Find out more about the products here: http://folkk.co/products/

The social aspect of creating these products is in the heart of the FOLKK process. The brand collaborates closely with local social enterprises and small family workshops, whose existence relies on their handicraft skills. Meet them in the Designers & Makers section of the FOLKK website (http://folkk.co/designers-makers), that also acts as an online store shipping worldwide.

All 27 variations of the products – if we take into account the different materials and designs – will be exhibited at the Balkan Design Expo during Mikser Festival, in the space of a Mikser House (Karađorđeva 46), every day of the festival from 11 AM to midnight. This is a unique opportunity to experience the authentic textures and feel the pleasure offered by these innovative functional objects, each one unique due to handmade method of preparation.

If you are not able to visit the Mikser Festival, the FOLKK online store is always open at www.folkk.co. Free worldwide delivery is currently in offer on the site.

During the 48-hour hackathon participants will work in a team developing an application that aims to facilitate mobility in the region of Carinthia. The application should allow users to easily navigate the region, regardless of the chosen means of transport. Instead of buying tickets, mobile phone should collect all the information on the selected route, offer the best options and mark each check-in and check-out for different means of transportation – whether it is a bus, train, taxi, car sharing or cycling.

Applications for hackathon are open to all programers, hackers, developers, designers and interface experts who are at least 18 years old, and have at least 3 years of professional experience. They should also be fluent in English and have a residence in the Alpine-Adriatic region (Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia). The total number of participants for the hackathon will be 24, with 4 representatives from each country.

Apply by filling out a short form, attach your CV and explain your motivation for participating at the following link http://www.hackathon.click/register  until May 30th!

The awards for the most successful teams are 5.000, 3.000 and 2.000 EUR, while the costs of transportation, accommodation, meals and mentoring will also be covered.

The organizer of the hackathon is the Austrian organization Gain and Sustain, and the partners are HUB387 (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Coworking Croatia (Croatia), Warehouse (Italy), Polygon (Slovenia), Startit and Nova Iskra (Serbia).

The course for Presentation Skills is intended for all those who are facing challenges in preparing high-quality presentation, either for the purpose of finding a job, approaching investors, presenting ideas to your team, media appearances or PR activities. In order for participants to gain confidence, overcome stage fear and develop articulation, the course will help its participants to conceptually prepare their presentations, to hold attention of their audience and to make their delivery convincing, credible and effective.

The course will be led by Relja Dereta, one of the most experienced Serbian professionals in this field, with tremendous experience in working with individuals, teams and entire organisations. Besides exercises that involve verbal and non-verbal communication and articulation, the Nova Iskra team will prepare practical exercises for enabling participants to independently prepare graphically attractive , innovative and interactive presentations.

Relja Dereta has over 10 years of experience in holding presentations and workshops for thousands of people of different age and professions. He has been coaching speakers for TEDx events for several years – so far he was working individually with 50 speakers on 6 TEDx conferences, guiding them through the process of structuring their idea and practicing their appearance (read their recommendations) www.reljadereta.com

Overcome your stage fear, encourage yourself for effective performance in front of clients, employees, colleagues, audience or investors! Learn to articulate your idea and conquer diction skills, non-verbal communication and preparation of interactive presentations.

The course Practical Aspects of Entrepreneurship is committed to the challenges that future entrepreneurs encounter while establishing enterprises and companies, and during the process of articulating a business ideas into a business opportunity, as well as into a specific business and operational plan. The course is mainly designed for those who are feeling ready to realize their entrepreneurial ambitions, those who have a specific business idea to develop, as well as those who intend to do so. Whether you have already registered your company or not, this course will offer an insight into first practical steps and the obligations when starting a business, including common mistakes, challenges and obstacles.

Introductory lectures will be dedicated to raising awareness and entrepreneurial spirit among participants, as well as the confrontation with real threats or challenges in establishing their own practices. The lecturers Vladimir Miletić and Milan Trbojević are specialised for providing mentoring assistance and consulting. Their advice is  available to the wider community via their well-known blogs – Dnevnik jednog direktora (translated: the diary of a director) www.dnevnikjednogdirektora.com, and FT1P (translated: you are missing one paper) www.ft1p.rs.

Those who would like to be entrepreneurs, designers who want to develop their brands, freelancers who need administrative support, start-ups in the initial stage of development,all of them who believe they have an idea that can become a successful products or services – will acquire all the necessary knowledge in these domains during the course.

Start your journey from your business ideas to your business plan, starting a business and overcoming legal and administrative challenges! Create a business plan, rationalize business decisions and introduce yourself with legal frameworks, including basic terms and numbers – through practical work and mentoring from leading experts.

The price for participating both courses is 180 EUR or 22.000,00 RSD. Payment can be made in two installments – 50% when registering and 50% before the start of first lecture. If case of cash payment, participants will receive an e-mail on same day of registration with payment instructions. The number of places is limited for both courses, and they will be divided into 6 sessions (held at the end of the week, late  afternoon) in the period from May 26th until June 18th.

All interested participants who register and pay the advance deposit before Friday (May 13th) for either of these two courses, will enjoy a discount of 10%!
For applying to the Presentation Skills course enter the following linkhttp://bit.ly/1rZPM5f, and those interested for the application formula regarding the courcse of Practical Aspects of Entrepreneuralship should use the following link http://bit.ly/24xnbW3.

Deadline for application are May 26th and 28th, respectively.

After almost a year of work on the first issue, Nova Iskra and Zent Collective are proudly presenting Zent magazine. The first issue of Zent will be presented to the public on 11th May at 5 PM on the plateau located behind the building at Terazije 30-32.

Zent magazine is dedicated to the research and examining of the issues that deal with the problematisation of the “contemporary“ in all of its aspects. Zent is political, insofar as it does not see politics (only) as a matter of institutions, but above all as a matter of everyday relations between individuals and communities to each other and to the world. Zent’s language is written in accessible and understandable manner, while it also experiments with forms of expression (from photography, through literature and architecture to theory) with the intention to problematize the relationship between “high”, “popular” and “national” culture, “experts” and “amateurs”, managers and those that are managed. Zent will take the form of thematic printed editions published twice a year, while the website www.zentmagazine.com will consist of other original texts and translations, alongside the content of the print editions. The magazine will function on the basis of an open call for both printed and online editions – the first open call for authors and authors is expected in July.

Zent is attempting to re-invent and establish a publishing model whose goal is not profit but access to knowledge for all. Zent is grounded in the values of community and the belief that the state is not an essential mediator. The name itself comes from the magazine lingo term zentati, which implies a certain level of fear (of) and anxiety (as). For Zent, zentati means to await (nothing specific), to be out of order and out of place, on no man’s land, never where it is expected. Zent understands unity as the first prerequisite for the exercise of extra-ordinal space for all.

Zent is a magazine for extra-ordinary reflection of the present. The present or “prezent”, that is a matter of time and space in which we live, so it makes up the first meta-topic of magazine Zent. The first issue looks at Zent and deals with the present through texts, visual interventions, poetry and comics in a specific way of dealing with social issues, phenomena, discourses and practices from the position of our contemporary: from the urban changes in Belgrade, over the situation of refugees in Europe and the New Racism, to the “European integration” of Serbia.  The writers are Gal Kirn, Paul Currion, Ivan Marković, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, Aleksandar Matković, Marina Gržinić, Aleksandra Savanović and Suhail Malik. The answers to the question What is the Present? in the eponymous section are offered by Aleksandra Lakić, Damjan Rehm Bogunović, Mića Stajčić, Natalija Miletić, Malena Nijensohn, sumire, Amanda Grey, Ivan Marković and Marija Milinković.

Visual interventions across the first edition Zent are contributed by the visual artists Dušan Rajić, Boris Hoppek and Gaelle Leenhardt. Author of the comic that shows another dimension of contemporary is Danijel Savović, while Milorad Mladenovićapproached the topic from our everyday perspective in the form of characteristic Facebook poetry.

Visual identity, design and layout of the first issue of the magazine Zent was developed by the graphic designer Olga Jorgačević. Also responsible for the artistic directon are Relja Bobić, Ivan Marković and Aleksandra Savanović. The first issue of Zent was edited by Maja Kantar, Aleksandra Lakić, Ivan Marković andAleksandra Savanović.

Zent is a joint initiative of Zent Collective and Nova Iskra, which is also the publisher of the magazine. Zent is beyond genre limitations and existing arrangements. Zent is for everyone and for all.

Promotion of the Zent magazine will be held on the plateau located behind the address Terazije 30-32 on 11th May at 5 PM. Everyone who have signed up for the newsletter on the website http://www.zentmagazine.com will be able to buy their copy at a reduced promo price.

As part of their study visit to Belgrade, a group of 50 students form Romania, from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism from Timisoara have visited Nova Iskra. This group is a part of their Design studies as part of the fourth year of studies, and is predominantly focused on working processes and collaborative work.

Besides a presentation on the topic of collaborative work and team culture held by our Education Platform Manager Nana Radenković, the students had a chance to also attend a lecture by Ivan Kucina, focused on the spatial interventions on the territory of Savamala neighborhood in Belgrade.

This inspiring visit is another in a series of visits of foreign students to Nova Iskra, after we have already hosted students from Austria, The Netherlands and other countries

Within the European Lab conference, this year themed as Imagine the culture of tomorrow, will take place from May 4^th to 6th at the Confluences Museum in Lyon (France). General Manager of Nova Iskra Marko Radenković will participate in a case study titled Incubate them all ! a five-year progress report, dedicated to European creative incubators together with representatives of the European Creative Hubs Network.

Marko will present Nova Iskra’s innovative approach to social and cultural entrepreneurship that was developed by team of Nova Iskra over the last four years. He will also reflect on the difficulties that the project was facing in the process of its establishment, as well as on our business model that had to adapt to changes within the economy and the labor market of the region.

This year European Lab also brings together leading European and world experts in the fields of creative industries, art production, independent music business and cultural policy. The program runs parallel to the music festival Nuit Sonores, which has grown into one of the leading events in France in recent years. Nuit Sonores will be held from May 4th to 6^th, while the conference program is organized through a number of panels and lectures by prominent cultural operators. Organizer of the festival and the European Lab is the production company Arty Farty.

As part of their study trip to Belgrade, a group of 30 students from Technical University Delft (The Netherlands) visited Nova Iskra. Beside getting to know our platform, the students from the Department of Industrial Design and Engineering had a chance to meet their colleagues from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, as well as with the representatives of the Belgrade office of TEAMS Design.

In order to present the Serbian design scene and some of the interesting initiatives in the field of product development, the coordinator of our education platform Relja Bobić held a presentation about the program, organizational and business models of Nova Iskra, while TEAMS Design and their noted projects were presented by Žarko Bubalo and Aleksandar Mikan. Furthermore, FAA Belgrade and the Department of Industrial Design were presented by the department chief Vladimir Zagorac.

This inspirational meet up is another in a series of visits of international students to Nova Iskra, after we have already hosted students from Austria, Denmark and other countries.

Nova Iskra has the pleasure to announce our future cooperation with FueledCollective, one of the leading coworking spaces in New York City.

The Fueled Collective was started by Rameet Chawla and Ryan Matzner, as a new business to complement the company’s lucrative firm Fueled, an app development company that makes apps for heavyweight companies like Porsche, Ducati, Proctor & Gamble, Hallmark or the Chicago Bulls, just to name a few. They envisioned the Fueled Collective as a place where they can work alongside like-minded startups to further collaboration and community.

The Fueled Collective is located on the top floor of the 568 Broadway, also known as the Prince Building, providing expansive views of Manhattan. Dogs and other pets are, of course, allowed in the workspace.

Last week Nova Iskra and Fueled collective have signed a contract of cooperation. It guarantees that every time a member of Nova Iskra coworking space visits New York, they will be able to spend time at the Fueled Collective office space for an enjoyable working experience, for up to 5 weekdays from 10 AM to 6 PM – office hours, per quarter/per person, with the unlimited access to all amenities. Nova Iskra coworking members will also get the 50% discount on the conference rooms renting prices.

The coworking members of the Fueled collective will also get the reciprocal benefits at Nova Iskra while visiting Belgrade.

We are inviting members of both of our coworking communities to visit New York and Belgrade respectively, and get enagaged through the opportunities made possible by this special collaboration.

During April, May and June, Nova Iskra is organizing a series of five intensive courses devoted to modern practical skills that are relevant to a large number of creative professionals, designers and entrepreneurs. Nova Iskra courses are providing the opportunity for the development of professional skills as a means of  personal development, through which individuals and teams can maximize their potential to operate in their own or other professional domains.

Nova Iskra is currently developing five courses, that will be presented over the course this spring, in cooperation with leading experts and organizations from Serbia and Slovenia. The first two courses that will be held from April to May, are dedicated to the fields of Digital fabrication and 3D printing and Crowdfunding. The first one will be led by our renowned designer Danko Radulović in cooperation with Polyhedra fablab and the Fab initiative, while the Crowdfunding course will be led by Luka Piškorič from Crowdfunding Slovenia and Poligon platforms from Ljubljana.

The courses will focus on practical work and a mentoring aproach with the students, as well as on the balance of the theoretical and practical work, with a number of exercises and simulations. In addition to numerous related activities, participants will receive a certificate at the end of the course, while at the same time they will have the opportunity to meet other individuals and initiatives that share their interests and with whom they can potentially cooperate in the future. Classes will be held on Fridays and Saturdays and the courses will last from 3 to 6 weeks, depending on the complexity of the topic, in the rhythm of one session per week.

The details of the courses related to Digital fabrication and 3D printing and Crowdfunding, as well as the links for the application forms can be found on the Nova Iskra website.

https://www.novaiskra.com/sr/programs/3d-shtampa

https://novaiskra.com/sr/programs/crowdfunding

All interested participants can apply by April 18^th. Anyone who applys and pays the 50% of the participation fee by April 13^th will receive a 10% discount!

Shortly after the first two courses the details on the next courses will be announced – Presentation Skills course (May-June) will be lead by Relja Dereta, Nova Iskra and guests, Practical aspects of entrepreneurship (May-June) will be led by Vladimir Miletić (Diary of a director blog) and Milan Trbojević (Bookworm blog), while the UI design course (June) will lead by Dragan Babić (Superawsome Agency).

The number of positions in each course is limited. To secure your place in the course, it is necessary to pay 50% of the registration fee immediately upon applying, and the remaining 50% before the start of the first session. Details about the upcoming courses and applications will be announced during the next few weeks.

For all additional information please contact Nova Iskra via e-mail office@novaiskra.com or by phone 011 40 51 877.

Nova Iskra is announcing the launch event of the European Creative Hubs Network project. The European Creative Hubs Network will create a community of experienced creative hubs leaders across Europe to support the subsistence and growth of creative hubs in Europe.

In December 2015, the European Commission published the results of the five selected projects that aim to develop networks of creative hubs and coworking spaces in the EU in the coming years. Projects are focused on creating and supporting a network of hubs, creative and coworking spaces for professionals and entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative sector. Nova Iskra is one of the partners within the European Creative Hubs Network project, together with The BritishCouncil as the project leader, Bios from Greece, Factoria Cultural from Spain, Betahaus from Germany, European Business and Innovation Centre Network(Belgium) and Creative Edinbrugh (Scotland).

In the coming two years, the project will strive to strengthen the creative hubs at the European level by enhancing transnational and cross-sectoral cooperation among the partners. One of the goals of the project is to provide additional education and capacity building programs for managers, cultural and creative professionals as well as entrepreneurs. In addition to these activities, three international conferences dedicated to the creative hubs and development trends in the field of creative industries will be held, with the first one taking place in Belgrade on September 22^ndand 23^rd, while the other two will unfold in Athens and Porto respectively.

The launch event of the ECHN project will be held in Brussels on April 5^th at La Vallee creative center. The afternoon program will be attended by all of the partners, as well as stakeholders and decision makers from the EU administration, as well as representatives of hubs hailing from Belgium and Benelux. The keynote address will be given by Michel Magnier, the Director for Culture and Creativity at the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission, alongside the address of Barbara Stacher, policy officer for economy of culture at DG EAC. Case studies of hubs La Vallee and The Trampetry will also be presented by their directors Pierre Pevee and Charles Armstrong respectively.

Nova Iskra is pleased to announce the signing of a memorandum of cooperation with the SCEN – Centre for architecture, technology and stage design, an organizational unit within the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, Serbia.

SCEN – Centre for architecture is the national branch of the OISTAT center in Serbia. SCen is formed as a center that aims to contribute to the improvement of the areas of scientific, artistic and professional expertise in the fields of stage design, theater architecture and technology in Serbia.

The OISTAT membership, as well as cooperation with many other international networks, organizations and individuals is the means by which SCEN contributes to the process of permanent education, and also encourages the international exchange of ideas, projects and professionals in the fields of stage design, theater architecture and technology.

It is in these fields that the cooperation between Nova Iskra and SCEN will be conducted, with a special focus on the joint development of formal and informal educational programs – courses, summer schools and study programs. These programs will be characterized by a transdisciplinary approach and international character, a combination of theoretical and practical work on projects that will include a number of experts, scientific, professional and artistic institutions from Serbia and abroad.

The first collaborative projects between the two organizations will be announced in autumn 2016.

NELT, one of the leading Serbian companies, has announced an open call for the second cycle of its year-long educational program for students, which will be realized in cooperation with Nova Iskra and Gallery 12HUB.

Twenty selected students will have the opportunity to develop practical skills in the fields of creativity and entrepreneurship, as well as to learn from prominent lecturers from Serbia, the region and Europe, all experts in different fields – from economics and entrepreneurship, over critical theory and cultural management to dramatic arts, design and new technologies.

The program is realized through collaboration with seven faculties of the Belgrade University and the University of Arts (Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Architecture, Faculty of Drama Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, and Faculty of Applied Arts), but the applications are also accepted from students of all other private or public faculties in Serbia who are older than 19.

The objective is for the participants to acquire practical skills through team work in the fields of design and new media, as well as to get inspired and empowered in their intention to turn their ideas into projects, which can potentially be realized with the support of NELT. Participants will have regular mentorship consultations with the program leaders and representatives of NELT.

The applications can be submitted by April 10, 2016. Applicants are required to fill out the online form http://bit.ly/22rXkxG and submit their portfolio containing a short resume along with selection of student works (essays or other writings, artworks, works done during studies or outside the faculty – in the form of short overview or photographs) to the email office@novaiskra.com, with the subject “2016 NELT Educational Program”.

Only complete applications will be considered. All applicants will be notified about the results of the first round of selection no later than April 15^th. The selected candidates will be interviewed between April 18^th and 20^th at Nova Iskra, after which the final list of participants will be announced.

The participants will be selected by the Program Board – Milica Pekić (G12 HUB), Branislava Stefanović (Faculty of Dramatic Arts), Nana Radenković, Relja Bobić (Nova Iskra), and Marko Milanković (NELT) – together with one participant of the last year’s program. On April 21^st the shortlist of no more than 20 candidates will be announced, announcing the participants of the new cycle of the 2016 NELT Educational Program. The program is free for all participants, while the first official meeting will be held on April 27^th, and the first workshop with the playwright Katarina Pejović (Shadow Casters) will be held in the first week of May.

After the finished cycle of workshops and lectures, in March 2017 the students will present their resulting works and will be given certificates of successful completion of the 2016 NELT Educational Program. The participants who develop the best project ideas during the program – in the form of project proposals and a clear implementation plans – will potentially recieve support for their projects.

Nelt Co is the leading company in Serbia in the field of distribution of consumer goods and pharmaceuticals, logistic services and marketing. Nelt Co is part of the organizational system of NELT Group, linking 12 companies with about 3,800 employees in the markets of Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the countries of sub-Saharan Africa – Angola, Zambia and Mozambique. NELT’s social responsibility program is aimed at young, talented people whose creative spirit, positive attitude and a desire for improvement relate to the core company values. By organizing a specialized program for gifted students, NELT is helping those who will be the leaders of progress in the future.

His Royal Highness Prince of Wales arrived on Wednesday, March 16^th with his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall on an official two-day visit to Serbia, as part of a wider visit to the Balkan region. One of the many meetings on the agenda of his visit to Belgrade, was the one to Nova Iskra.

The Prince of Wales visited Nova Iskra where he was introduced to projects and initiatives that aim to develop entrepreneurial skills, strengthening social enterprises and promotion of vocational education in Serbia.

Marko Radenković, our General Manager, introduced his Royal Highness to our previous work and future projects, and presented Folkk – the recently lauched “homeware” brand that  Nova Iskra developed over the last two years.

Over the past two years, the brand FOLKK was being developed within Nova Iskra in a process that included contributions from designers coming from all over the Balkans, as well as the careful mapping of manufacturers and social enterprises throughout Serbia. FOLKK is gathering designers, craftsmen, design managers and creative directors with an ambitious aspiration to achieve results on the global market, and thus test and set new models of quality and sustainability.

Today, FOLK is no longer a project, but a fully developed design brand, present on the market since just a few days. FOLKK is based on the unique cultural heritage and wealth of natural materials from our immediate environment. The brand strives to create new value through providing sustainability through this specific business model in which collaboration between artisans and small producers on one side, and designers on the other, can provide visually impressive, functional and innovative products that will reach customers around the world. Folkk also supports the livelihood of a number of families in Serbia, whose members are involved in different stages of the production process, in which several remote workshops may be cooperating.

The first two lines of homeware products are underlined by innovative ideas of some of most prominent designers from the region, who developed fruitful collaborations with experienced artisans and craftsmen from across Serbia. The hand-woven trails called RESA, as well as the MENT pillows made with the same technique, are rooted in the renowned handweaving legacy of the town of Pirot, the Serbian cradle of this dying craft. These FOLKK creations are also made there, on the same looms that are being used for centuries. Their singularity comes from five striking pattern designs contributed by Emir Šehanović.

TAPA boards and PLATO plates for are the creations of Milan Blagojević, a skillful and dedicated carpenter who developed fruitful dialogues with Belgrade-based product designers Tamara Švonja and Studio Antipod. Out of these dialogues came two simple wooden food-serving objects that let the material tell the story.

FOLKK offers its products throughout the world via its website, while at the same time expanding its network of distributors and physical stores, with a primary focus on Western Europe and North America. FOLKK website was designed Peter Gregson Studio from Novi Sad, who were also responsible for the entire visual identity and packaging design. The website also acts as an online store with 27 products on offer, if all the variations of designs and materials are taken into account.

FOLKK is developed with the initial support from the Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade, and the help of BOOST Global Innovation AS.

Let FOLKK enter your everyday!

In December 2015, the European Commission published the results of the five selected projects that aim to develop networks of creative hubs and coworking spaces in the EU in the coming years. Projects are focused on creating and supporting a network of hubs, creative and coworking spaces for professionals and entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative sector, and Nova Iskra is one of the partners within the European Creative Hubs Network project.

The British Council will be implementing the project as an initiator and main coordinator, in cooperation with a number of partners in Europe, including Nova Iskra. In the coming years, the project will strive to strengthen the creative hubs at the European level by enhancing transnational and cross-sectoral cooperation among the partners. One of the goals of the project is to provide additional education and capacity building programs for managers, cultural and creative professionals as well as entrepreneurs. In addition to these activities, three international conferences dedicated to the creative hubs and development trends in the field of creative industries will be held, at the end of 2016 one of the conferences will be held right here in Belgrade, while the other two will be held in Athens and Porto.

In addition to British Council and Nova Iskra, the partners on the project are also the European Business and Innovation Centre Network (Belgium) Bios (Greece), Addict (Portugal), Betahaus (Germany), Creative Edinburgh (Scotland) and Factoria Cultural (Spain).

Nova Iskra had the pleasure to be presented at the first edition of Creative EST festival, the first multidisciplinary festival in Romania that will be held October 12th – 18th in Bucharest.

Creative Fest is a collaborative and interactive festival that combines educational trainings and workshops with concerts and movie projections. Presenting the audience with creative brands from Eastern Europe (artisans, designers, artists, software developers ..), the festival runs throughout the week and will be held at more than ten locations across Bucharest. The main location of the festival is the factory Industria Bumbacului, while the follow-up programs will be held in numerous public places, universities and libraries.

The aim of the festival is to connect the dots and begin regional cooperations with the goal of positioning Eastern Europe as the upcoming global center of cultural and creative industries. The aim of the festival is to become the largest festival in Eastern Europe that deals with topics of creative industries, and should bring together more than 5.000 participants from all over Europe.

Nova Iskra has participated in the panel Contribution of creative industries in regional development of urban and rural areas on Monday, October 12th, when Marko Radenković (General Manager of Nova Iskra), presented our current work and projects.

During October, Nova Iskra will be hosting lectures within the Bricolage Lab Experimental Design camp. Bricolage Lab is looking for excited, insightful, passionate and critically-minded designers, artists, creators, builders, tinkers, scholars, users, inventors, activists, doers and makers to put their heads and hands in an effort to jointly explore new ways of using resources. Through theoretical and hands-on activities, lectures, guest speakers, workshops and fieldwork, this intensive month-long experimental design camp will gather a network of people for future projects and activities dealing with materials, craft, community, ecology, DIY design and intelligent use of resources.

Full engagement in the program is expected from the participants, since the program content builds on one another through the weeks and days. International guest lecturers, visiting speakers and mentors will join in to lead activities related to their fields of expertise. In addition to the closed program of design camp intended for 15-20 selected participants, Bricolage Lab will be integrated with a series of public lectures held at Nova Iskra. The program emphasizes broader historical, social and international perspectives, and for this purpose we will host guest lecturers and mentors from Italy, Brazil, UK, Bulgaria and Sweden from a range of different backgrounds.

Bricolage Lab is conceived as a mobile classroom that will take place in Belgradefrom September 28^th to October 23^rd. The program will be hosted at various locations in the city, centered within the Savamala creative quarter, including Nova Iskra, KM 8, Praksa Makerspace, Spanish House, and Kulturforum in Dorćol. This concept also involves situational in-context design fieldwork and workshops in urban social environments.

Application is obligatory for the participation in the program, not later thanSeptembar 16^th. Please also send a CV, motivational letter and personal assignment (accepted in both Serbian or English) via email bricolagelab15@gmail.com. If you are a designer, maker, builder or artist, you may also wish to include examples of personal work.

SMART LIVING CHALENGE is a platform for the promotion of smarter living and concepts of sustainable development in urban areas that has been introduced in 2014 through a program of workshops that were held in 27 countries. The program had also been presented in Serbia, where within the framework of education program of Nova Iskra one of the 14 winning ideas was developed. The initiators of the progam – Swedish institute and the Swedish Association of Incubators and Science Parks – have prepared the continuation of the cooperation in 2015, this time focusing on three countries in which SLC gave the most interesting results – Brazil, Zambia and Serbia. In each of the three countries a multidisciplinary team is formed in order to work on their own collaborative project, with the constant support both local and international experts and mentors.

Seven participants within the Serbian team were selected among 40 applications received through the open call – Dragan Zlatković (architect, 1984), GordanaRadonić (architect, 1985), Pavle Jovanović (interaction designer, 1991), KatarinaŽivković (architect), Alan Kadduri (consultant in the domain of sustainable development, 1983), Mateja Živadinović (architect and urban planner, 1984) and Marija Opačić (student of sociology, 1987).

The focus of SLC 2015 is still on three main themes – EAT, MOVE, LIVE – while the theme of the Serbian program will be LIVE, investigating ideas for smarter consumption and sustainable systems in urban environment, whether through housing, public spaces or more responsible attitude towards resources. This year, the SLC organizing committee is joined by the prestigious Swedish consulting, scientific and educational organization Hyperisland (www.hyperisland.com), which runs educational centers in Stockholm, Manchester, Singapore, Sao Paolo, London, New York and Karlskrona. Their representative Alex Neuman will be the mentor of the multidisciplinary team whose project will be realized in Serbia, also supported by Nova Iskra team. The three projects that will result from the program this year will be presented in Paris (http://www.cop21paris.org/) this December, at the COP21 conference – UN’s forum for sustainable innovation and climate change.

The Smart Living Challenge program is a part of Nova Iskra’s activities in the field of green economy, in addition to Understanding Green Economy program and the Green Classroom project, which will also be launched this autumn. We congratulate the selected participants, whose work over the course of the autumn will be presented through reports via Designed.rs portal and via Nova Iskra social networks.

During the month of May, the second open call was anounced for local designers and artists to participate in the residency program of bilateral exchange with partners from Sweden.

Organized by Nova Iskra, the Swedish institute and IASPIS, an organization dedicated to the support of artistic production and residencies, this autumn five authors will have the chance to spend two months in Malmö or Belgrade, with a full scholarship, travel and accommodation costs covered, as well as additional professional support of local organizations.

Among 30 complete applications from Serbia which were taken into consideration, the Swedish partners have selected two architects and one designer. This October and November, guests of Malmö will be Aleksandar Škorić (http://sasadesign.com), Ivan Marković and Dejan Todorović (https://www.behance.net/DejanTodorovic). The hosts of our designers will again be Swedish institutions and design centers – Cultural Center Stpln (http://stpln.se/), University of Malmö (http://mah.se/) and the Form/ Design Center (http://www.formdesigncenter.com/). Interdisciplinary work, careful planning of each residential stay according to the participants’ needs and the specifics of the host organization are the main features of this program.

Unlike last year, in 2015 there is also a thematic framework for designers from Serbia – the program participants will work on their proposed projects which are dedicated to children, marginalized social groups and treatment of socially-engaged themes through the creative process. The concept of the program is still “open-ended”, meaning that the participants are not expected to complete their projects during the stay, but to use the time spent in Sweden for the development of projects relating to these fields.

At the same time, Josefin Vargö (http://josefinvargo.com), designer dedicated to projects dealing with food, will be staying in Belgrade, as well as furniture designer Julia Gamborg Nielsen (http://www.juliagamborgnielsen.com). Josefin Vargö is based in Stockholm where she attended Konstfack. She develops new platforms, ephemeral experiences, places and objects. She is also the co-founder of the platform for experience design Underverk (http://underverk.in/), with clients such as Nike, Roskilde Festival and Byggstudio. Julia Gamborg Nielsen is a furniture designer who looks for inspiration in natural forms which are often applied to the identifiable items of practical use. Her growing up in Asia and Africa is clearly reflected through the specific aesthetics of organic ornamentation.

We congratulate the selected participants from Serbia and are looking forward to hosting the Swedish designers in Belgrade, who will also take active participation within the educational program of the Nova Iskra. An integral part of the program-at-large – Create in Residence – is the exchange of writers and cartoonists in association with the literary festival Krokodil.

Nova Iskra will have the pleasure of presenting itself at the 6^th edition of the international design festival Dan D, which is held in Zagreb from July 3^rd to 5^th, at the complex of the former military hospital in Vlaška street.

After the previous festival at the Old Slaughterhouse and the complex of the former TŽV Gredelj, Dan D is once more occupying one of the abandoned city locations, and is in this way illustrating the potential scenarios of the use and revision of these important objects within the wider city center.

The festival program brings a series of exhibitions (D-exhibiton, D- market, regional exhibition Young Balkan Designers, student exhibitions…), panels, discussions, lectures and workshops, as well as the accompanying entertaining program.

As part of the cooperation with the Rendez-vous manifestation, the French festival in Croatia, the renowned international designer and typographer Jean François Porchez will be visiting Zagreb and will hold a workshop for students, followed by a public lecture.

Within the theme of this year’s festival – Design Archive – a series of recent, as well as entirely new exhibitions and research projects will be presented, all with a different approach to the history of design. An open discussion about the notion of design archive will be held, with important questions raised, such as what have we learned, how do we read and interoperate our own design heritage, how do we record its fragments, what new narrative structure do we give it, and the last – what does it all tell us about our own position today? The thematic part of the festival will thus present a series of characteristic projects which have explored the history of design in different ways in the past few years.

Nova Iskra will be showcased through a presentation of our General Manager Marko Radenković, on Friday, July 3^rd

Nova Iskra will have the pleasure to present itself at the second edition of the Željezara Festival, which will be held from June 1^st to 7^th at various locations in the city of Sisak, Croatia. Most of the festival program will be held in the industrial zone of the former factory (Željezara Institute), the Caprag neighborhood, as well as the surrounding public spaces.

The main goal of the Željezara Festival, founded in 2014, is to regain the status which Sisak once had – to once again become a lively place of cultural exchange and production. In the process, Željezara (steel factory) itself symbolically occupies the central place, whose expansion and addition corresponds to the period of the strongest urban development of Sisak (1955-1980).

The program of this year’s festival is artistic and activist, and a result of the year-round cooperation of festival partners, profit and non-profit organizations from the field of culture such as art organizations Nevidljivi Sisak, Miroslav Kraljević gallery, Lab 852 creative agency, KontraAkcija, the artist Marijana Crtalić and curator Nataša Kadin. During the seven festival days a number of workshops, art residencies, lectures, performances, forums, exhibitions, presentations of research studies, various thematic tours around the city as well as several musical performances will be held.

An important part of the program is the Željezara Incubator organized by LAB 852, composed of a series of lectures, open discussions, presentations of relevant regional and European examples of incubators, workshops for children, youth and adults and a quite specific musical incubator – European Music Incubator for career development of young musicians.

Nova Iskra will be presented within the program of Željezara Incuba by the Program Manager Relja Bobić, on Tuesday, June 2nd, at 7 PM.