#KreNI8 Conference was opened by H.E. Yahel Vilan, Ambassador of Israel in Serbia, Mr. Roberto Cincotta, Director of the Italian Institute in Serbia, Ms. Monika Damnjanovic, Director of the French Institute in Nis and Snezana Andric, President of the Young Ambassadors.
#KreNI8 participants worked with near to 30 experts from Italy, Sweden, Austria, France, Israel, Slovenia and Serbia, gained new knowledge and experience, shared their ideas with experienced mentors and developed solutions for creative development of our city. Workshops took place during the 2 days of the conference on the topics of Slow culture and Metaverse. On the third day they worked with mentor on developing their ideas. And on the last day of the conference, teams presented ideas to jury and we have chosen the winning idea of the conference.
In the programs KreNI talks we had master classes on the topic of “Slow culture vs Metaverse” and we found out best practices from Italy, Sweden, Austria, Israel, France and Slovenia. Our speakers were: Gil Elnekave, Lecturer at Shenkar school of engineering and design (Israel) , Vanessa Trapani, Founder at Sloworking (Italy), Maximilian Prag, 3D Design at Sound:frame (Austria), Vincent Liegey, Interdisciplinary researcher on Degrowth (France), Ilkin Mehrabov, Senior lecturer at Lund University (Sweden) and Martin Petrič, Co-founder & Art Director at Charify.art web3 (Slovenia).
On the 26 November panel discussion “Slow culture meets Metaverse – Slovenian experience” was held where we talked about two different approaches, travelling continents by feet and living in the word of blockchain. Our participants were Tadej Slapnik, CEO at HashNET and Oliver Tic, hiker from Slovenia.
Panel discussion „Slow culture meets Metaverse – Serbian experience“ was held on the 28 November. What is the potential of creative industries development and what challenges are facing creative workers in Serbia was an interesting discussion in which participated Martin Cuff, Advisor to Prime Minister for Creative Industries and Tourism, and strategist for the Serbia Create and Dimitrije Tadic, Head of Creative Europe Desk in Serbia.
In search of balance between the two seemingly opposing worlds of Metaverse and Slow culture, visitors had the opportunity to experience the charms of both physical and digital paintings. With this approach, we saw a new way of exhibition, virtual gallery with paintings by the most important Serbian painters such as Paja Jovanovic and Nadezda Petrovic, on the one hand, and the experience of reality on the other, the painting "Gorge" by Djura Radonjic, uniting traditional fine art and innovative technological achievements. This corner was organized with a support of Serbia Creates and Gallery of Contemporary art Nis.
KreNI8 teams have developed ideas that will contribute to harmonizing the world of Slow culture and Metaverse.
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Team “MOTAJ”
Application designed to promote cycling in daily life and to encourage people to cycle on a daily base. It is the first application in the Serbian language intended for renting bicycles, planning personalized routes and recommending places to visit. Application will have rewarding system for users.
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Team “Bonsai”
Application that is helping you to slow down the pace of life and earn rewards. In the restaurant when you are drinking your coffee you can scan QR code and for the time you are not touching you phone and really enjoying coffee you virtual bonsai tree will grow. The more the tree grows the biggest rewards users will receive.
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Team “Take a break”
Application that helps all busy people to find places to relax, have training and other sport activities near to the place they are living.
4) Team Business Monks
Software which allows people with physical disabilities to compete with their loved ones. The whole experience is located in a virtual reality , where the feeling of participating in active world tennis (badminton, bowling, throwing hoops, etc.) tournaments credibly conveys. Software equalizes all movements by slowing them down and balancing out the power of the hit.
5) Tim StepNI
Application measures steps person is making during the day and gives certain challenges. Based on the given challenges, users receive a discount when shopping in one of the partner stores, especially in sports equipment stores and bookstores.
6) Tim Čačkalice
Platform for promotion of slow food and selling the organic food online.
For the ideas development teams had support from experienced mentors:
- Snezana Stanojevic, Director of Subregion Pirot OTP Banka Srbija
- Nikola Pejovic Dica, Head of investments at Neopix
- Slavimir Stosovic, Professor at College of Applied Technical Sciences Nis
- Ognjen Lukic, CEO at Softech Solutions, Serbia
- Mladen Cvetanovic, Delivery Manager at Ingsoftware, Serbia
- Marta Bruschi, Senior Expert at Diesis Network, Belgium / Italy
Winning idea of #KreNI8 is “StepNI” and the decision was made by an expert jury consisting of:
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Jelena Preradovic Stevanovic, Manager Sustainability and Internal Communications for South East Europe in Philip Morris International, Serbia
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Milan Randjelovic, Managing Director of Science and Technology Park Nis, Serbia
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Bojana Pejcic, Project Manager at Youth Office Nis
At KreNI8, we wanted to decode two opposing worlds of Slow culture and Metaverse and to reconcile them through the creative ideas of young people. We have heard different international experience in development of Slow culture movement and pacing the lifestyle and some great examples in Metaverse, innovation and digitalization.
What we could highlight as a summary is that we need to find a balance between these two worlds, and that in the time we are living in, neither of them can exist without the other.
This was another step in encouraging greater use of creative industries in the development of society, and in the coming period, together with partners, we will work on further development and implementation of KreNI8 ideas. KreNI is the first and most influential festival of creativity in southeastern Serbia, which brings together innovative creative professionals and experts from around the world with the idea of creating space for creative young people to develop the kind of society they want to live in. KreNI contributes to the empowerment of young people and their involvement in mapping and addressing challenges in their society. In the last eight years, during the conference, 40 ideas were developed by young people, which contribute to the improvement of the city of Nis with the use of tools of creative industries and digital technologies.
KreNI8 is organized by Young Ambassadors in partnership with the Embassy of Israel, the Embassy of Sweden in Belgrade, the Embassy of France and the French Institute, the Embassy of Austria and the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Italian Institute for Culture, City of Nis, Office for Youth Nis and Serbia Creates.
LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ALL AT #KRENI9!