More than 170 participants applied for the OTP bank’s Generator competition, which supports digital projects that help small and medium enterprises overcome the consequences of the crisis caused by the coronavirus, out of which ten semifinalists and subsequently six finalists advanced to the next stage. At the final online event, the jury selected two winners who won one million dinars each for the further development of their projects.
Generator Gamechanger This year’s OTP bank’s competition supported digital projects – websites, applications and other digital platforms – that help and offer new opportunities to SMEs to overcome the challenges they have faced in the pandemic. From more than 170 entries, the jury selected ten semifinalists who were awarded a media promotion so that as many people and small and medium enterprises as possible could hear about their project. After that, at a large-scale online event, six finalists were selected, out of which the jury chose one winner in each category – new idea and existing solution.
Your Pet World, the winning new idea is an intermediary-type portal that would bring together the two connected groups for the first time in the region. On the one hand, the database would include all service providers in five industries – groomers, sitters, boarding kennels, veterinarians, trainers, and on the other hand dog and cat owners who could choose the most cost-effective and transparent services in a location that suits them best.
Zanateria, the winning existing solution, is an online platform that brings together all small domestic producers who cannot enter large distribution chains. On Zanateria platform, clothes, shoes, furniture, household items, natural cosmetics, food, drinks, products for children and babies, for pets, as well as books, comics and music editions of small publishers are sold.
Selected semi-finalists and finalists were also awarded by the partners of the competition. Vojvodjanska banka awarded the ReportNest project the MasterCard payment card with the available amount of RSD 200,000 ready to be used, as well as a virtual visit to the OTP Lab, the head office of the OTP Group for Innovation in Budapest, where the awarded team will have the opportunity to get acquainted with OTP Lab programs, present their project and thus potentially cooperate with OTP Group. ICT HUB, the centre for technology entrepreneurship and innovation, awarded the Bizplaner project the free use of coworking space for the entire team for six months, membership in the eHub platform and access to all educational content and maps for the next Corporate Innovation Conference. The TeleGroup company also awarded Zanateria and Your Pet World projects a 50% discount on the consulting service of researching the needs of customers and defining inputs for further development of solutions to the finalists. The Belgrade Open School and the Eneca organization awarded the prize to Dr Agro, Your Pet World and Stari Zanati projects, which won mentoring and consulting in the field of strategic planning, finance and sources of financing and marketing and sales.
Since the grand finale of the Generator event was organized online for the first time due to the epidemiological situation, OTP banka donated the money intended for the cocktail reception to Cafe Bar 16, which employs young people from the drop in shelter Svratište and provides them with social inclusion.
Please find more information on the Generator website
About the Generator project:
In order to strengthen the competitiveness of Serbian entrepreneurship, the Generator project was carefully designed and launched in 2017, and it brings together the initiatives and activities that encourage innovative entrepreneurial ventures. In the same year, Generator supported 40 entrepreneurial innovations through financial support, promotion and mentoring. The winner received one million dinars, and almost 800 innovators submitted their ideas. In the following year, 2018, the best student entrepreneurial innovations were awarded, and last year Generator 2.0 was intended for the digital transformation of small and medium enterprises. At the end of 2019, within the Generator project, OTP banka launched the Good Deed Generator initiative, which supports social entrepreneurship.
Together. We move things forward.
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