What is it about?

Startup Camp Rijeka is a five-day long mentoring program designed to help develop start up proposals into viable businesses. Successful entrepreneurs and investors from Croatia and America will mentor and help participants to develop their business ideas into actual businesses.

The camp gathers 30 young entrepreneurs (ages 18 to 35) and Croatian and American mentors who will lead the participants through teambuilding exercises, lectures, workshops and individual coaching challenges to help them hone their ideas and develop an actual product or business.

A panel of venture capitalists, business angels, businessmen will evaluate the proposals and the best teams will have a chance to win great prizes.

The Startup Camp Rijeka will take place at Step Ri Science and Technology Park of the University of Rijeka from Wednesday, September 12th, until Sunday, September 16th, 2018.

We strongly encourage teams outside of Croatia to apply. The applications are not yet open. The participants will receive:

• extraordinary mentoring from both US and Croatian mentors
• half-bord accommodation for up to two members of the team
• local bus tickets
• a cool T-shirt

We guarantee that you’ll learn a ton and have a great time doing it!

Startup Camp Rijeka 2018
PROGRAM

Day 0
September 11th 2018
Teams arrival

Day 1
September 12th 2018
09:00 – 10:30 Registration & opening
10:30 – 12:00 Mission in Banana Republic

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch

13:00 – 14:30 Workshop – Business model canvas – part I: Lecture
14:30 – 15:30 Workshop – Business model canvas – part II: Exercises

Day 2
September 13th 2018
10:00 – 11:45 1st pitch presentation
11:45 – 12:15 Mentors presentation – Reverse pitch

12:15 – 13:15 Lunch

13:15 – 16:15 Split sessions
Group 1: Speed mentoring
Group 2: Assessing & improving your business model

Day 3
September 14th 2018
10:00 – 13:00 Split sessions
Group 2: Speed mentoring
Group 1: Assessing & improving your business model

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 17:00 Focused mentoring I

Day 4
September 15th 2018
10:00 – 13:00 Focused mentoring II

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 17:00 Focused mentoring III – Pitch practice and presentations update

Day 5
September 16th 2018
10:00 – 12:00 Final competition
12:00 – 12:45 Lunch
12:45 – 13:15 Award ceremony & closing

Mentors

MARK CRANDALL
Chairman at Continental Wind Partners LLC

Mark co-founded Morgan Stanley’s energy business in the early 1980s. In 1993 he became a founding partner in Trafigura, an energy trading company which grew to €25 billion in sales and 1,000 employees in 58 offices worldwide. He started Continental Wind Partners in 2005 by investing in Polish and Romanian wind development.

TRACY GRAY
Managing director of The 22 Capital Group

Tracy Gray is the founder and director of venture capital company The 22 Capital Group, whose mission is to increase export of manufacturing companies in southern California, with an emphasis on women and minority members.
In 2015, Gray established We Are Enough nonprofit organization, which provides easier access to venture capital and educates women how to and why invest in women-owned businesses. She is also the Executive in Residence at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and a member of several board of directors.

VIBOR CIPAN
CEO at UX Passion

Vibor is a CEO of UX Passion, maker of Wall of Tweets – world’s best social media display solution used by the likes of Microsoft, World Economic Forum, TEDx and hundreds of others worldwide.
His previous experience includes working for Microsoft, mentoring at the The Founder Institute, an early-stage startup accelerator and global launch network that helps entrepreneurs create meaningful and enduring technology companies and Seedcamp, Founder’s First Round Fund, which invests smart capital into pre-seed and seed stage startups.

VEDRANA MIHOLIĆ
Sales manager at CROZ

Vedrana’s professional background includes almost 20 years of successful and efficient work in different fields ranging from programming to consultancy and management. In the past 12 years, she has been successfully running the sales organization of a respected Croatian IT company, CROZ.
She is publicly best known for her activities regarding computational learning for kids. She is a founder and president of NGO “Programerko” and an “eSkills for Jobs” Ambassador. In 2016 she was nominated for European Celebration of Women in Computing award.

STEVICA KUHARSKI
Founder at Locodels

Stevica has been developing software for web and mobile platforms for the past 15 years. He has been an entrepreneur since 2003 and has had two exits and secured investment for an educational project called Habbits. After visit to USA organised by State Department, in 2015 he started Locodels, sharing economy based city delivery service.

TATJANA BATAS
Founder of Mozaik Business Services

Tatjana participated as a business consultant in many EU projects related to Programmes for SME development. She is an evaluator within the Horizon 2020 and Fast track to Innovation program and has valuable experience on high Marketing Management positions in international environment (Bayer d.o.o.; Minolta GmbH).

Prizes

1st Apple iPad Pro
2nd Apple iPad mini 4
3rd Samsung Galaxy Tab A

Wild Cards

The jury will select the team that will get the opportunity to access immediately the 2nd round of the selection process for the ABC Accelerator in Ljubljana.

Jury

MIHOVIL BARANČIĆ
ZIP co-founder and business angel

Mihovil has over 20 years of experience working in financial sector as a investment fund manager and brokerage house director. In 2012 together with 3 partners he founded ZIP Zagreb, a technology incubator and accelerator which was awarded as best incubator in 2014 and 2015 in Croatia. He is member of the board of Croatian Business Angels Network CRANE since 2009 and he personally invested in 7 startups since then. He is member of several jury boards in startup and student competitions in Croatia and region.

NINA DREMELJ
Slovenia Business Angels

Nina Dremelj is a Vice president at Business Angels of Slovenia. Prior to working with Business Angels of Slovenia, she worked for a Slovenian startup as the Executive Assistant To Chief Executive Officer and was responsible for company management. She also worked for the English company Enerbee Ltd. where she was responsible for establishing a Slovenian subsidiary as Executive Assistant To Chief Operating Officer and managing it together with CEO and Headquarter in UK.

ALEŠ PUSTOVRH
Co-founder and program manager – ABC Accelerator

Aleš Pustovrh (PhD) is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana. He is involved in research, educational and support activities, mostly in economics and entrepreneurship departments. He is also the co-founder and program manager at ABC accelerator and owns a market research company that is involved in research and consulting to entrepreneurs as well as collaboration with entrepreneurship support institutions. In the past, he worked as a researcher of innovation, innovation policies and innovation activities in 8 countries of the Adriatic region.

TRACY GRAY
Managing director of The 22 Capital Group

Tracy Gray is the founder and director of venture capital company The 22 Capital Group, whose mission is to increase export of manufacturing companies in southern California, with an emphasis on women and minority members.
In 2015, Gray established We Are Enough nonprofit organization, which provides easier access to venture capital and educates women how to and why invest in women-owned businesses. She is also the Executive in Residence at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and a member of several board of directors.

VEDRAN BLAGUS
Senior Associate at South Central Ventures

Vedran is Senior Associate in South Central Ventures (SCV), a venture capital fund where he is working on deals sourcing and screening.
He previously worked as a management consultant with Big 4 companies on numerous projects in different industries/verticals where he gained knowledge in market strategy & expansion, process optimization and restructuring for leading regional companies.

LAURA DJURAGIC
Assistant Public Affairs Officer – U.S. Embassy Zagreb

Laura Djuragic has worked for the U.S. Department of State for more than ten years on cultural programs, exchange programs, education, and media.  She is currently the Assistant Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb.  Before arriving in Croatia, Laura also worked at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest, Romania.

Winners of the Past Events