Thirty-three teams from the Western Balkans region participated in this year’s EIT Jumpstarter program (https://eitjumpstarter.eu/), eight of which were from Montenegro. According to the rules of the program, five teams from the Western Balkans region could participate in the final, among which, for the first time this year, two teams were from Montenegro.
Montenegrin startup BeBeep (https://www.bebeep.me/) won second place in the “Urban Mobility” category within the Europena Institute (EIT) Jumstarter program. BeBeep’s young team has designed a “carpooling” platform that allows users simpler and more comfortable transportation, as well as saving money on intercity trips, by sharing costs (gasoline and tolls) with one or more other users. In addition to BeBeep, a significant success was also achieved by the Healthy Bee startup team, which entered the finals of the program in the “Manufacturing” category.
The EIT Jumpstarter program is a leading cross-industry pre-acceleration program of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) which aims to support the development of entrepreneurship and innovation in Central-Eastern and Southern Europe, linking innovative solutions with industrial demand. Since 2017, over 550 startup teams have passed through EIT’s program, and in 2019, EIT Jumpstarter received the Award for the best association with a training initiative awarded by the European Association. The selected teams have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills through education, to work with international mentors on the development of key segments of their innovative ideas, to network with other participants from the EIT community and to recognize the resources and support programs that this community offers at different stages of development. innovative technological ideas, and to apply for valuable prizes that the program awards to the most successful in the amounts of 10,000/7,000/5,000 EUR for the first three places in each of the five categories for which prizes are awarded.
The success of the Montenegrin teams shows that there is an increasing awareness and interest among startups and Montenegrin companies for programs funded by EU that are available to the countries of the Western Balkans. To this end, the Innovation Fund will take an active role in promoting the EIT program in the coming period in order to help our IT sector take advantage of as many opportunities as possible.
