Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Serbia (C4IR Serbia) during 9-10 June implemented his first workshop on planning activities of the Centre. In addition to the employees of the Centre, the workshops were attended by representatives of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, academic institutions, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the economic sector.
The event was opened by Centre Director Jelena Bojovic, while the introductory presentations were held by the Director of the Office for Information Technologies and Electronic Administration, Mihailo Jovanovic and director of the Delivery Unit, within the Team for IT and Entrepreneurship of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Nenad Paunovic. They discussed the existing IT infrastructure in Serbia, as well as the “BIO4 campus”, a new unique place in the field of biomedicine, bioinformatics, biotechnology and biodiversity in Belgrade.
The keynote talk was given by Dr Claudia Vickers, Chief Scientist Officer at Eden Brew, on the topic of Synthetic Biology. She presented new and innovative solutions that synthetic biology offers as the basis for a sustainable biologically based economy. Biotechnology products provide sustainable production of fuel, new materials and food, and have medical applications as new therapists and probiotics for the development of diagnostics and vaccines. Dr Vickers also presented the impact of synthetic biology on the global economy and its ability to transform the world.
The first day of the workshop was closed by Dr Nevena Veljkovic, who presented the genetic ecosystem of the Republic of Serbia, performed and planned studies in this field, as well as the global genome ecosystem.
During the second day, the Centre’s Project manager, Branislava Gemovic, spoke about the network of Centres for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the world, their programme and organizational structure and potential co-operation with C4IR Serbia, while World Economic Forum (WEF) representative Rebecca King spoke about the support and role of the WEF. This was followed by the workshop part, and the basic question the participants answered was: What will C4IR Serbia’s work look like in the next 12 months?
