The Balkan Talks

Some might know him as Dino Karajic, some might know him through his online handle Mr. Slavic.  In any case, Dino is an entrepreneur, IT consultant and Youtuber who has a lot of interesting stories to tell. During this episode he shares his views on how to empower, motivate and stimulate youth in the Western Balkans. We come to the conclusion that there are more opportunities in the Western Balkans than most people realise, despite the potential difficulties that people in the region might be facing. Having experience in outsourcing and entrepreneurship himself, he shares some of his ideas and views on how to offer local youth opportunities they may not be aware of themselves.

Make sure to check out the YouTube channel of Mr. Slavic:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7pc8NmzzxUGtUPrWgPXFZg 

If you are a EU-citizen, then soon you will have to vote again. With the upcoming EU Parliamentary elections, we speak with Andreas Zenthöfer about the EU, the elections and of course the relations of the EU with the Western Balkans region. What do the EU elections mean for the region and what can we expect in broader terms for the future of the EU? Andreas is the Head of Sector Political Reporting & Policy Analysis. He is part of the Representation of the European Commission in the Netherlands. As such, he is stationed in The Hague. Furthermore, Andreas represents D66, a Dutch political party which also has a presence in the EU parliament.

The Western Balkan region is known for all her beautiful nature and spectacular sites worth visiting. But there is so much more potential to discover when it comes to tourism. We sit down with Julian Buijzen, a journalist currently working with NOS and L1 (news outlets in The Netherlands) to talk about this potential. Julian has developed a love for the Balkans through his travels and work, and has some interesting opinions and views to share on the region. In this light-hearted episode, we talk to him about his views on the potential for tourism in the region, the do's, don'ts and we share some of our own experiences as well. 

During our visit to Brussels we got the opportunity to speak with Adi Cerimagic, a member of the European Stability Initiative (ESI). The ESI is an initiative that is focussed on the role of Southeastern European affairs in the European context, and Adi travels all over Europe to speak at congresses, forums and panels about his research on the Western Balkan region. His ongoing research on the region has allowed him access to policy makers across the EU and the Western Balkans and thus given him valuable information on the topics of EU policy for the Western Balkans and topics such as brain drain and stability. In this episode, we pick his brain on this topic, so enjoy!

The launch of The Balkan Talks! What is it like to outsource your IT services and business to the Western Balkans? We have Amer Grgic on as our guest, sharing his views and experience on outsourcing in the Western Balkans region.  Amer is the CTO of Tevreden.nl, a Dutch customer satisfaction research company that relies on its software application to provide their services to clients.  The production of this application happened in Serbia, and is still going strong today. Amer has set up and managed this process from the beginning and shares his insights on the process. Amer also hosts his own podcast called Bits vs. Bytes, where he invites a lot of big names from the Dutch technology and business sector to talk about the latest developments.