CEED Slovenia was invited to participate in the Congress of Entrepreneurs, Slovenia’s annual gathering of entrepreneurs which took place June 2-3. The Congress brings entrepreneurs from across the country together to gain new knowledge, share experiences and connect with others in the ecosystem.
At CEED we believe in the power of intentional serendipity, therefore we organized a special panel at the congress entitled “Successful = Connected,” in which we focused on global connections. In Slovenia there is still a lack of understanding around how to network and the value of global connections. The market is no longer divided into domestic and international, now there is only global and with global resources comes global competition.
To share their experiences about why and how to connect globally CEED Slovenia hosted Boštjan Bregar, Founder of 4th Office, a cloud solution for managing daily tasks and communication, Matej Čer, Founder of Avantcar, a modern mobility provider, that is more and more becoming a tech-company introducing diverse innovative projects on the e-mobility field, Andrej Šolinc of CEED Slovenia, and connecting via web, Peter Righi Director of CEED Global.
Boštjan Bregar stressed the importance of the “yes, it is possible” mindset in the global context. He explained how it helps us in business and pointed out that this is the mentality that can be gained in CEED. Andrej Šolinc, Co-founder of three companies that he later sold, explained how valuable it has been for him to be the part of the CEED community as an entrepreneur. Impressed by the value he gained, he wanted to share it with other entrepreneurs, so he joined CEED and is now a part of the core staff. Matej Čer stressed the importance of traveling abroad and gaining new knowledge globally. He explained that the CEED community facilitated many interesting connections to global industry and through leaders during the global envoys he participated in over the years, many of which he still keeps in touch with today. According to Cer, “We all met at some point in CEED”. Finally, CEED Global Director Peter Righi talked about the importance of global networks and connections. He pointed out that being globally-oriented in terms of mindset, connections, and knowledge is no longer optional, it is critical for all business since we are competing with the whole world whether we recognize it or not.
All the participants on the panel not only agreed on the importance of global networks but also talked about the responsibility that leaders in the community had to bring their global mindset to their local communities which may not have direct access to global resources. The CEED community combines regional and local resources while bringing the global mindset to entrepreneurs through various programs and activities. The hands-on approach CEED uses brings global best practices to Slovenia for the benefit of all entrepreneurs.
