Innovation Continues to Spark in The Balkans
GIST Innovates the Balkans 2025 Cohort Announcement
May 16, 2025
(5 minute read)
When Mirjana Josifoska, founder of a fashion startup specializing in unique textile design, joined the GIST Innovates the Balkans cohort in 2023, she had no idea what to expect. The program’s 10-week, pre-accelerator curriculum focuses on testing products for market-fit, challenging founders to validate their business model, and takes a customer-centric approach to design. Mirjana’s work in textile design, her innovative ideas around increased efficiencies, and a desire to see her startup succeed placed her on the right track. Her adaptability and willingness to incorporate the learnings from GIST’s training helped propel her from her home in North Macedonia to Arizona in the United States, home of GIST’s implementing partner Arizona State University. There, she networked, explored the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and competed in the ASU Devil’s Demo Day. To be more specific, Mirjana competed and won, gaining critical resources to help expand and sustain her fledgling startup.
“Our time here with the GIST Innovates the Balkans pre-accelerator program has been very productive.”
It is no coincidence, given stories like Marjana’s, that GIST is returning to The Balkans for yet another course of startup training, mentoring, and funding opportunities. This time we’re convening the latest cohort in Tirana, Albania to kick off the 10 weeks of intensive learning. We’re excited to be back in a region that holds an incredible amount of talent and promise. The successes we’ve seen over the past few years is a clear indicator of the value in providing further support. For people outside the region, it can seem less obvious why investing time and resources is so impactful, but recent data helps to explain the importance.
The Balkans are neighbors to the EU which makes “near-shoring” an incredibly popular option for companies and investors across Europe. As the World Bank indicates, geography, a skilled workforce, and competitive costs make the region an attractive place to set up production. The large number of startups being formed in the region fall into attractive categories, as well, with business & productivity and hardware & ICT (internet and communications technology) topping the list.
What do Startups in The Balkans Need to Succeed?
According to TRENDS Research & Advisory, when surveyed, Balkan startup founders indicated a need for additional formal training on business plan development. To us, this says there is desire among startup founders for wrapping proven pathways to business success around innovative and exciting ideas. GIST’s Innovates program is perfectly situated to meet these needs. The program provides impactful training to ensure participants understand their value proposition, customer needs, business model, and workflow, placing startups on a trajectory for success.
GIST’s Commitment to the Balkans
GIST is partnered with prominent ecosystem builders in the region to help grow startup resources. Internationally recognized organizations in the region include GIST Innovates the Balkans partners Innovation Centre Kosovo and Startup Macedonia who are continually cited by leading economic forecasters and researchers studying the Balkans. These ecosystem builders are critical to bringing mentors, training, and funding opportunities to the startups in their regions. These connections on the ground, inside the ecosystems, help GIST fulfil its mission to empower science and technology entrepreneurs so they can address the most pressing global challenges of our time.
We look forward to watching this next cohort get the training and resources they need to tackle the challenges in their region and beyond!
Learn more about these impactful participating teams:
Bosnia and Herzegovina
EcoTherm
Dino Sabeta | Kerim Sabeta
EcoTherm focuses on an innovative heating system that transforms an air conditioner into an air-to-water heat pump, enabling energy-efficient heating at significantly lower investment costs. The technology is based on a compact device that allows water heating instead of air, achieving greater efficiency and reducing electricity consumption.
Health Heaven
Amra Kuljancic
HLTHVN is a virtual space for individuals who want to improve their mental and physical health by approaching fitness, psychology and nutrition theoretically and practically. HLTHVN will be a space, a playground, and a mirror for each individual. Fitness, mental well-being, and nutritionism will be a frame for improved lifestyle.
SeniorLab
Ali Kontic | Mak Ostrogonac
SeniorLab is an NGO that is focused on senior citizens. It has three main goals: educational workshops that are aimed to raise computer literacy rates, creating specialised software for senior citizens that is aimed at improving quality of life and raising awareness on this topic.
Remote Work Productivity & Wellness
Emin Hodzic
This project aims to track employees who are working from home, allowing team leaders and HR departments to boost their productivity while simultaneously reducing the time spent working. The project also aims to identify the biggest health and wellness issues that remote workers have (e.g. loneliness), and find ways to boost mental health in the rising remote workforce.
Kosovo
Abler
Kreshnik Hasanaj | Drianë Krasniqi
Abler is redefining how we approach mental health. We have developed a personalized, science-driven app designed to help users manage panic attacks and regain control. Our goal is to make mental wellness accessible to everyone. By combining clinical knowledge with digital tools, our multidisciplinary team is creating a practical and research-based solution that empowers people to thrive.
FarmTrace
Liridona Shkodra | Blerina Shkodra
We are on a mission to reshape the way consumers connect with the food they eat. Our project tackles pressing issues in food safety and animal health in Kosovo by creating a robust traceability system that tracks animal-origin products from farm to table, ensuring every step of the journey is transparent and accountable. At its core, this initiative is about giving Kosovar consumers the transparency they deserve while empowering the entire food supply chain to adopt better practices.
North Macedonia
AirTime AI
Ognen Kirov Todorovski | Panche Karamanov
AirTime AI is an AI-powered platform that helps businesses streamline their meetings and time management. It integrates with tools like Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet to generate concise meeting summaries and provide useful follow-up insights. By automating tedious tasks like note-taking and action item tracking, AirTime AI saves users time, reduces the risk of missed details, and eliminates the need for manual follow-ups. This results in more efficient meetings, improved collaboration, and ultimately, cost savings for businesses through better resource management and reduced administrative overhead.
Pic a Pro
Teo Kostovski | Filipa Bibanovska
Pic A Pro is an on-demand mobile app that efficiently and easily connects users with the best professional photographer/videographer match for them. Whether their services are needed for a brand/business or to materialize someone’s personal moments, it solves the problem of quickly finding and booking qualified professionals, eliminating the hassle of lengthy searches, uncertain price, and inconsistent quality. Operating in the 100B+$ global photography/videography services market, Pic A Pro stands out by offering vetted creatives, secure payments, transparent pricing, and instant digital delivery of high-quality final products. Our core UVP is "The fastest, most reliable way to book a pro photographer—anywhere, anytime."
Ridlix
Kristina S. Shumadieva | Zharko Simonovski
Ridlix is a web-based design automation tool that helps creators easily generate puzzles for platforms like Amazon KDP and Etsy. With ready-to-use generators for mazes, dot-to-dots, word searches, sudoku, and more, Ridlix saves hours of manual design work. Our mission is to empower solopreneurs to publish and scale their content-driven businesses while exploring B2B partnerships with ed-tech and edutainment platforms that could benefit from embedded interactive puzzle solutions.
Serbia
AquaBoost Nano
Milan Lisica | Milan Borisev
AquaBoostNano is a seed priming technology designed to help crops thrive under drought stress. Our innovation is a biodegradable nanoparticle formulation that goes into seeds, without any genetic modification. Developed by a team of chemists, biologists, and engineers, our technology blends cutting-edge materials science with real-world agricultural needs to reduce drought-related yield loss and bring more climate resilience to global farming.
CyberParent
Nemanja Stojmenovic | Djordje Cvetkovic
A child safety application designed to protect young users (ages 7-14) from cyberbullying, online harassment, and digital threats. It analyzes message content on the child's phone to identify potential signs of cyberbullying, aggressive behavior, or harmful interactions.
Includify
Djordje Obradovic | Irena Ilic
Includify.me is an AI/ML-powered browser extension that audits websites for accessibility compliance. It automatically scans against WCAG 2.1 standards, instantly identifying issues and offering intelligent remediation suggestions. This accelerates compliance efforts, helping organizations meet guidelines efficiently and foster digital inclusion.
GIST Innovates The Balkans Partners
