Skills Archives

Croatia’s Burgeoning Fintech Scene Blazes Trail For Western Balkans

Posted on August 20, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

When it comes to the digitalization of the public sector in the Western Balkans, not that much happened until COVID-19 came along.

But as the pandemic has continued, certain public services have had to become digital by a force of nature, while the pace of others that started on this road in the last few years has accelerated. The same goes for businesses and industries – those that started this process earlier are now ahead of the curve. One industry likely to emerge strengthened by the challenges that the pandemic has brought is financial technologies, fintech as it is known – as more institutions and businesses opt for “digital-only” services.

With an ICT market growing exponentially each year, Croatia is widely seen as the next fintech destination in Southeast Europe.

Some estimates say the country has close to 60,000 active ICT professionals already. It also has many fintech companies with a presence in global markets as far as Southeast Asia.

“Croatia has seen a tremendous improvement of its fintech scene in the past few years, mostly due to people developing their digital skills independently,” Vlaho Hrdalo, chair of the Croatian Association for blockchain and cryptocurrencies, UBIK, told BIRN.

“A recent Eurostat survey showed Croatian young people to be the leading Europeans in the category of digital skills,” he added.

“These young people realized what skills they needed and then acquired them on their own, as no institutional support was available; and it still isn’t.” Hrdalo continued, noting that while global investors are beginning to turn their attention towards Croatia, the local fintech scene still needs further investment.

Success stories, and hurdles up ahead

Illustration. Photo: Unsplash/Alexandre Debieve

Croatia’s biggest success story when it comes to fintech and the digital payments sector, arguably, is Microblink, a software company that develops computer vision technology.

When it started in 2013 as a local company, it relied only on the financial resources of its founders. Now it has a global presence in the US, Europe and Southeast Asia, developing AI-powered scanning and data extraction products that more than 100 million end-users use.

Microblink’s products have opened up business opportunities for the company, which has been recognised by the fintech industry. It was listed among Europe’s fastest growing companies for 2020.

The company isn’t planning on stopping now, either. It plans to launch new innovative products that revolutionize the fintech industry.

“Two weeks ago, we launched a first-of-its-kind identity document scanner made to be used directly in a web browser. And we firmly believe in-browser ID scanning holds the potential to reshape the way we onboard financial services for the better,” the company told BIRN in a statement.

Another company to watch is Elektronički računi, a company that primarily provides digital business services. It was founded in 2013, when digital invoicing was beginning to become an important segment of business modernization.

“Since 2014, we have introduced the e-Invoice to tens of thousands of companies,” Josip Kovacec, a member of the board of the company, told BIRN.

“It gave us a foothold in the market in EU member states at the time when the mandatory electronic issue of invoices in public procurement was introduced,” he added.

“The idea was to make the e-Invoice available to everyone, with special emphasis on the SME sector, which usually does not have the financial resources to digitize operations,” Kovacec continued.

He said the company had now positioned itself as the largest private information intermediary on the market, sending about 200,000 e-Invoices a month to the Croatian government service that receives all electronic invoices addressed to public entities.

While there are other successful fintech startups and scale-ups in Croatia, what is lacking, however, is a sense of cohesion that would make the Croatian fintech scene a more powerful trend, experts say.

“There have been meetups and conferences, but the situation around COVID-19 has made such events impossible,” Ivan Brezak Brkan, the founding editor of Netokracija.com, told BIRN.

“For experience and knowledge to compound for the whole community, there has to come a point where they all need to work together to create a ‘fintech scene,’” he added. “A rising tide lifts all fintech – and an active community would help create interest among developers, new companies, and so on.”

Regulation remains a grey area

Illustration: Unsplash/Clifford photography

Besides hosting companies that are developing high-quality fintech products, Croatian towns are also implementing some of those technologies locally.

At the end of June, the town of Sveta Nedelja became one of the first in the whole of the EU to introduce a payment service that includes cryptocurrencies.

Built by another Croatia-based company, the cryptocurrency brokerage Electrocoin, the service enables shops to accept payments in cryptocurrencies for free, converting them into the national currency, the kuna.

However, as financial technologies enter more and more segments of Croatian society, regulations about the way fintech companies conduct their business remain a grey area.

“Not much has happened in this area, as there still are no laws governing fintech, blockchain, or artificial intelligence,” UBIK’s Hrdalo explained.

“UBIK held numerous meetings with Croatian regulators to bridge the gap between galloping industries and dormant laws. This was successful, as the approach of the regulators did change from initial scepticism to acceptance,” he added.

“But without exact rules in place, digital companies in Croatia have to discover where they touch the regulatory perimeter on their own, which isn’t always the best way forward,” he continued.

Experts say general business-related laws affect these companies the most. “For example, high taxes on employment make these companies less competitive than rivals in other markets, and a business-unfriendly administrative system makes it literally uneasy to do business,” Netokracija’s Brkan said.

“While the recently re-elected Prime Minister, Andrija Plenkovic … has said he will make the country more business-friendly, most entrepreneurs remain skeptical,” he noted.

Bureaucratic hurdles and the presence of numerous regulatory bodies pose a challenge for all companies in Croatia.

“Take consumer protection – almost every branch or type of service has its own regulatory agency, and in parts where two branches potentially overlap, there are discrepancies in their procedures,” Kovacec pointed out.

“During the pandemic, most business with the state was digitized, which gave some hope that Croatia could aspire to reach Estonia’s level of digitalization at least. But, with the fall in the number of infections and the reopening of the economy, suddenly everything needs paper again.”

Beacon for the rest of the Balkans

Illustration. Photo: Unsplash/Christian Wiediger

As “digital-only” services become the new normal, Croatia’s progress ha the potential to set a trend for the rest of the Western Balkans.

With ICT industries in most Western Balkans countries also among their most prosperous, the potential to be explored is vast.

“We have top IT experts recognised everywhere in the world. But we have not yet realised that this sector can be one of the most important industries in Croatia,” Kovacec claimed.

Recently, North Macedonia took a step towards developing its own digital economy, signing an agreement with financial giant Mastercard. The deal on implementing digital identities would allow its citizens to open bank accounts without being physically present at banks, for example.

This country also has companies that are becoming serious players in the fintech industry, and could potentially follow the Croatian path. “We have one startup that works with storing the digital data and tokens of wealthy people from the Arab world, which the whole insurance industry is talking about,” Skopje-based business consultant Igor Izotov told BIRN.

“Maybe tomorrow we can say the digital tokens and bitcoins of a reality or Hollywood star were stored on a Macedonian software solution,” he mused.

However, for these and similar companies from the region to fully realise their potential, more marketing skills are needed, experts warn.

“As with the rest of the Eastern European startup scene, business skills and scaling are proving most valuable. One low-valued skill in the post COVID-19 era is content creation, inbound marketing and thought leadership,” Brkan explained.

“Self-taught content marketers aren’t given the budgets or the freedom to experiment, so B2B sales for fintech are definitely one of the biggest hurdles – and the strategic use of content for B2B is one of the skills that is lacking,” he concluded.

Tips for a Strong Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence Application

Posted on February 18, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

The Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence provides financial and editorial support to professional journalists who have strong ideas for cross-border stories. This year’s theme is the Rule of Law.

Mid-career journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia are eligible to apply.

Each year, 10 journalists are chosen through open competition to receive a €3,000 bursary, close editorial supervision and mentoring, and the chance to attend international career development seminars and be published in the most influential regional and international media. In addition, the top three articles chosen by an international jury will receive awards.

So how do you maximise your chances of winning a place on the programme? Here are some tips from our editors, based on reviewing hundreds of applications:

Look at Fellowship stories from previous years.If the theme of your story has been covered by the Fellowship in the last three years, make sure your story has a sharp, new angle. In other words, your story should present the familiar theme through a fresh lens, perhaps even forcing us to question what we thought we knew. (You can find previous years’ stories online in the stories archive)
Be as specific as possible. Don’t just say you want to look at a broad subject; say what in particular you want to explore. For example, not just “migration” but “changes in migration between country X and country Y in the last five years”. And tell us howyou plan to do it and why that matters.
Do your pre-research.You’re not expected to research your entire story but do as much as you can to give a sense of what you expect to show. A proposal that says “I want to find out what’s happening with X” is not as strong as one that says “I want to find out what’s happening with X and my research so far suggests this is the answer and this is why”.
Tell us what’s new. Make sure to include what’s new about your proposal, compared to other media reporting on the subject. What do you hope to reveal or highlight? Why will this be interesting/important to readers?
Remember the investigative/analytical element. Your story does not have to be a hard-core investigation but it should be more than just descriptive. It should show not just what’s happening but why it’s happening. Make clear what you will investigate or analyse — and how. For an investigative story, this might mean obtaining documents. For an analytical story, it might mean analysing data and/or talking to academic experts. But…
Keep it journalistic. The Fellowship features seminars and mentoring and insists on the highest standards of accuracy but it is not an academic programme. It exists to help journalists improve their skills and produce a high-quality piece of journalism, not an abstract academic article. Your story should hold the attention of inquisitive readers all over the world, and not just in your country or region.
Whatever happens, don’t be downhearted. Every year there are more outstanding proposals than there are places on the Fellowship. Don’t take it personally or regret the work you put in if you’re not selected. The Fellowship is such a great opportunity that it’s worth giving it your best shot. If your proposal is strong but isn’t chosen, you may be able to publish the story elsewhere.

The application form, guidelines and further information about the Fellowship are available online at https://balkaninsight.com/fellowship-for-journalistic-excellence/

For more information about the programme and the application process, write to us at fellowship@birn.eu.com

Data Leaks and Ship Tracking: BIRN’s 10th Summer School Begins

Posted on August 19, 2019January 26, 2023 by BIRD

The 10th edition of the BIRN Summer School of Investigative Journalism kicked off on Monday in the Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi.

The weeklong summer school brings together journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and the United States.

On the first day, after an introduction by Marija Ristic, regional director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, those attending heard from Reuters investigative projects editor and the school’s lead trainer Blake Morrison about how to approach complex investigative stories, pitch ideas and find the right words to craft them.

BIRN Summer school in Herceg Novi. Photo: BIRN

“Experts aren’t simply meant to be quoted in stories,” Morrison said in one of his tips for those attending.

“The best ones – the most helpful, at least – are the ones who serve as your guide to understanding what you cover. Find a few. Be aware of their biases and treat them with a reporter’s skepticism. Ask them what are you missing. What do they see?”

Suddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier, who was part of the Panama Papers investigation, spoke about investigating data, verifying leaks and the problems he and his team faced as they trawled though terabytes of data.

“Authenticity, public interest, no conditions, request for comment and known identity of the source, are 5 tips on what to check for when dealing with data leaks,” said Obermaier.

The debate continued during Obermaier’s second session when he looked at the case of the video leak that brought down Austria’s right-wing vice-chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache, and eventually the country’s coalition government.

After a break, the reporters discussed story proposals and heard from BIRN’s investigative editor, Ivan Angelovski, about how to track ships and planes online.

BIRN’s Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, headed by Hendrik Sittig, The Balkan Trust for Democracy and Austrian Development Agency, the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation and with support from the European Union.

The New York Times: How We Helped Our Reporters Learn to Love Spreadsheets

Posted on June 12, 2019December 27, 2024 by BIRD

Five years ago, a lot of people in journalism were asking, wide-eyed, “Should journalists learn to code?”

The consensus for most journalists was: probably not. And over time, the “should we code?” questions quieted down.

But, some people did learn. At The New York Times and elsewhere, coder-journalists have mashed databases to discover wrongdoing, designed immersive experiences that transport readers to new places and created tools that change the way we work.

Even with some of the best data and graphics journalists in the business, we identified a challenge: data knowledge wasn’t spread widely among desks in our newsroom and wasn’t filtering into news desks’ daily reporting.

Yet fluency with numbers and data has become more important than ever. While journalists once were fond of joking that they got into the field because of an aversion to math, numbers now comprise the foundation for beats as wide ranging as education, the stock market, the Census and criminal justice. More data is released than ever before — there are nearly 250,000 datasets on data.gov alone — and increasingly, government, politicians and companies try to twist those numbers to back their own agendas.

Last year, The Times’s Digital Transition team decided to look at how we could help grow beat reporters’ data knowledge to help cover these issues. Our team’s mission is to “continuously transform the newsroom,” and with a focus on training all desks, we were well positioned to address these issues on a large scale.

We wanted to help our reporters better understand the numbers they get from sources and government, and give them the tools to analyze those numbers. We wanted to increase collaboration between traditional and non-traditional journalists for stories like this visual examination of New York football, our campaign finance coverage and this in-depth look at where the good jobs are. And with more competition than ever, we wanted to empower our reporters to find stories lurking in the hundreds of thousands of databases maintained by governments, academics and think tanks. We wanted to give our reporters the tools and support necessary to incorporate data into their everyday beat reporting, not just in big and ambitious projects.

Data Training Program

After talking to leaders in our newsroom about how we could support journalists who wanted to obtain more data skills, we ran two pilot training programs, then expanded into an intensive boot camp open to reporters on all desks. Over the past 18 months, we’ve trained more than 60 reporters and editors, who have gone on to produce dozens of data stories for The Times.

The training is rigorous. Based in Google Sheets, it starts with beginner skills like sorting, searching and filtering; progresses to pivot tables; and ends with advanced data cleaning skills such as if and then statements and vlookup. Along the way, we discuss data-friendly story structures, data ethics and how to bulletproof data stories. We also invite speakers from around The Times, including the CAR team, Graphics and the Interactive News team, to talk about how they report with data.

Over a period of three weeks, the class meets for two hours every morning. This includes time for reporters to work on data-driven stories and apply the skills they’ve learned in the course to their own beats. We also train the reporters’ editors. In separate lunch sessions, they come together to discuss tips for editing data stories, common pitfalls to avoid and advice for working with reporters.

Each time we run the training, we have two or three times as many sign-ups as we have slots. As a result, we instituted a selection process where reporters are nominated by the leaders of their desks. From that group, we build the cohort with the aim to have a diverse mix of desks, beats, gender, race, reporting timelines, ages and tenures at The Times. Once selected, reporters commit to attend all sessions and come prepared with data-driven story ideas for their beats.

To help reporters with their first data stories, we support them with on-demand data help for the two months after the training. Every month, we gather all the groups together for a lunch and learn.

Releasing Our Materials

While we recognize most publications aren’t able to offer their reporters a three-week data training, we know that increasing data skills is hardly a Times-specific need. Even in smaller newsrooms, making time to teach someone data skills has benefits in the long run. But it can be difficult and time-consuming to build out proper materials, especially if developing training programs isn’t your sole job.

So, we’ve decided to share our materials in the hopes that students, professors or journalists at other publications might find them useful.

Over the last four rounds of data training, Digital Transition has amassed dozens of spreadsheets, worksheets, cheat sheets, slide decks, lesson plans and more, created by me, my fellow Digital Transition editor Elaine Chen and various speakers around The Times.

View them here.

Here’s an overview of what’s included in these files:

Training Information: A list of skills included in the training, both technical and things like data ethics, as well as the schedule from our last round of training. The schedule shows how we switch off between “core skills” sessions that show new skills with a fake dataset, “practice” which applies those skills and “story sessions” which help reporters apply the skills they’ve learned to stories they are working on now.
Data Sets: Some of our data sets and worksheet activities from practice sessions. We’ve organized them into three difficulty levels. Note that we’ve altered these datasets in order to relate closely to what we cover each week, so please don’t use them in your reporting.
Cheat Sheets: Taken from each core skill session, covering most of the technical skills we practice with reporters. They are meant as reference materials for reporters as they practice and apply skills. Since the training is in Google Sheets, the technical prompts are for that program.
Tip Sheets: Some of the more random and non-technical skills we cover, such as how to bulletproof your work, how to brainstorm with data and how to think creatively while writing with data.

This article was originally published by The New York Times.

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