We’re excited to share that HTEC Group was the platinum sponsor of this year’s Futures Leaders Summit in Tuzla where young engineering talents could hear our Darko Todorović – VP of Engineering and Delivery, Srdjan Jovanović – VP of People Operations, Katarina Urošević – Chief of Staff and Director of Corporate Communications, and Bojan Šukalo – Director, Engineering & Delivery, share more about the HTEC’s thriving culture, growth opportunities, innovative projects and a chance to make an impact through technology and deep domain knowledge that they provide. The whole event was organized by Bosnian Futures Foundation.
We participated in several events during the summit.
Amongst others there was a great panel discussion where our Katarina Urosevic showcased the university partnership platform that HTEC is nurturing with academic institutions and locations where HTEC has development centres. This collaboration is focused on both providing opportunities for students but also doing joint R&D with university experts and professors. Other panellists discussed what the current status of this collaboration in Bosnia and Herzgovina is and what are some of the gaps companies could fill by providing more opportunities for students and professors alike.
Srdjan Jovanovic on HTEC Group’s early days and rapid growth
On the second day of the conference, HTEC Group hosted the workshop with students. At the beginning of the workshop, our Srdjan Jovanovic, VP of people operations, talked about how HTEC Group grew from a start-up company to a global technology leader and what are the fastest growing companies in the region. He also talked about all the different roadblocks, decisions and turning points in the company’s history. He emphasised the importance of building problem-solving skills and working proactively with our clients on the most innovative projects by not only building solutions but also by getting out from our comfort zones and participating in the decision-making processes.
The workshop
To nurture the culture of problem-solving with students, the whole workshop was oriented not on solving a predefined technology challenge like these workshops tend to be, but it was posing more of a real-life problem in front of the students asking them how they would solve it from both a business and a technology standpoint.
Darko Todorović presented to the students the case of how HTEC worked on digitalization of the shipping sector, and how the company’s engineers worked with one of our client’s executives to identify the challenges and proposed digital solutions that would optimize their operations, The resulting platform, which was developed by HTEC’s engineers, brings a new dimension by pioneering the digitalization of the tanker shipping industry. It was imagined and developed as a central point of everyday operations as it brings the complete overview of operating vessels and cargoes on those vessels.
Similarly, we asked the students to think about the last-mile delivery as a problem, and more specifically, to look at an example that is dear to their hearts and that they can understand well.
We told them to look at food delivery in Tuzla. Next, we gave them some parameters of the system (for example, a number of full-time employees versus number of part-time employees) and told them to think about how they would optimize last-mile delivery of food by both analysing the competition that’s currently existing on the market and by thinking of all the different challenges (such as moments when there are spikes of interest versus downtime) and how they would address them.
The students were divided in groups of four, and they worked for two hours with tech engineers from Tuzla on delivering their solutions. At the end, the students gave presentation where they discussed about what they have worked on for over the past two hours, and then, our team picked the best presentation. It was fascinating to see how much the students were able to accomplish in these two hours. They shared with us that this was a great opportunity for them to not only think as engineers, but to think of problems holistically and see the problem from all perspectives. For instance, they gave some creative solutions on how they would split the city in different zones, how they would organize city traffic (bike vs car). They even got to the point where they thought about the branding of HTEC, how they would market it and suggested some incentives for employees, which was also really exciting. On the whole, we didn’t discuss only engineering problems but also some topics that could be interesting for the business model of this company.
And interestingly, they understood most of the current local challenges that are causing delays in delivery of food quite well. They also obviously thought about how they would engineer solutions that would solve these issues. Overall, it was impressive to see how groups of students that had never met each other before became teams in their presentations in only two hours. They had different roles (like CEO, CTO, etc) and thought about different things like organizing the company, the marketing aspect, the branding aspect, the employee aspect, everything. And generally, the feedback was great, and it was a truly amazing experience.
Darko Todorovic on building a digital mindset
After that, Darko Todorovic gave a keynote speech where he talked about the digitalization myth versus reality. He also tried to explain the difference between digitalization, digitization, and digital transformation. He concluded that digital transformation is a process that never ends. It’s a mindset that needs to be nurtured, especially in companies that haven’t had it before. He pointed out that the change starts from working with the company executive team on creating a digital transformation mindset and then identifying the potential solutions and ways how to implement them.
Bojan Šukalo on the company’s core values
Finally, at the end of the conference, Bojan Šukalo gave a speech on values. In a lot of the presentations during the conference, both the Bosnian Futures Foundation representatives but also other speakers that were invited to the event, who are all really successful representatives of great tech companies from abroad who grew up in Bosnia, talked a lot about the importance of values. And this is something that means a lot to HTEC as well. Some of the values discussed were “grow yourselves by growing others”, or “building trust with transparency”.
Bojan also talked a lot about how important it is for students to be given the opportunity not just to grow, but also to be given a room to fail and learn from these failures because that’s how you become a leader someday. He shared more about how HTEC management team gave him full confidence and support to build the Banjaluka office and how our team in Tuzla is also given this support to start from scratch and develop the best possible outcomes for the local environment. He also pointed out that one of his associates in Banja Luka said: “You are not only building this for HTEC. You are building this for Banja Luka.” And that’s how we feel too. We have the ambition to bring these opportunities to the local environment. Our ambition is to partner with key players in the local environment to maximize every opportunity internally, as well as for the local ecosystem, the students, the academic institutions and the city as a whole.
Where do you fit?
How you grow yours depends entirely on your ambitions and abilities. The impact you make will be limited only by the scope of your ambitions.
Whatever career road excites you, you can discover it at HTEC. There’s a whole world of connections to make, from meaningful projects to inspirational people to world-leading clients. We provide you with all the support you need to grow because we genuinely believe that reaching for the stars does not necessarily have to be linear. There are so many opportunities to explore before you find your place. And HTEC is there to help you find your road to success, empower you to show your true potential, embrace change and shift to the growth mindset.
HTEC brings numerous opportunities for your professional growth both vertically and horizontally. At our core, we are committed to believing and investing in our greatest value, people.
So, where do you fit?
Explore career opportunities and join our growing team. We can’t wait to meet you.
