Serbia
Digital
Serbia
Digital
Global information and communication technologies have radically transformed our world, and the pace of change is only accelerating. These changes, unpredictable in their impacts and risks, transcend borders. They create new information flows, redefine social interactions, change business models, challenge established legal norms, introduce new forms of social exclusion and inequality, raise new ethical dilemmas, and place new educational demands.
Addressing such complexities requires a sustained, collective, and interdisciplinary effort. Governments can contribute by enacting forward-looking legislation, influencing behavioral changes, and mobilizing resources around long-term national priorities. The business sector’s deep technological expertise, and transaction-rich data sources are essential for understanding changes, formulating codes of conduct, establishing interoperability standards, and driving innovation for social impact. Collaboration with academia helps identify emerging trends and risks and develop mitigation strategies. Engaging with civil society is crucial for understanding community needs, facilitating inclusive education, and promoting civic engagement.
Recognizing this, UNDP has made significant efforts to establish and nurture partnerships across Serbia’s digital ecosystem. We strive to strengthen and collaborate with these communities on important issues, such as using public sector data to create new value, creating a people-centric government, improving digital literacy, and harnessing emerging technologies.
During the Digital Expedition, we partnered with civil society organizations and local governments to tailor digital literacy programs to the unique needs of each community, ensuring their relevance and impact. By training local organizations, we empowered them to sustain these efforts independently, creating long-term benefits.
Our collaboration with major online platforms provided job market insights and ensured that trainings within the National IT Retraining Programme aligned with the specific IT competencies, technologies, and soft skills sought by employers. We also worked with over 17 training providers, including universities, vocational schools, private IT schools, and experts in training people with disabilities. This broad network enabled us to offer diverse training options across the country and secure internships with IT companies, enhancing participants’ job prospects through practical experience.
The partnership with the Petlja Foundation helped us reach teachers, schoolchildren, and their parents. Initiatives like summer and winter camps and competitive challenges engaged students, while feedback from teachers and parents helped refine Petlja’s educational materials, leading to improved learning outcomes.
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With the support of international partners such as the World Bank, the UK, and Swedish international development agencies, we have advanced public sector data initiatives in Serbia, from initial assessments to comprehensive policy and ecosystem development.
To ensure a collaborative approach to data governance, we established an open and inclusive multi-stakeholder working group, which played an important role in developing open data legislation and data release standards.
We worked with local and national government institutions in areas such as public transit and environmental protection to develop use cases that demonstrated the practical benefits of open data and its potential to improve public services for everyone. Together with the Office for IT and e-Government, we launched the Open Data Hub, a platform that provides guidance on using public sector data and helps connect users with experts from the government and tech community. We also jointly organized several data innovation challenges to encourage startups, businesses, and civil society to analyze and develop applications using public sector data.
Finally, to further highlight the benefits and champions of public sector data use, as well as showcase the best data-driven solutions, we co-created and supported numerous events across Serbia with local civil society organizations.
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Despite a relatively high participation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in Serbia, the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon—where women exit their STEM careers—remains a significant barrier to achieving equal representation in these critical fields for the future.
While most campaigns have focused on highlighting the benefits of working in tech companies, showcasing successful role models, or offering training programs, few have addressed the subsequent challenges women face in their careers.
To tackle these structural obstacles, we aimed to dig deeper, understand the issues better, build a network of partners, and collectively explore solutions and avenues for long-term engagement.
A cross-functional team involving our Digital Innovations Team, Gender Team, and Accelerator Lab, our R&D unit, engaged with a variety of stakeholders, including universities, IT companies, industry groups, the government, civil society organizations, women’s advocacy groups, and women leaders in STEM fields.
Together, we mapped women’s career trajectories, examined Serbian IT companies’ attitudes toward women’s career development, and used alternative data sources like LinkedIn for fine-grained insights.
Moving forward, UNDP will continue collaborating with this broader ecosystem across multiple lines of our work in Serbia to support women in STEM and foster a more inclusive, diverse, and ultimately stronger economy.
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UNDP recognizes the importance of creating spaces where local tech communities can organize events, meet, network, and access specialized equipment, as well as facilities for lectures and international collaboration. Our support has been instrumental in supporting the development of such community spaces, including the Ložionica Creative Hub, which is set to become the largest creative and coworking space in Belgrade.
Another project we’ve supported is the Innovation District in Kragujevac, envisioned as a central hub for the tech community in Serbia’s central district of Šumadija, located next to the Government Data Center. This district will host a Science and Technology Park, the National Cyber Security Center of Excellence, several coworking spaces, and offices of international IT companies. Several UNDP Serbia teams are involved in the development of these initiatives, aiding with design, engineering, and programming to ensure these spaces meet the needs of local tech communities.
An excellent example of UNDP’s involvement in mapping local solutions and facilitating connections to expand the visibility of innovative projects is the story of SignAvatar, a software startup that created a solution to translate text or audio into sign language.
Starting as a small, relatively unknown startup, SignAvatar gained the opportunity to present their solution to the government through a connection facilitated by UNDP. This presentation led to the implementation of their solution at the newly opened main railway station in Belgrade.
