The conference Digital transformation of Slavonia, Croatia and Europe was held in the European Parliament in Brussels, organized by MEP Karlo Ressler and Vinko Kuduz, councilor in the Assembly of Osijek-Baranja County, and success stories from Slavonia already testify that Croatia can play on an equal footing in many areas. and with the most developed countries and take advantage of the generational opportunity through faster digital development.

The conference in Brussels was attended by representatives of OBŽ, the city of Osijek, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University, representatives of Osijek IT companies, doctoral students from the Faculty of Philosophy in Osijek, members of the EU Parliament and members of diplomatic missions in EU institutions.

At the Conference: Karlo Ressler, Member of the European Parliament, in his welcoming speech pointed out that Osijek, i.e. FERIT (Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computing and Information Technologies Osijek), along with FER (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb) and FOI (Faculty of Organization and Informatics, Varaždin ) became one of the national centers for the development of the IT sector in Croatia.

Kornelija Mlinarević, Head of the Administrative Department for European Union Programs, emphasized the great opportunities for investments in digitization, especially the public system. Digitization represents a great opportunity for the development of the public sector as well as services used by public sector stakeholders as citizens.

Tomislav Matić, dean of FERIT (Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computing and Information Technologies Osijek) gave information about the research conducted on the needs of companies in the IT sector in Croatia. The results of the research showed that all companies face a shortage of employees. He also emphasized that the challenge in educating such personnel is precisely to prepare students for jobs that do not yet exist on the labor market.

Gordana Lesinger, Vice Dean for Development and Business, FFOS (Faculty of Philosophy Osijek) mentioned the program of digital classrooms within the lifelong education program thanks to which they easily adapted to epidemiological measures in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, in cooperation with Osijek Software Cityy, FERIT and CARNET are launching the Dikobraz program, aimed at improving the digital competence of teachers in classes.

Representative Karlo Ressler also emphasized the importance of the social and humanistic component of digital development, which represents one of the challenges of society in the wake of the increasing digitization of work processes in companies and savings in the form of job cuts.