Today, BTC City Ljubljana saw the initiation of the already 8^th BTC Campus, which will bring new job opportunities for young people and enable them to acquire new business competencies. Until December 8, 30 participants will take part in an intensive lecture programme focusing on successful career development and the development of one’s own product or service. The programme will once again be accompanied by one hackathon, with a part of the programme being linked to the Slovenian Digital Center.

The BTC Company is the initiator and sponsor of the BTC Campus, a training programme whose aim it is to provide unemployed young people who are registered as job seekers with the Employment Service of Slovenia with the know-how and guidance needed for an easier recognition of job opportunities or starting one’s own business. The programme is organised by the BTC Company in collaboration with the Employment Service of Slovenia and the Center of Business Excellence of the Ljubljana Faculty of Economics. This year, the BTC Campus will welcome 30 young people of different educational profiles. The selection criteria were interest shown to pursue additional education, networking and job opportunities. Knowledge will be passed on by lecturers from the Center of Business Excellence of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Ljubljana dr Rok Stritar, dr Blaž Zupan, and Marjan Kramar.

The programme follows the Design Thinking method, which was developed at Stanford University and is frequently used to foster creativity and innovativeness. The participants will apply Design Thinking to real-world business challenges, while the lecturers will keep the programme in line with current events and circumstances, making the knowledge acquired by the participants instantly applicable in real-world scenarios.

This year’s programme will take place in the scope of the Slovenian Digital Center – Technology for the People, which the BTC Company set up in BTC City Ljubljana in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia, SPIRIT Slovenia and DIH Slovenia for the duration of Slovenia’s Presidency of the Council of the EU. The participants will have the chance to get to know the newest technologies presented in the Slovenian Digital Center by progressive Slovenian companies, including their applications in a business ecosystem. They will be able to establish direct contact with developmentally oriented companies and attend a number of free trainings and workshops in November and December, specifically on digitalisation, industry 4.0 and robotics. Like previous years, the BTC Campus will partly take place in BTC City Ljubljana’s ABC Hub, with the other part being held in the Slovenian Digital Center. The participants can once again look forward to hackathon, which will be held on November 20 and 21.

At the beginning of this year’s programme, Damjan Kralj, M.Sc., CEO of the BTC Company, stated: “At the BTC Company, we are well aware of the value of young people and their role in social and economic development, which is why we have been an active partner in helping them find jobs since 2013 with the BTC Campus programme. In doing so, we have always been aware of the industry’s particular needs for new competencies. At BTC, we want to empower young people and boost their confidence, so they may be more competitive job candidates upon finishing the programme, better prepared for jobs of the future. This is another reason why we have provided them with the unique opportunity to get in contact with the newest technologies once again, this year in the scope of the Slovenian Digital Center.«

Monika Lapanja, M.Sc., Director of the Center of Business Excellence at the Faculty of Economics, said: “We have done a number of projects together with the BTC Company. One of them is the BTC Campus, in which we have been partners since the very beginning. In addition to putting our mission into direct action with this project, transferring and exchanging know-how between the Faculty and the business world and thereby supporting the development of individual persons and companies, we are also further increasing the chances of employment among the target group of the unemployed. It is precisely because of this that this project is so special to us.”

Mitja Bobnar, General Director of the Employment Service of Slovenia, emphasized: “A crucial activity of the Employment Service is to help young job seekers achieve a successful transition into the job market, so we are happy that we can participate in the BTC Campus project for the eight year already. Another key factor of participating in the project is that the participants become familiar with agile and entrepreneurial ways of thinking while addressing concrete challenges, thereby enhancing their understanding of end-users. This is important because they can acquire practical skills and techniques to help them design new, market-oriented products and services. Experience shows that young job seekers who have an entrepreneurial mindset and competencies are more successful when facing the challenges of a fast changing job market, which is why the contribution of the BTC Company to the promotion of entrepreneurship and future economic development is so incredibly important.”

A total of over 300 young people, about 200 in Ljubljana and about 120 in Murska Sobota, have taken part in the programme in the past years. In addition to the positive feedback from the participants, the success of the programme is also supported by numbers. The Employment Service of Slovenia has determined that within only a couple of months of taking part in the BTC Campus programme, 60 to 75 percent of participants found a job or started their own business, while within one year this number jumps to more than 80 percent.

For the implementation of the programme, the BTC Company received the 2016 PRIYATELJ LETA (i.e. “Friend of the Year”) award by Zavod Ypsilon, as well as recognition by the Employment Service of the Republic of Slovenia for their strategic partnership and help in the implementation of the Service’s strategic goals and the consequent indirect reduction of the unemployment rate in Slovenia.

Additional information

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