“Križevci as a city tailored to people and nature, as a city of comfortable living, attractive to young people and families, resistant to crisis situations and climate change. A city that meets its needs for food and energy on its own, where life is safe and people do good jobs. Križevci, a city from which one does not move out but one that attracts new residents.”

Due to this vision of the city, Križevci has been part of the European initiative “Future cities of South East Europe” since mid-2019, together with much larger cities, some of which are the capitals of their countries – Sarajevo. , Skopje, Maribor and Nis. What all cities have in common is a shared vision of the future, and that is the transformation of these cities into one of the best locations to live, work and visit in Europe by 2025.

All of them are part of a much larger process of urban transformation conducted by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT Climate-KIC) called Deep Demonstration, which is designed to address multiple societal challenges in the context of climate change in an integrated way and through a systems approach. The goal is to create a network of 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030.

Why cities? Because most of the population lives in cities. Economic activity, life, mobility, housing – everything takes place in cities that consume resources, create at the same time a large amount of carbon emissions and pollution, but also many opportunities for change for the better. Cities and citizens are key drivers of these changes for the better.

With this, Križevci, along with the cities of Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Krakow, Madrid, Milan, Vienna, etc., has become one of the 15 most important cities-laboratories in Europe that will receive professional assistance and initial funding of up to about 7 million kuna in three years, for the transformation of the city into a sustainable and climate-neutral city, the city in which we want our children to live.

What does this mean for Križevci?

This is not a typical project, but a long-term process of  transformation of the city that we are starting together. The goal is to provide citizens with the foundations of a good life in the areas of housing, health care, education, mobility, energy, food, water, green public spaces, general security and good employment opportunities by 2025.

The project works together with the city on several levels:

1. at the strategic level of planning,
2. to involve and ensure citizen participation through digital and other tools and workshops,
3. on projects that contribute to achieving the vision of the city – energy independent, resilient to crises and climate change, resources that are fairly shared and available to all citizens
4. on the formation of an investment plan to provide funding for projects leading to the vision.

More specifically:

• This process coincided with this year’s process of drafting a new City Development Strategy until 2030, which is an excellent opportunity to involve all stakeholders in development and change in the city – from entrepreneurs, youth, educational and cultural institutions to citizens’ associations, agricultural producers and the public and service sectors.
• Precisely with the aim of involving a wider range of stakeholders in the development of the Strategy, during 2020 the project team in cooperation with partners from the city will conduct a series of consultation events in digital format, but also live when allowed due to the epidemiological situation caused by coronavirus.
• The first such digital event was the challenge “Križevci today for tomorrow” conducted in the format of online hackathon from 7th to 8th of April, and already the next was held from 9th to 10th of May organized by the City Youth Council to collect and develop youth ideas as a contribution to the development of the vision and Strategy of the city.
• Several more digital and physical public events and guided workshops are planned to get better acquainted with the vision of the city’s development and the development of ideas and steps leading to the realization of the vision. Thus, the process will be closer to the citizens and specific groups and enable their contribution to the Strategy and vision of the city, which will be incorporated into the content created through working groups.
• By the end of June, the digital platform “Consul” for active involvement of citizens will be launched. The platform allows citizens to discuss topics that are important to them, to propose projects that they want to improve life in the city, but also to comment and vote on all presented ideas and projects and promote them through digital media; they will be able to vote on city proposals or participate in polls, and they will also be able to participate in public consultations on proposals for new regulations. All in one place, interactively and visually clear.

Another important moment from the European level, and that is the EU Green Plan and the EU’s commitment to a climate-neutral society and economy, coincided with the vision of the city, and that is Križevci, as an energy independent city. Križevci is moving towards the implementation of 100% renewable energy from the sun and geothermal sources by 2030 and the involvement of citizens in this transition. This is how the Križevci sunroofs, financed with the help of citizens, continue. Solarization of roofs, a larger photovoltaic power plant and the use of geothermal energy for the needs of the city are being prepared. KLIK – Križevci Climate Innovation Laboratory was established as the main assistant to the city and citizens in the development and implementation of these sustainable energy projects.

One of the ways to help realize the city’s vision, which the project implements, is the Eco District model – a model of urban development that develops neighborhoods in the city so that the equality of all who live and work in the community, resilience to shocks and stresses are at the heart of every decision. encountered and climate protection. This is how collaborative or collaborative, participatory management is formed.
To achieve the vision, it needs to be operationalized, so we are working on bringing together all existing and planned projects, ideas and activities to connect in a single capital investment plan for city development, ie. to form a portfolio of projects that will contribute to the vision of the city, but also climate neutrality.

Who are the partners:

• The city of Križevci is a city with a vision and initiative
• ZEZ is the project holder as an EIT Climate KIC partner
• Through the project, a team “YES team” was formed, which manages the project, but also has extended members who are important for managing the development of the city, and these are entrepreneurs, associations, institutions, citizens and others.
• For the purpose of the city’s energy transition, the local energy cooperative KLIK (or Križevci Climate Innovation Laboratory) was established, which this year has the support of the project, but aims to develop and become independent and become an important factor in the city’s energy transition.
• Križevci will thus become a leader among small towns in Europe (with less than 50,000 inhabitants) and show how and in what way even small towns can fight climate change.

After organizing the Challenge Today for Tomorrow in Križevci, we did not rest, but moved on. So, with the help of nine partners, we designed and implemented online Hackathon VersusVirus nationally. With the mobilization of cities and mentoring, our task was also communication. What does that mean? This means that everything you have read or heard about this hackathon has been curated by us.

Organizing a national Hackathon is not an easy thing that is done in two days, but it seemed like it. These are just some of the preparatory activities we did before launching the hackathon call:

• The roles were divided among the organizers, and everyone gave their vision of the hackathon.
• Voted for the hackathon name and then the visual identity of the hackathon was created.
• Hackathon text was created for the website.
• At the same time, the web site was developed, as well as the media announcement and FB event.
• Public call for applications
• The web was done Tuesday night and an invitation was immediately posted to the FB event with a link to the website.

Since it was already nine o’clock in the evening, we stayed with social networking and personal contact with all partners and friends that continued through Friday. We addressed the media on Wednesday morning when a press release was sent.

There were two major challenges in communicating the VersusVirus Hackathon: there was no communication plan and there was very little time for promotion. That’s why all the organizers got involved in spreading the information. The effort has paid off, more than 40 media outlets have published information on VersusVirus Hackathon, gradonačelnik.hr (media partner), Večernji List, ZIMO Dnevnik, Studentski.hr, BUG, Business, H-alter, Ekovjesnik and so on. An interview with Sandra Vlasic, member of ZEZ, also appeared on the tech portal Netokracija. Zoran Kordić, our manager, appeared on HRT’s program Good Morning Croatia. The news didn’t bypass the airwaves either, so you could hear the hackathon call on Radio Sljeme, Laganini FM and Radio HRT1.

The Hakathon officially kicked off on Friday night with an opening ceremony, but ideas were shared and teams formed earlier in the day in Slack. After 48 hours of team work, the jury selected the top five.
Three of the top five solutions for children and parents. Chatbot Dejana will help parents and teachers implement distance learning for children with disabilities. Naucime.online is a platform that helps connect students and mentors, to master school material, and the Stay (in) sane parenting hub helps all parents better organize their kids’ time, responsibilities and fun during self-isolation days. All parents among you will easily be able to use one of these solutions! Tilda is a digital donation platform through which help is collected for people in need such as those who were left homeless in the recent earthquake in Zagreb. In return for the donation, it offers customers a digital call with celebrities. The Green community rooftops for a better life wants to create rooftop gardens and balconies that contribute to our self-sustainability in terms of food, better air quality and urban quality of life.

These winning ideas are the result of a 48-hour anti-virus virus hackathon #versusvirusHR held this weekend that brought together 136 participants in a joint “hacking” of problems caused by the SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 pandemic.

VersusVirus is the first hackathon in the crisis time in Croatia held entirely in the virtual world, not counting the Challenge Today for tomorrow, which we successfully organized the week before in Križevci, which was a kind of hybrid between hackathon and challenge. As of Friday night, fifty hackers assembled across 15 teams worked on developing their ideas with the help of thirty mentors at their disposal. The task was to come up with innovative solutions to the problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Solutions were sought for a wide range of topics, from rapid crisis responses, the economy, education, the arts to community empowerment, the environment, governance, health, and solidarity. Participants and organizers were in constant contact through the Slack online application and the Zoom video conferencing platform, where they exchanged ideas, praise, criticism and even arranged exchange of fresh yeast.

In addition to the help of mentors, the teams also had the opportunity to follow virtual lectures to further learn or strengthen the knowledge and skills – how to maintain mental strength in times of crisis, what is impact and how to create projects with positive impact, o how to prepare a good story for a video, how to present an idea well, and some surprises in selling or coming up with mature ideas.

One of the participants, Martina Anisic, summarized her experience: “I participated in the hackathon for the first time because I liked the idea of working with talented people from different fields to find innovative solutions to the COVID-19 crisis in just one weekend. This has resulted in meeting people with different skills and experience, but with the same ambition – to make the most of our skills and come up with solutions that will specifically help our fellow citizens. I am thrilled with this event and the mentors who have been with us every step of the way – congratulations to this great event and I look forward to seeing what impact it will have on our community. ”

To combat the virus and deal with this and any other crisis, because they are all linked, we must be united, in solidarity, cooperate and act outside our established frameworks, and that is exactly what happened at the VersusVirus national hackathon on Sunday night.

The organizers of this event, who spent hours volunteering to pass the event without any difficulties, are: Impact Hub Zagreb, Technology Park Varaždin, Green Energy Cooperative, Terra Hub, North-West Croatia Regional Energy Agency, Lean Startup Croatia, Porin Development Agency, EIT RIS Climate KIC Hub Croatia, Ivy Digital and EduNorth.
We thank all participants and mentors and support organizations who will provide the further support needed to implement the ideas.

For more information on the winning ideas:
Web link at https://versusvirus.hr/ or https://versusvirus-croatia.devpost.com/.

Seven years of struggle for the promotion of community energy in Croatia – in the wake of REScoop.eu General Assembly in Zagreb

Pre-conference blog post for General Assembly of RESCoop.eu – EU Federation of energy cooperatives that will be held in Zagreb, from May 30 to June 1, and hosted by ZEZ

It has been now 7 years since we first time organized visit from REScoop association in Croatia to share us the experience from the energy coops movement across EU.

It’s been so inspirational that soon after that we cofounded ZEZ – Zelena energetska zadruga with the mission to promote this concept in Croatia.

5 years from now we became a full member of REScoop and started cooking some first projects – dealing with solar energy on schools and camps, recruiting first energy advisors team to fight energy poverty, making first consultation business.

We did advocacy too; together with national partners, we created a recommendation for policymakers how to create a favorable playground for energy cooperatives.

By that time, the whole renewable energy sector was blocked and there were only a few initiatives active, all initiated by the private sector.  But we keep on diving.

2 years from now we became Board member of REScoop.eu recognized as a link towards energy cooperative movements in Balkan region.

We had first projects in the region; laying some foundations for first community energy projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

We focused on working with local authorities and created the first crowdinvesting campaign in solar energy for City of Krizevci that was awarded as one of the most innovative projects in EU.

Now, we are at home again, this time hosting not one member but whole REScoop federation in Zagreb for three days – with many more people and organization on board as partners and supporters.

This time to create some huge impact and aiming to:

• Highlight collaborations between energy cooperatives and local authorities and laying the ground for some new projects
• Mobilize more people and initiatives from Croatia and Balkan region to spread the movement
• Encourage policymakers to create a more favorable ground for energy cooperatives and energy communities

Do not miss the chance to meet us!