ARCA 2021 was held in Zagreb 14 -16 October 2021
ARCA 2021 Report
THE UNION OF CROATIAN INNOVATORS HOSTED A PHYSICAL INNOVATION EVENT (AGAIN)
The 19th International Exhibition of Inventions, ARCA 2021 was held in Zagreb 14.-16. October 2021.
ARCA 2021, The 19. International Exhibition of Inventions under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Croatia, Mr. Zoran Milanovic, was held in Zagreb 14. –16.2021. by The Union Of Croatian Innovators (UIH).
This year’s installment of the exhibition was traditionally supported by the Ministries of Economy and Sustainable Development; and Science and Education, the Croatian Chamber of Economy, the University of Zagreb and the Croatian Agency for SMEs, Innovation and Investments. Of special notice is that this year’s ARCA, although held in a somewhat reduced format, like the year before, still drew the attention of all national media. At the opening ceremony, Dr. Miljenko Simpraga, Vice-Rector for Innovations, Technology Transfer and Communications of the University of Zagreb, and the President of the Union of Croatian Innovators, underlined the necessity for the community of innovators, especially the R&D institutions, to pay more attention in the development of social inventions, in order to raise human behavior standards associated with answering the global challenges.
Having in mind that ARCA 2021 is listed as one of the Main IFIA Events, the number of presented innovations was significant, presented both by domestic Croatian inventors as well as international ones, mainly from Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran, Turkey, Northern Macedonia, China, and Poland. In total, around 200 innovations were exhibited.
A marked number of innovations presented were contributed by youth, comprising students of technical secondary education institutions, as well as university students. For the youth, including the youngest group of elementary school age, ARCA 2020 featured a separate program of STEM workshops.
Under the umbrella of ARCA 2021, a separate panel took place under the title “Innovation and Technology transfer – Boosting tools in the Croatian Economy”, dealing with challenges of innovative entrepreneurship in the newly arisen circumstances.
In addition to the usual gold, silver, and bronze awards, this year featured the presentation of the WIPO Awards for Innovation, in Youth and Senior categories. In the Youth category the WIPO Award went to the innovation “Tic-Tac-Toe, Power Max“ developed by the young innovators Branko Raickovic and Jan Rastovic. In the Senior category, the WIPO Award was awarded to the innovation “NUOTWO“ developed by Mirko Brkljacic. The traditional IFIA Award went to the innovation “BVM8-Vibromonitoring- PCB” by the company Turbocom Ltd.