Meet Serbia’s Digital Trailblazers
Ever wonder what it takes to break through in tech or digital art?
Serbia’s digital community has produced tools, games and specialist technologies used by people and organisations internationally. Our partner Univerzitet Union Nikola Tesla (UniTesla) suggested five examples that demonstrate the range of digital products developed by Serbian creators and teams: Clockify, Pumble, ActiveCollab, Tenderly and Nordeus.
Their work covers everyday workplace challenges, blockchain operations, and digital entertainment. Behind each product is a team that identified a specific need and created a digital response.
Clockify and Pumble: Two Products from CAKE.com
Clockify and Pumble were developed by CAKE.com, led by founder and CEO Nenad Milanović.
Clockify was launched in 2017 as a time-tracking product. It allows individuals and teams to record working time, monitor projects and manage costs. Three years later, the company launched Pumble, a communication platform offering channels, direct messages and calls.
CAKE.com reports more than 10M users across its products and says that they help hundreds of thousands of businesses organise their operations. Its development illustrates how one team can create separate tools for connected workplace needs.
Learn more: CAKE.com – About
ActiveCollab: Organising Creative and Client Work
ActiveCollab began with an organisational problem experienced by its founders. The first version was released as an open-source product in 2006 before being developed commercially.
Today, the platform combines project and task management with workload planning, time tracking, communication, budgeting and invoicing. These functions are particularly relevant to agencies, consultancies and creative teams managing several projects or clients. According to ActiveCollab, more than 50,000 teams use the platform each day.
Learn more:
ActiveCollab – About Us and Contact
Tenderly: Testing Blockchain Decisions Before They Become Final
Founded in 2018, Tenderly developed technology for simulating blockchain transactions and modelling onchain systems. The platform allows engineering, finance and risk teams to examine possible outcomes before capital or customer activity is exposed.
Tenderly describes itself as a pioneer in blockchain simulation technology and reports support for more than 100 networks. This is a more specialised form of digital creation, built for teams working with complex blockchain infrastructure.
Learn more:
Nordeus: Serbia’s International Gaming Story
Nordeus is the clearest creative-industry example among the five. Its story began in 2010, when three engineers returned from Copenhagen and combined their interest in football and gaming to establish the company and create Top Eleven.
The football-management game reached 100 million users in 2015. Nordeus later became part of Take-Two Interactive Software in 2021 and now leads mobile sports activities within Take-Two’s Zynga label.
Game development also depends on different creative roles. Nordeus has shared work by game artists, like Nikola Damjanov, offering a closer look at the visual creativity behind its games.
Learn more:
Nordeus – About Us
Different Ideas, Different Routes
These examples did not follow one common formula. Clockify focused on tracking time and costs, Pumble on workplace communication, ActiveCollab on managing client projects, Tenderly on blockchain simulations, and Nordeus on digital entertainment.
Together, they show that digital creation can involve designing a game, developing specialist infrastructure, or making an everyday task easier to manage. A clearly defined purpose gives creators a practical starting point for developing and testing an idea.
Explore similar tools on the Digicreate Empower Creative Hive Toolbox. The Toolbox provides a separate collection of resources that can support creative professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs as they develop their own work: https://digicreate-empower.eu/hive-toolbox/
Explore these Serbian digital stories and consider where your own skills and ideas could lead. You could be next.
Funding Agency: EACEA – European Education and Culture Executive Agency
101193474 — DigiCreate — ERASMUS-EDU-2024-VIRT-EXCH
Disclaimer: Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
