In addition to the mayor, the meeting was attended by the head of the Information Technology Department of the City of Rijeka Željko Jurić, director of the Regional Development Agency of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County Vedran Kružić and director of Smart Ri Nenad Antolović.

Jury Sven Sverak, AWS Public Sector Manager, Jan Zeleny, AWS Public Sector Solution Architect and Dawid Dybuk, AWS Public Sector Account Manager presented opportunities for urban development in terms of digitalization offered by Amazon Web Services.

According to the department head Željko Jurić, Rijeka has been at the top in terms of the development of digitalization of cities for years, and the continuation of the city’s development in that direction has been defined by the strategic document presenting the basis of the development of Rijeka until 2030.

Mayor Filipović pointed out that Croatia would enter the Schengen and the eurozone at the beginning of 2023, which would enable us easier and simpler business with EU countries, expressing interest of the City of Rijeka in cooperation with Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies. concerning digitalisation, with the aim of improving the lives of citizens.

At the end of last year, Amazon Web Services signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of the Republic of Croatia, which defines the framework topics for cooperation. Jirij Sven Sverak pointed out that on that occasion Amazon had opened its office in Zagreb, basing its business on the development of web technologies, and therefore they were examining the possibilities of expanding to other Croatian cities. He added that they were interested in cooperation with the University in terms of providing education to students and professors in the fields related to the development of digitalization.

Both sides expressed interest in further talks about business and cooperation in potential projects related to the digitalization of cities.