The British Ambassador to Serbia H.E.Mrs. Sian MacLeod first official visit to Kragujevac was a chance for meeting to be held with the Mayor Radomir Nikolic on future cooperation, fostering of bilateral relations with focus on the field of digitalization, open data and green economy.
The Mayor expressed his great satisfaction to welcome a recently appointed Ambassador MacLeod and made introductory remarks about the City, its history as the first capitol of modern Serbia along with its present situation. Directions of the City’s further development – automotive industry, IT sector and the University were discussed, too.
The Ambassador said that Great Britain wishes to share with Serbia, including this City, its experience on fight against the climate change and development of a green economy.
In addition, the project “Open Data Portal”, supported by the British funds, was presented. Kragujevac is the only city in Serbia that has its own open data portal showing figures on energy consumption in public buildings.
It was noted that Kragujevac is the only Serbian city to make public transport available on google maps. Professor Vladimir Nedic, PhD, the portal creator, presented draft application, financed by the British Funds and United Nations development Program in Serbia as well. The application will make possible for the citizens to track in real time in how many minutes a bus will arrive and how many passengers are in it. Also, they will be able to fill in a breif survey on the level of their satisfection with this service.
The Ambassador showed great interest for all the services that will facilitate easier use of public transport.
The City Council member for information and communication technologies, eGovernment and smart city Danilo Savic acquainted the guests with the most relevant activities the City was undertaking in this field – construction of the State Data Recovery Center and the City Data Center, as well as organization of the hackaton (the event that brings computer programmers and other interested people together to improve upon or build a new software program).
The British delegation manifested readiness for further cooperation and help in realization, along with new development projects.
Deputy Head of the City’s Administration for development Zoran Djorovic and the City Energy Manager Ana Radojevic were also present at the meeting.
