It’s a beautiful sunny day in the capital city of North Macedonia, Skopje, 29 August 2023.

Smiles on people’s faces as I walk down the St Kliment Ohridski boulevard. I must admit, I’m impressed with how this city looks since I’ve last been here, working for the city of Skopje Innovation Center — Skopje Lab.

Neighbourhoods are happier, healthier and greener, the air is fresh and there is a feeling of positivity buzzing around the city.

All those abandoned corners laying in plain sight forgotten by local authorities and tenants of the surrounding buildings are gone. It is apparent that creativity has been brought back after long winter sleep and is now brightly shining from all corners of the city.

The boulevard in my old neighbourhood has been repurposed, leaving space for bike lanes made from safe recycled material, divided from the car lanes with lights and greenery along each side .. I remember seeing more car parks and crowded streets, but I guess the city has fully taken the approach we were promoting so much back in the days. Half of the old car parks are gone; additional greenery has been added and mobility is very much improved with primary access for bikes and pedestrians everywhere!

The imported diesel cars that were so popular are now lost in the pool of hybrids and electrics. The pedestrian space has been doubled, opening space for beautiful cherry trees. As I walk down toward the Government building to turn on the Ilindenska boulevard, I simply cannot believe my eyes…”Is this the same boulevard I walked every day to get to my office at the City of Skopje?” “

That boring and grey street that had lost its magic has been revived!”

It is more than I could imagine. All of the small streets from both sides ending on the boulevard are now public spaces that make you feel like you are dreaming. Water walls are cooling the air on the side of the pedestrian lanes as you walk down them. Red, pink and yellow roses are attracting pedestrians to slow down their step and to stop by to have some cold water from the street fountains. They have also moved all the cars from these tiny streets to create a whole new area filled with amenities for children, benches for reading books and gossip. You can feel the children’s joy and hear their laughs while their parents and grandparents enjoy their free time with their neighbours.

The walls of the buildings now have purpose — vertical bike parking so they don’t take much of the space needed for people to enjoy — even smarter than Amsterdam! Is this a dream? And as I move down to see my old workplace, another surprise! The municipality has moved their offices leaving its old premises to the creative Skopje community who are now working jointly to revive these old buildings and all forgotten public spaces with a new look and new experiences.

And if you are thinking that this city must have been overtaken by some aliens, guess what!? It’s still the same mayor and I truly hope he’s going to continue with the great work. He listened and gave space to those with creativity and vision, real leadership! Now the creatives and the visionaries are part of the city council and are responsible to ensure public spaces, that now take 50% of the city, are tailor-designed to the needs of citizens.

The demolished and dirty equipment and out-of-function playgrounds in the city park are nowhere to be found. It seems like it’s not only the city that has changed in the way it operates but the citizens too. The old habits are gone thanks to the regular and strict inspections, the transparent, non-divisive policy that the city has put in action and the civil society has succeeded in raising awareness in the urban areas here in Skopje.

So, what does it take to make Skopje city one of the best possible places to live, work and visit?

This dream is inspired by the work we are currently doing (in 2020) that I believe has the potential to make this vision a reality and to add to my perspective, only making it better.

And for the ones that don’t know, this is how I got to tell the dream...

For the last 4 years, we have been providing space and tools for citizens to jointly co-create and find solutions to the city’s pressing challenges. Thus, in a period of 8 months during 2018–19 through the SkopjeLab initiative — #RedesignSkopje, several co-design workshops were organized where artists, designers, architects, civil engineers, ethnographers, city representatives and interested citizens were re-designing forgotten city public spaces.

Later, thanks to the joint effort of the City of Skopje and Skopje Lab, several public spaces were revived. And what was more important, this initiative triggered the interest of the private sector, the civil groups and the international donor community — enabling more public spaces to be redesigned bringing new look and experiences to citizens.

One of the first interventions was the redesign of one of the areas within the City Transport Station, transforming the concrete into a beautiful Bicycle parking accompanied by urban equipment and greenery. Representing one of the most important connection points of the city, where both the main bus local and intercity station and railway station meet, this small redesign has now brought back the long lost purpose of the area — a place to meet, rest and be sustainable.

The installation of bicycle parking rails, benches, dressing rooms, a water fountain and a bike repair station has revived this shared space. The beautiful hand-painted mural captures the eye from a distance luring citizens to rediscover this redesigned public space.

With its initiative #RedesignSkopje, aimed to transform public spaces in Skopje in order to restore their functionality, value and beauty, SkopjeLab has generated ideas and plans for the realization of 27 projects, proposals for the redesign of specific locations around Skopje. You can learn more about the process and results at https://skopjelab.mk/redizajnskopje/. Here are some models which were developed within the initiative, that are now awaiting funding opportunities in order to be further implemented.

What it is clear to me now, is that a radical scale-up of public space co-design, financing and management is going to be needed to achieve my dream. And I’m thinking, why not? The foundations are all there.

So, I would end this by challenging you to think about my questions for you on how we can really create my dream:

• Who do you think was leading the work after I left Skopje and Skopje Lab? Was Skopje Lab still working or there was some new body leading the change?
• What do you think the mayor did to enable such radical transformation to happen?
• What made people change behaviour and more actively engage?
• How did we manage the finances to make the boulevard look as I have described considering it’s only 3 years time?

Share your thoughts and ideas with us… and

Do your part and share your visions for your city in 2023 and 2030!

By sharing opinions, experiences and ideas we can define and initiate the action steps needed for urban transformation towards more sustainable, resilient and green future cities around the globe.

SmartUp Social Innovation Lab together with the City of Skopje from August 2019 is working on the project Future Cities of South-East Europe, with a mission to make 5 cities from the region some of the best possible places to live, work and visit.

The project is supported by EIT Climate-KIC.

Contributor to the story, Jana Neshkovikj — manager of local initiative Future Skopje and part of the YES team.

A Revived Skopje Cityscape by 2023 was originally published in Thriving Communities on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, a city located in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula was the first host city of the Digital Western Balkans 6 Summit that took place 18th-19th of April.

The summit has brought in one place the high-level representatives of the European Commission, the politicians of the WB6 countries and the companies to discuss on the pillars of digital skills, trust and security, digital environment networks and services, connectivity and access and digital economy and society. And while the governments are running the policies it’s the startup community that’s working. Creative, agile and dedicated, this community is driving the change and presenting to us the future.

To tap in the potential of the startup community, the German Cooperation was tasked to organize a German Cooperation Startup Camp that was held in parallel to the main event and where in an informal atmosphere, ideas and knowledge were exchanged between startups and companies attending the Digital Summit.

Bringing 15 entrepreneurs from all six countries of the Western Balkans, the StartUp Camp was a great opportunity for the entrepreneurs from the region to take the stage and shine.

The German Cooperation StartUp Camp covered several activities, from Inspirational talks and Investor Workshop to Open Innovation Lab and a Pitching Competition. Starting with the inspirational talks and rolling through the Investors workshop in the first day, the StartUp Camp opened up the stage for the entrepreneurs to show their agility, creativity and problem-solving skills during Open Innovation Lab and the Pitching competition on the second day.

Four inspirational talks brought four experts in the camp to share their story to inspire the participating entrepreneurs — Max Gurvits (a US/European entrepreneur and investor), Oliver Pugh (entrepreneur), Vesna Ivanoska (CEO of Seavus Educational Center) and Igor Madzov (South Central ventures).

The investor workshop titled “Winning founders: how to communicate, pitch, and sell like a world-class startup CEO” run by Max Gurvits and Alexandra Marchenko was a great way to prepare the participants for the pitching competition on the second day.

Being held in in the main EXPO hall, the main event “The Pitching Competition” was an amazing opportunity for the entrepreneurs to present themselves and their startups to the jury and the guest at the EXPO coming from the region and Western Europe, including the companies showcasing at the digital summit.

Having 3 min time for their pitch, 10 startups were competing to showcase the innovation of their product; realization / market orientation; scalability and soft skills based on which the winner was to be selected.

From an educational platforms and artificial intelligence to parental monitoring apps and zombie soups, the choice was tough!

And the winner is….

Branko Vasiljevic, Meerkiddo with its parental control app who won ticket for the 1milion Startup Conference that will be held in September 2018 in Vienna.

But is not always about the winning or the prize as one of the experts said: “There are awesome, Incredible opportunities for the entrepreneurs here! Just being able to talk to the decision makers is amazing! I though it’s great to come to EXPOs like this, I get so much of job done!”, Oliver Pugh, expert and entrepreneur.

What this competition showed us is that It is more about the chances to see and to be seen. It’s about the network you build and the people you meet. It’s about the space where all these creative minds come together to learn from each other!

“I meet so much quality and successful young people from the region doing business…this was so effective for me and for my business!”

Branko Vasiljevic from Meerkiddo, the winning startup

That is the value that these events bring to entrepreneurs, and that is why we need to thank to organization like the German Cooperation for supporting events that help startup communities grow and develop even more.

Written by:

Sofija Bogeva, project coordinator at SmartUp — Social Innovation Lab

What does SmartUp — Social Innovation Lab Skopje NGO do?

We encourage and develop social innovations and businesses as a response to crucial and urgent societal challenges. We work on the development of an eco-system of social innovations containing different public, private, academia and non-governmental actors.
We help create a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable society.