Enter your text Nothing could beat the pleasure of starring at a packed auditorium while I was waiting for the opening talk of the Zagreb Crowdfunding Convention and thinking back of the months of preparations behind us. Industry experts, NGO's and private companies, government representative and numerous curious individuals – we got them all at one place to discuss future of crowdfunding in our region!We've been intensively focusing our work on a variety of crowdfunding activities in order to climb closer to the goal we've set more than one year ago, when we co-founded the Crowdfunding Academy. That was to contribute to the development of a crowdfunding market in Croatia. Our Zagreb Crowdfunding Convention event nowadays comes as a ma...

Bangladesh is a country with a population of over 160 million people, and millions of youth not in education, employed, or in training. On the other side, the need for good jobs in Bangladesh is high. The Youth Employment through Skills (YES) initiative came up with the solution for this huge problem. YES is an educational programme that works with Bangladeshi youth to teach them basic coding skills. Students participate in a 6-month training course, which is led by a skilled coding instructor. They learn how to use computers, perform basic coding, and market themselves on freelancing web portals.​ YES launched the crowdfunding campaign in November 2016 and, together with their partNers (Standard Chartered, Coders Trust, bKash, Better Shelt...

Guzgef Solar School project aimed at improving education facilities in rural Tajikistan and provide a better education for children. Almost 70% of the population of Tajikistan live in rural and mountainous areas where electricity is available for no more than three hours a day. The country's lack of consistent grid power means that it is too dark and cold to study in the school during the winter months. As a result, students miss many days of school, making it difficult for them to receive a good education and graduate. At the same time, the country enjoys 280-330 sunny days a year, so the team behind this project created a plan to help resolve the problem of the energy crisis and provide an opportunity to use renewable energy solutions.​ T...

Elderly centre in Balykchy town in Kyrgyzstan was set up by a local non-governmental organisation to provide a gathering place for retired and elderly people who don't have relatives or access to a social network. But, with temperatures dipping way below zero, the centre is largely inaccessible during late fall and winter season due to the poor heating system. This created a break in an otherwise dynamic routine, keeping its visitors contained to their own homes, alone during the colder months of the year. The team behind this project wanted to change that, so they launched a crowdfunding campaign in March 2016 to make the elderly centre energy efficient. With the support of many backers, the UNDP Catalytic and Scaling-up Facility for Europ...

​''Bring Water for Life'' was UNDP Indonesia's first crowdfunding campaign. This initiative is contributing to the achievement of the 17 globally committed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly in increasing access to clean water and sanitation, to end poverty, fight inequality and climate action. The campaign was launched on World Water day on March 22nd, 2016 and was aimed at gathering public support for providing clean water access for Napu, a remote village in East Sumba district, by building a solar-powered water pump system Through collective efforts, the partnership with NGO Koppesda (based in East Sumba with supervision from UNDP) and with the support of 400 backers, $ 27,958 funds was raised through this campaign. The f...

Mateja Kuhar couldn't stop thinking about the idea of developing a pen from recycled organic waste for more than two years. After she noticed how much organic material was being binned by a local coffee shop and flower shops, she finally shaped the idea of ??making Fabula – organic pencil. This pencil is created from the used tea leaves and coffee grounds from cafes, together with petals discarded by the many florists. When it gets too short to use, the Fabula stub can be activated in water to plant a young Goji berry, golden in berry or a paulownia tree. In December 2015 Mateja and her team launched the crowdfunding campaign so that she could finish and perfect the unique machine used in the manufacturing process.With the support of 270 ba...

Last week the Crowdfunding Academy team felt like Charlie in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory – except there was no chocolate river or a lickable wallpaper. If we don't count that rainbow hallway on the way to a rainbow metro station, it wasn't even psychedelic looking. But taking into consideration that we love good ideas as much as Charlie loves chocolate – you will understand this comparison.As we've mentioned in few of our earlier blogs – Crowdfunding Academy went global. Over the last two months we've been intensively working with UNDP offices around the world on preparation of their crowdfunding campaigns. Keeping in mind that crowdfunding might not be the only alternative financing option suitable for their projects, we've been explor...

​''STEMI'' is a robot you can make on your own at home. He can teach you much scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical concepts in a fun and easy way. By building STEMI you can learn 3D modelling, electronics, Arduino programming and mobile app programming. STEMI came as a spin-off of a non-profit organisation "Wind of Knowledge". It is an educational technology company that aims to improve the society by making learning a more enjoyable experience. This crowdfunding campaign was launched in December 2015, and with help of 280 backers and over 30 partners, STEMI raised $ 36,816 (although the initial objective was twice smaller). But the team behind the project did not stop there. The successful campaign enabled them a collabo...

Taste of Home is a culinary-cultural-research project that introduces the culture, customs and countries of origin of refugees and migrants in Croatia. Taste of Home initiative wanted to help refugees and migrants earn a living and become settled in Croatia. The crowdfunding campaign was launched in November 2015. With the help of over 500 backers, they have raised $ 19,649 and enabled financing for the kitchen space, and purchase of kitchen appliances (like refrigerators, cookers, blenders, pots, pans - basically everything that is necessary for cooking and starting a catering business).Since the campaign's initial goal ($ 17,000) was exceeded, this initiative successfully established social cooperative run by refugees, migrants, and Croat...