1. How is the Creative Industry Center imagined and what is the role of the City?  In Varazdin, there is no place where creatives can connect, exchange knowledge and open their open companies or work as freelancers. For now, creativity in the city is at amateur level and largely subordinated with IT in the Varazdin Technology Park. The City of Varazdin has to provide space for the development of ideas, skills, knowledge and entrepreneurship.

2. What would be an ideal scenario for the development of the Center?  An incubator of knowledge, idea and realization that would enable people, especially young people, the opportunity and a secure environment for growth and development, both personal and business development. The Center has an emphasis on those cultural and creative industries that work digitally: music production, design, applied art, architecture, computer games and others.

3. What are the collective's most important goals and ambitions?  The goal is to do what we love and to live from that. It is important as a place where we can share thoughts and times with similar ones. At the same time has autonomy, but also someone that we can contact when we need a help or when we need a mentor. Creativity is a series of attempt and mistakes, a series of ideas and realization. A lot of little 'wins'.

4. Does the respondent have any subdivisions of stakeholders in mind?  The Center is visualized as a video game that has levels - levels according to user preferences. It is located on the ground floor which has a reception and it is also a showroom, a mutual coworking zone that has 20 seats and a mini multifunctiona hall with 120 movable stand seat. The first and second floors consist of areas that can be enclosed and rented as a whole for microcompanies or more individuals. The first floor is for program accelerator users lasting from 3 months to a year, while the second floor is reserved for longer incubations up to a maximum of 5 years. Everyone who has the approved idea have the right for incubation which is payable in accordance with the future Act of Usage Ordinance.

5. Do you think it is necessary to strengthen entrepreneurial collectives as one of the actors of the social economy?  An important segment of the Center will be education in modules. These modules are: Management; Marketing; Finance management; Digital market; Communication and social Skill; Establishment of companies; Legal frameworks; Project Team; Responsibility and Opportunities; Creative processes; Networking and collaboration; Intellectual Property; Protection of personal data; Expanding business; Entrepreneurship; Social responsibility; IT news and others.

6. In what way will you organize, manage and encourage creative professions and the collective action of independent partners within the Center?  First of all, it is important to have a good brand of the City and a Center that will attract stakeholders. A brand that will be recognized as relevant, pleasing and onubtrusive. It is necessary to encourage the ability to achieve ambitions and to provide a satisfactory framework for the development of the skills needed to turn the creativity into the creative industry. In the Center will be a model that measures the succes of entrepreneurial endeavors - from employment to self-employment and various forms of legal personality, especially freelancers and it will be evaluated according to the number of participants and time necessary for independence.

7. In your perception, what are the most important goals and ambitions of independent partners that you can recognize in the Center?  The Center's activities will be decentralized - it will be network regionally, on the european level, but also globally. Partners will certainly be the Croation Cluster of Competitiveness of Cultural and Creative Industries, the Croation Chamber of Commerce, the Faculty of Organization and Informatics University of Zagreb and the North University, the Technology Park Varazdin, and the Varazdin Open University.

8. From your position, which benefits can you recognize for the City?  The city gets an environment that creates added value and raises the City's standard by investing in the industry with higher salaries, retains young people in Varazdin - population growth, gets new content in the city center, revitalization of the center, more modern and contempory contents.

9. In what way will the City take part in the Center?  The City will subsidize part of the rent - depending on the program and needs of users, it will encourage education and directly contribute to the development of the Center through its institutions. The City of Varazdin will be also responsible for overseeing the performances, the use of space and finance spent and the number of projects which is important for the Center's development.

Read the full interview here.