The first Cluster ICT Academy was officially opened in the building of the Business Incubator in Novi Sad. The students of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Academy will acquire knowledge and skills through specialized training and practice that will enable them to find job more easily. Upon completion of the six month training, the students will do internships in companies which are the members of Vojvodina ICT Cluster. The companies Prokomsoft, ComData, Execom, Intens, Vega IT Sourcing, RT-RK, M&I Systems, Prozone, Tajfun Hil and TIAC will enable young people to work with mentors and thus to gain new experience and turn the acquired knowledge into practice.

- We hope that the Academy will be equally successful venture as the Business Incubator, which has grown, from the very beginning until today, into an entrepreneurial ecosystem with numerous innovative ideas that have been implemented, while supporting young professionals, who, in time, have started their own businesses. It is very important that the Business Incubator has become self-sustaining in a very difficult and complex economic environment. In these examples, one can see the good relationship between the local community, University and international institutions, in this instance of USAID, which, as a synergistic effect, gives good results - Head of the Local Economic Development Office of the City of Novi Sad, Marijana Dukić Mijatović said and wished every success to the Academy’s students.

- In conditions of high unemployment it is important that companies which are looking for new employees can easily find the ones with the right qualifications - Director of USAID Office for Economic Development, Susan Kutor said, adding that USAID encourages cooperation between the scientific-educational and the business communities in order to stimulate the knowledge transfer and application of innovation in business.

According to the director of Vojvodina ICT Cluster Milan Šolaja, the lack of IT personnel is a global problem.

- Our response to this challenge is the Academy, whose curriculum is tailored to the needs of IT companies. We know what kind of professional profiles the companies are looking for, and we know how to provide the professional associates to employers in a short period of time – Milan Šolaja emphasized.

It is anticipated that the first generation of 40 students of the Academy, starting from April to October 2014, will qualify for the successful operation of those businesses that are currently in the greatest demand in Vojvodina: database administrator, web developer, a developer of mobile applications and front-end developer. The ICT Cluster Academy Project is financially supported by USAID and implemented by Vojvodina ICT Cluster.

Novi Sad, 28^th March 2014