Eight employees were asked to stop doing their usual jobs. For a corporate innovation project, that is already a considerable achievement. In ICT Hub’s account of its work with Mozzart, a five-day Design Sprint brought colleagues together to develop and test a product idea. The revealing detail is the interruption: people who normally served different departments had to spend time on the same problem.
Every organization has a calendar. Fewer have a way to make room for an uncertain idea. ICT Hub, the Belgrade company that began by helping technology entrepreneurs, now works in that awkward space between a promising suggestion and somebody agreeing to implement it. The whiteboard is useful. Permission to leave the inbox alone may be more useful still.
- A startup community became a business serving established companies.
- Consulting, workspace and development programs give it several ways to earn.
- Its practical lesson: test the idea, then assign the work required to deliver it.
A grant with strings attached
ICT Hub launched in 2014 through a USAID-supported project involving DNA Communications and Orion Telekom. Its original offer made sense for an emerging technology scene: workspace, infrastructure and experienced people who could help founders turn technical ambitions into businesses. Entrepreneurship is difficult enough without having to discover every administrative inconvenience personally.
By 2016, according to the Swiss Entrepreneurship Program, the hub declined another USAID grant because its conditions constrained decisions and agility. Earned services became part of the route toward independence. A move from the science and technology park to central Belgrade improved the workspace proposition; corporate innovation consulting provided another customer group.
This is the interesting commercial question beneath the community language. An entrepreneur may need help before having much money. An established company may have money before knowing which new idea deserves it. Serving both creates a possible business around that mismatch. The connection becomes valuable when it produces research, a prototype or a working partnership.
The expensive part is everybody’s Tuesday
At Mozzart, the hub helped a team research a challenge, sketch alternatives and test a prototype with prospective users. Eight employees brought different expertise. Participants voted on elements of proposed solutions and developed a shared direction. The output included implementation and marketing plans. ICT Hub reports that the product was implemented and that another sprint followed.
The financial cost has a visible cousin: staff time. Regular duties needed cover, and a sponsor needed access to resources. A participant’s doubt about agreeing on one proposal gave way to collective support. The useful thing to copy is the arrangement: a defined problem, a protected team, user feedback and named responsibilities afterward.
“we all supported one idea and worked together to improve it.”Ana Tomić, Mozzart marketing manager, in ICT Hub’s case study
A workshop cannot confer authority on people who lack it. The sensible reading of this case is conditional: the method needs a sponsor who can secure time and resources. Otherwise, the prototype risks becoming a handsome souvenir of a week that the organization cannot afford to repeat.
- 01Identify
value - 02Define
direction - 03Test a
prototype - 04Plan the
implementation
The machine got repetitive
Another published case concerned two companies validating a joint B2B offer. ICT Hub used separate custom GPTs for research preparation and analysis. Interviews and surveys supplied the evidence; instructions constrained the analysis to supplied material and required interview quotations behind conclusions.
The limitation emerged when interpretation grew more demanding. The model repeated similar conclusions without adding value. “AI is not an analyst,” the account concludes. People retained responsibility for priorities and recommendations. The client also received an internal assistant built around the research. Here, the useful distinction is between making evidence easier to retrieve and deciding what it means.
That distinction fits the company’s wider AI offer. ICT Hub advertises employee education, departmental adoption and agents, starting with readiness and business priorities. Its pitch connects technology to existing work. For a buyer, a sensible first question follows: which task should become faster, and how will the team measure the difference?
Four doors into the same business
A founder can approach the startup-support side. A corporate leader can seek research, strategy or implementation help. Development organizations can hire a program partner. A freelancer can rent workspace. These audiences have different purchasing habits, but they share an interest in moving from uncertainty to a workable next step.
The workspace website lists two central Belgrade locations, virtual offices and small-team offices. One published pass offers five working days, usable within a month, for €75. That price buys access to a workplace. Consulting buys a scoped engagement; the current Decision Sprint offer describes a validated direction within two to six weeks. The two products solve different problems.
Historical launch capital of ICT Hub Venture in 2017.
Capital for investing in startups, rather than a company funding round.
The venture history adds another route. A contemporaneous Southeast Europe report recorded three initial €30,000 investments. Serbia’s startup portal describes funding, company-building support and introductions to other funds. Equity makes this relationship different from renting a desk: an investor shares the uncertainty of the business it backs.
A network that has to earn its keep
ICT Hub occupies the junction between community space, consultancy, development work and startup capital. A prospective customer should choose by the job: access to peers, help validating an offer, a program implementer or investment support. Its distinctive proposition is the ability to connect those needs inside one working network.
In 2023, Switzerland and ICT Hub formally launched SME HUB, extending that approach to smaller Serbian businesses. Its latest ownership announcement gives Kosta Andrić majority ownership, with Dejan leaving and Slobodan remaining a minority shareholder during transition. The organization continues to change its own arrangements while selling help with change to others.
The reader’s takeaway is pleasantly ordinary. Before announcing an innovation initiative, specify the decision it must resolve, the people who can act on it and the time they can actually give it. ICT Hub’s most instructive work begins where the meeting invitation ends.