After seeing the European call for ideas in the field of information technology in culture, the team brainstormed ideas and then developed the plan for the yugo web application. A month and a half ago they were chosen as one of the 12 prize winners in the call. And that would be a short summary of the key phases in the development of yugo. It might sound simple, but of course it isn't.
Zarja Vintar, the director of the Kofein design studio, says it took a lot of hard work and creativity. Together with the help of outside partners the company developed the application, with which they also wish to raise cultural awareness. Better said, the idea is still being developed, as it's now in the realization stage, where everything usually gets stuck due to a lack of funds. But let's start from the beginning.
The concept of the call was different
The company, which has been active for 20 years now, deals with market communication. This is their first endeavor on the path of developing new web applications. The company has been submitting applications to different calls, home and abroad. "This call was special. The European Commission hired three agencies to carry it out: a German, a Dutch and an English agency. The goal was to collect ideas, not completed projects, but just ideas," explains Ms. Vintar.

The call for applications was made out for ideas including new technology in the field of culture. The main prize wasn't a financial one, but education and networking. "They promised all the prize winners that they would forward their pilot projects to potential capital at so-called pitching events, where potential investors could look through the list of ideas and eventually decide to financially back one of them."
"As it was only about ideas we had a different approach to the project: we had an enthusiastic brainstorming process without setting any limits. Apart from our team, outside partners, including researchers and university associates, also took part in the process," explains Ms. Vintar.
The idea they brought forward was an application for mobile phones. They imagined themselves as an end user and pictured a phone application which would show the most favourable cultural event of that evening, without the click of a button.
“We then wondered whether that could really be done. We came to the conclusion, that it could,” is how Ms. Vintar described the beginning. "On one side we would have to build a base for all the world's cultural events, which we would have to equip with certain characteristics and information. On the other side we would also have to build a personal base for different user profiles. The third important aspect is location: the user would get different suggestions, depending on his location."
Among the 600 ideas 2 Slovenian ones
600 different ideas submitted their applications to the call. The yugo application was chosen among the top 12 in different categories. However among those 12 ideas you can find not one but two Slovenian ideas. Apart from yugo you can also find an application called StoryGuides – Europe through legends. It presents an upgrade of an idea, used in the framework of the European Capital of Culture project in Maribor, on how to use legends to introduce the history of towns to children.
“We won in the ‘spread culture’ category. But as we mentioned there were 2 Slovenian projects among the 12 prize winners, which is exceptional," says Ms. Vintar.