Domen Bole is a founder and managing director of Co-creation, providing key expertise in the start-ups, entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem development, and he acts as advisor to top management of Business Incubator of University of Ljubljana and supports the development of teams and start-ups coming mainly from academia.

As seasoned startup coach and mentor with 10+ years of experience, Domen helps early stage startups develop and validate their business models and raise funds using running lean methodology. He has supported over 400 startups within startup competitions, acceleration programs, startup incubators, technology parks in South eastern Europe.

All together Domen has more than 20 years of international professional experience as research assistant, founder of start-ups, interim manager in SMEs and corporate entrepreneur with investment fund experience. He has extensive global network with masters focused in Entrepreneurship and certifications in Intellectual Property Valuation and Technology Transfer. He is also a co-author of SEE Startup Report 2018 and several other publications in field of startup ecosystem development.

Areas of Expertise:

• Early stage Business model development
• Running lean methodology
• Found raising & pitching
• Seed investments

Mr. Gil-Ad brings more than 25 years of experience in management of large R&D projects. Prior to founding NovellusDx, Haim Gil-Ad was the CEO of Optigo Systems Ltd., a vertically integrated high-tech company developing technology-oriented products and a leader in electro-optical R&D that was acquired by the Elta Co. of Israel Aerospace Industries. Prior to joining Optigo, Mr. Gil-Ad pursued an extensive career with the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD) as head of major international R&D and full-scale development programs. Mr. Gil-Ad earned a B.Sc. in Engineering from Tel-Aviv University and an MBA from Ben-Gurion University. He has twice been awarded the Israel National Quality Award.

Daniel Jamieson is the CEO and founder of Biorelate. He founded Biorelate during his PhD in computational biology at the University of Manchester, UK, after supporting the successful development of drug re-purposing opportunities with Pfizer. Over the last 6 years Daniel has overseen the growth of a blooming global business backed by VC investment of over £1M, with over 25 employees and a growing range of major industrial players on-board as clients. Biorelate is now recognised as one of the breakthrough AI drug discovery companies and Daniel’s focus remains on growing it into a world leading enterprise, helping pioneering companies in developing the innovations of the future.

Janko Ignjatović holds a master of pharmacy degree from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade in Serbia. Upon finishing master studies, he continued his academic and scientific development by enrolling in doctoral studies at the module of Drug Analysis at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, Serbia.
Moreover, his curiosity and motivation to contribute to science and healthcare led him to further expand his expertise and professional development within pharmaceutical companies GSK and Novartis. Furthermore, during his postgraduate development he was declared as individual winner of Regional BioCamp, a forum connecting academics and industry in Ljubljana capital of Slovenia, thus he gained the right to participate in the Global BioCamp which was organized in headquarters of pharmaceutical company Novartis in Basel, Switzerland. There he was selected as an individual winner of the global Novartis BioCamp 2014. For this achievement he was awarded a professional training and a visit at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in Beijing and Shanghai in the People's Republic of China.

Motivated to continue with his passion to foster application of academic knowledge in the industrial field and give his contribution to shaping the healthcare, he pursued a career of research scientist in Novartis global drug development department for biopharmaceutical drugs in Mengeš, Slovenia.
In addition to working in pharmaceutical industry, he enrolled and completed an additional doctorate studies in the field of Biotechnology of the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, where the primary focus of his research is protein aggregation and its potential immunogenicity.
Janko continued with further personal and professional development in the field of management, leadership, economics and project management within courses in prestigious International Executive Development Centre (IEDC) in Bled, Slovenia. Currently, he is attending Masters in Business Administration (MBA) studies at the Faculty of economics and centre for business excellence in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Dr Mellad is a scientist entrepreneur passionate about translating innovative technologies into better patient outcomes. As CEO and co-founder of Start Codon, he aims to identify and recruit the most disruptive healthcare start-ups across Europe, seed-fund them and drive their success. Previously, he was the CEO of Cambridge Epigenetix which has developed a proprietary epigenetic biomarker discovery platform for the development of new diagnostic assays and the identification of novel drug targets. While at Cambridge Epigenetix, Jason transformed the research tools company into a leading liquid biopsy player and led two successful fundraisers (Series B and C) for a total of $51m. Prior to joining Cambridge Epigenetix, Jason was a Business Development Manager for Horizon Discovery’s diagnostics division, being responsible for developing and launching new reference standards for genomic clinical assays. Jason obtained his PhD in Medicine from the University of Cambridge with a focus on the molecular mechanisms regulating vascular remodelling within coronary artery bypass grafts.

Nick is a co-founder and CEO of Accunea Ltd, a medical device company with real time diagnostic monitoring products for patients with AKI and is the Director of Precision Medicine Strategy for New Medicine Partners, UK.

Nick has a PhD in Microbial Genetics from University of Warwick followed by post graduate research (genomics/biotechnology) at Harvard (DFCI, 1995) and Oxford (Biochemistry, 2000). At Oxford, the research in Professor Sir Ed Southern’s laboratory led to the creation of the spin out company Oxford Gene Technology Limited. Nick went on to secure a fellowship in technology transfer at the University of Warwick and then to Manchester as a business consultant to UMIC, mentoring entrepreneurs and commercial development of the bioincubator. This was followed by heading up the business group at Warwick HRI (2008) and the creation of Warwick Enterprise Park for provision of incubation facilities. Nick held several senior level positions as Scientist, CEO, NED, investor and Chairman in several start up enterprises such as the Oxford University start-up Oxagen (Human Genetics, 2003) Novolytics (antimicrobial therapeutics, 2010), BioMimox (peptide aptamers, 2014), Arcamis (business consulting, 2010), and has served as the Director of Business Development at OBN (2012). Nick has raised significant public, private, VC and business angel funding (Beer and Partners, 2013) for several businesses (multiple £M) and was a coach for the Growth Accelerator programme. More recently Nick created the Molecular Diagnostics Centre within the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, building self-sustainability models and international collaborations and partnerships. Nick also led the successful bid to become the Oxford Genomics Medicine Centre and the Director of the Programme. Nick is a current member of the Diagnostics Advisory Council in Oxfordshire; has advised on Genomics products for ThermoFisher; was a lecturer at MIB (Manchester) in genomics; and graduated (2016) with a PGDiP in Strategy and Innovation from the Said Business School in Oxford.

Tony is an entrepreneur with exits and an authority on corporate innovation, entrepreneurship, start-ups, scaling and leveraging emerging technologies, capabilities and business models including circular economy. He is especially focused on Environment, Healthcare, Social Impact, purpose driven organisations.

He is currently a Board Member & Venture Partner of UNDP, International Trade Centre & Pfizer backed sustainability venture accelerator Accelerate2030 in Geneva that scales the impact of companies working towards positive social and environmental change aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

As an entrepreneur in residence with UK government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme he specialises in environmental, social impact, renewable energy and healthcare innovation combining positive impact with high commercial performance and access to finance for growth and scale at a global level.
Tony is active in research and academia and is a visiting lecturer and mentor at the University of Cambridge; Judge Business School, Entrepreneurship Centre, University of Cambridge; Department of Engineering, Institute for Manufacturing, INSEAD and the University of Cairo with focus on the UN SDG’s and the circular economy.

His corporate experience includes being a member of the Executive Board of T-Mobile International & Deutsche Telekom's corporate venturing T-Ventures as global EVP Business Development & Innovation and Group Managing Director of Bauer Digital for the €1.4bn M&A and post- merger integration of EMAP PLC. He has held senior international leadership positions in FMCG brand marketing (Nestle, Diageo).
His start-up and growth stage experiences include being the co-founder of mobile entertainment company Mobilephonia, leading the turnaround and sale of digital services agency Bluewave (Maersk portfolio) and the leadership team for an $800m IPO (NASDAQ: ACOM). He was co-founder and founding investor of accelerator Springboard (acquired by Techstars) and founder of Health-Tech Company Dupl (IP sale Optima), which provides context to biometric sensor data.

He is an investor and board advisor in mobile technology, digital media, nanotechnology, sustainability, CleanTech, HealthTech and software ventures with M&A exits to Oracle, Piksel, Nokia and Opentext.

Tony has an MBA from Henley Business School specialising in corporate venturing, BSc (Hon) Physics & Electronic Systems, from Brunel University, certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner from University California, Santa Cruz and the Technische Universiteit Delft in Circular Economy.

From 2013, Jelena has been positioned as Acting Director of the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, at the University of Belgrade and from 2016 Head of the Laboratory for Molecular Microbiology, IMGGE.

Her research focus is on fundamental research in the field of molecular microbiology and also on the application of biotech in food and pharmaceutical industry. She has particular expertise in research related to lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and their probiotic potential and mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in different microorganisms. Jelena has published more than 50 papers in leading international journals in the field.

From 2013 she has been involved as a Lecturer in the Faculty of Pharmacy in a doctoral study program Microbiology and Immunology.

In 2016 she established the Technology Transfer Office in IMGGE and she is actively involved in all activities related to technology transfer. In addition, through intensive collaboration with industry she is focused on implementation of open innovation concepts both within the Institute and in the country. She is a coordinator and participant in numerous scientific and innovative national and international projects including those with the industry.

Dr Lara Dobrkovic is Clinical Lead Director and Country Manager for Serbia in IQVIA, one of the leading CRO companies in the world. She is managing group of Clinical Leads around the world; and overseeing dozens of clinical studies for new medicines in Central Nervous System and Gastro-Intestinal system. Prior to taking role in management and oversight, she worked herself for few years as leader of big, multicentric and international projects in various indications, and started her carrier in clinical research as Clinical Research Associate working closely with biggest hospitals in Serbia. Overall, she has over than 15 years of Pharmaceutical industry experience, with the last 12 years in management and leadership positions of various departments within the company.
She graduated from Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade and obtained academic specialization in Pharmaceutical Medicine. She speaks fluent English and Spanish, and has medium level knowledge of German. In her free time, she is inclined to all kinds of sports activities.

Miloš Matić is Senior Venture Associate at ICT Hub Venture, first privately owned early-stage venture capital fund in Serbia. Miloš is in charge of funds operations, portfolio management and development, mapping and sourcing of startups from the SEE region. As a part of ICT Hubs’ ecosystem, Miloš is in charge of building the entrepreneurship community and mentoring local startups.

He is the part of the Google Launchpad Mentor Programme, a global community of verified mentors for startups, and he is called to be a mentor for many other local and regional programs such as Biosense Accelerator, Startup Academy in Montenegro, Startup Week in North Macedonia and many others. Miloš is also Ambassador and Advisor for Global Startup Awards competition and entrepreneur himself.

Additionally, Miloš is a member of two working groups of Digital Initiative Serbia and Ministry of innovation and technology development of the Government of Serbia, both aiming to further develop the startup ecosystem and capital markets in Serbia.

He previously worked for UNDP and Microsoft Development Center Serbia.