StanTech wins 2011 Aurea Award for investment of the year in Serbia

Belgrade-based company StanTech is the laureate of the award for the investment of the year Aurea 2011, which has been granted to the company by the business web portal eKapija for the design and production of an industrial automatic machine for slicing vegetables. In addition to the main award, two special awards have also been presented - one for the best innovation and the other for the best social utility. The title of the socially useful investment of the year went to Vulovic Transport for the production of the first Serbian low-floor city bus powered by natural gas, while a continuous biodiesel reactor, invented by the Faculty of Technology in Leskovac, won the title of the innovative project of the year. The winner of 2011 Aurea Award was decided by a six-member expert jury, while the seventh member of the jury were the users of eKapija and the visitors of the website www.aurea.rs

The main award was presented to the winner by Fiat automobili Srbija (FAS) CEO Giovanni de Filippis who supported eKapija's initiative with a great pleasure.

- I believe that innovations represent a sure path to success in all fields of business. The award Aurea promotes revolutionary and innovative ideas and we are sure that such actions encourage growing number of individuals and companies to develop and make progress - Giovanni de Filippis said at today's ceremony at Aeroklub in Belgrade.

(Giovanni de Filippis, Miodrag Djuric)

The award for the best innovation was presented by Toplica Spasojevic, the President of ITM Group, while Serbian Chamber of Commerce Vice Chairman Vidosava Dzagic presented the award for the best innovation.

Miodrag Djuric, StanTech Technical Director, said that Aurea confirmed that Serbia possessed educated engineering staff and that domestic technological solutions can astonish even the most demanding clients from the world's developed countries.

- The automatic onion slicer we have exported to the USA represents an innovation on the global level, while our system for slicing tomatoes has already been patented in that country. If you find yourself at McDonald`s, Burger King, or some other fast food restaurant in the USA, you should know that onion and tomato in your sandwich have been sliced using our machines. Last year we designed and produced two unique machines for the company Richon Electronic, of which affiliates in Europe and Japan have also expressed interest in these systems. We take pride in a wide range of high-capacity industrial packaging machines. In our long history, we have often been praised by foreign partners and clients, but Aurea is the first award ever granted to us by a media company. This award is even more significant when we know that eKapija is the most popular business web portal in Serbia, with the biggest number of users, and that eminent experts and prominent businessmen voted for our project. That is why I want to express the gratitude once again on behalf of the whole company to all those who have recognized the quality of our work - Mr. Djuric said after receiving the award.

(Toplica Spasojevic presents award to Zoran Vulovic)

Srdan Janicijevic, the president of the jury and the Director of the Institute of Economics in Belgrade, said:

- Every economy wishing to be competitive must be based on two foundations. First, the economy must be stable and enable participants in economic life to operate foreseeably. We have no influence on this condition. Second, the economy must develop, promote and confirm innovations in the market. Economies willing to invest in new products can compete by creating a new value. That makes one economy more competitive than the other. We have, unfortunately, neglected innovations as expensive and unnecessary. That is why this modest initiative is so important. Individuals have imagination, persistence, knowledge and faith to create a new value and, thus, improve the economic potential. If that cannot be understood by us, somebody else will understand, but we will also lose any benefit from profitable innovative ideas in that way. My congratulations to laureates - said Mr. Janicijevic.

(Vidosava Dzagic presents award to Miodrag Lazic)

In addition to awarded investments, another five projects were Aurea 2011 finalists. These are: an instrument for water quality control, a combine for picking raspberries and blackberries, a biomass power plant, a street LED lighting system, and a mobile machine for grinding used PET plastic bottles.

eKapija CEO Zdravko Loncar said he hoped that the competition for Aurea award would grow tougher every year, thus making the task of the jury more and more difficult.

- With Aurea 2011 award we want to give support to domestic companies and encourage them to make new investments, as well as to promote quality projects that often lack media attention because investments in them are small. That is why we are not focused only on financial expenditures of companies when setting criteria for Aurea because we are of the opinion that it is not the only condition for their success in the market. We are very proud of the fact that all investments that have been shortlisted for the award over the last three years stand out with the originality of technological solutions, quality of products, and great social utility - said Mr. Loncar.