Bojana Obradovic, professor, scientist and manager at KreativTeh – Candies and applause are greatest reward

(Bojana Obradovic)

When a life offers you a lemon, you make lemonade. This is how she was thinking when she left Belgrade to go “across the ocean.” Although life has ruined her plans many times, she always succeeded in making the best out of the situation and achieving her objectives, sooner or later.

In her interview for eKapija, Bojana Obradovic, a professor at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy in Belgrade and the director of KreativTeh, is speaking about her student days in Belgrade, professional development and life in America, return to Serbia, entrepreneurship, work with students …

Music we listened to was very important to us

She was born in downtown Belgrade, in a middle-class family. She attended primary school Radojka Lakic and then the Third Belgrade Grammar School. She has great memories from concerts held at the SCC during “the gold” seventies. She has always been associating “crazy” eighties with the quality music she still listens to.

- I remember my high school and faculty days as well-being, security, peace. We were not burdened with politics, we cared about what kind of music we listened to. I liked the black wave and a bit of punk while disco, heavy metal and folk were out of question – a professor, who was then as everybody else going to concerts in Levi’s blue jeans and All stars sneakers, remembers.

She acquired love for natural sciences in a family. Her mother, technology engineering, developed a love for technology and science for it provided “width” because it comprises physics, math and chemistry. Her father was a forestry engineer so natural sciences have always been present in the family. Therefore, the final choice was the Faculty technology and metallurgy.

- Friendship at the faculty is something I strongly remember from the student days. My colleagues from the faculty and I were very enthusiastic that we will open a designing company where we would practically implement the knowledge we acquired – she sadly remembers, adding that she graduated in 1990 when difficult years for Serbia came so their idea was never implemented.

Although during her student days she did not think about academic career, she accepted an invitation from professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and became an apprentice researcher at the Faculty.

(with Miomir Knezevic and Smadar Cohen at the Summer School in Piran in 2009)

When you're missing the taste of cherries…

Even though she did not plan, she left to America in 1993 for her postgraduate studies. In comparison to the American youth, Bojana did not have a clear vision of her life at that time.

- When a faculty professor asked me how I saw myself in five years time, I said I could not respond because in only one year, life changed the plans I had. I wanted to have a designing company with my faculty colleagues, to develop myself in Europe, in Switzerland and in short period of time, everything changed and I did researches in a lab, obtained my MS degree in Belgrade and came to USA.

Although she came for another master degree, planning to stay in America only a couple of years, professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic enabled her PhD thesis at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology – MIT so she came back to Serbia in 1999, with the PhD thesis from the TUFT"S University.

Although she experienced a splendor of life abroad, nostalgia and constant feeling of being far away from, as professor Obradovic says, did not abandon her and they were increasing over the years.

- Until you leave, you are not aware of what you could miss. These appear to be minor things which do not appear to be so minor there. I missed everything.

She adds that people have a wrong picture when they think that all problems disappear if they leave the country because during your lifetime “you always have problems and it is only the question whether these you have here or those you have there are more difficult”.

Students as inspiration

The nineties, both for Bojana and her contemporaries, were the crossroads in life. The crossroads was also the year of 1999 when she came back to Serbia, at her native faculty and where she works as a full-time professor.

- The work with students motivates and inspires me. When I was a student, I thought it was a boring thing to lecture the same stuff year in year out. However, I realized that generations respond in a different manner. The true revelation is a dynamic environment with young people which inspires me every day with their positive view of the world.

(Bojana receives an award for the best female team at the Best Technological Innovation contest in 2012)

KreativTeh

Although she has always strived for finding the way to practically implement her knowledge, together with a professor Vesna Miskovic-Stankovic and two PhD students, she developed an idea on biomedical medicaments based on alginate and silver nano particles synthesized by original technology intended for the treatment of different kinds of hurts. The innovation grew into the KreativTech project which was registered in 2011 as the spin-off “company of the Technological-metallurgy faculty”.

Scientists from KreativTeh did all the laboratory researches and as of February 1, they have started researches as well on animals within the project of an early development of the Innovation activity fund so that their products would get medical purpose.

- We are now trying to find partners which could start production of these medicaments because KreativTech is not a production company but it deals with product research and development - a collocutor of eKapija who is hoping to succeed in this soon points out.

Good team is the key of the progress

Although she says it is not easy to align academic career with commitments entrepreneurship brought, a professor Obradovic claims it is much easier if you work in a pleasant atmosphere and in the right team which a key to progress.

- Entrepreneurship is very demanding but it is creative and inspirational as well. Therefore, I make a balance between all my commitments. It is very important to have one man or a complementary team which has a common vision of progress on an innovation because one man cannot implement an idea in the right manner without the support of others.

(with her nieces Anja and Zoja in Paris)

Apart from good associates, time spent with family and friends is priceless for her and she finds a relief in yoga which she has been practicing for years and to which she “owns” het good mental and physical health.

- I visited numerous yoga seminars in the country and abroad where I always meet new people full of positive energy – Bojana is saying, adding that she likes travelling and that she has friends worldwide whom she often visits because she thinks that space and time are not important for the real friendship.

Teacher of tables

Although she has a number of scientific awards, published works in prestigious scientific magazines, generations of students she was lecturing to, Bojana Obradovic says she achieved her biggest success while still a third grade in primary school.

- Our teacher had a theory the better the student the worse the lecture. Since I have always been responsible, I took seriously my role of “a teacher” of tables. Thus, my friend-student corrected his D to C and my biggest prize were candies I got from his mother – Bojana remembers and adds this was the first step towards teaching she is very proud of.

She thinks of the Summer School of Cell and Tissue Engineering as a big professional success.

(Summer School of Cell and Tissue Engineering, Belgrade 2006)

Success comes sooner or later

Although cheerful and smiley, Bojana Obradovic has phases of inspiration and disappointment as well as questioning of herself and her decisions.

- I sometimes get disappointed with the situation when a small number of students passes the exam or when they say they did not study. Then I ask myself whether my effort makes any sense. I may sometimes have unreal expectation and sometimes life places obstacles difficult to overcome.

Regardless of those temporary disappointments in life, optimism never leaves her and she always looks ahead and “moves on”.

- You can always do something for yourself and others, to get something going because many things depend on you. If you are sitting and waiting for somebody to help you, you will never succeeed in doing anything – our collocutor concludes, adding that if somebody already did something "why couldn’t we do it? The question is only whether we will succeed sooner or later.”

Irina Milosevic