Hello, World!

What I am working on right now

Whailer. Founder

DeSciBelgrade. Founder & Managing Director.

Data Science Conference. One of the fastest-growing data science & AI communities in Europe. Trying to be helpful since 2018.

Project F. Consulting, when they ask for it. Currently advising 2 early-stage startups on strategy and fundraising.

What I am learning right now

I am currently self-studying finance & business administration (something like self-thought MBA), and continuing to sharpen my coding skills. 

Something like a short byline

Highly entrepreneurial and curious, Filip is inspired by working on projects and causes with high levels of impact, especially where he can contribute the most. Searching for “radical innovations”.

Highly skilled in leadership (founded 10+ orgs and initiatives, including nonprofits, businesses, startups and civic/political formations), community organizing (organized events in 5 countries, reaching thousands of people in total, including 8 hackathons), project management (conceived and managed countless projects over the last 10+ years), writing (ran a content writing studio and writes (almost) every day, communication (led several campaigns), and strategy (8 years of independent consultancy experience).

As a generalist, operator, and self-starter, he’s interested in both dirty sleeves hands-on stuff as well as in philosophical, bigger-picture questions, like speculating about AI ethics, next-generation Internet, emerging world order, and the future of the venture capital industry.

Filip’s work in the field of open data was recognized by the European Commission and the Government of Serbia. Besides, he was invited to speak at more than 30 public events in 5 countries and his work was featured in many media outlets, including CNN (Brazil).

Believer in open knowledge/data.  

What I’ve started (and why)

A friend, kidding: “Man, is there anything around that you haven’t started?!”
Many (especially new) friends get lost when I start talking about the things that I was working on and about the things I plan to do.

Seriously, I do love to start things and poke what’s around me, sometimes as a founder, but mostly as a co-founder. Bringing people together is one of my biggest superpowers. It’s also one of my favorite joys in life.

Here is the (incomplete) list of what I’ve started with a few contextual notes:

PeerSpace. Founder. We were building products, using decentralized storage infrastructure in ways not done before. Built the easiest way to create a deploy decentralized websites.

DeSci Belgrade. Community founder. 

Brave Content Writing. Co-founder, Strategy & (Business) Development, Writer.

The first company I co-founded in the US. Wanted to experiment with writing for money.

Exited.

Corona Love Stories (2020) / online publishing project & totally unplanned startup

Corona Love Stories is a publishing project that supports international long-distance relationship couples during the Coronavirus pandemic. It was heavy for us LDR people when airplane traffic was shot down. Almost ended up as a full-time niche startup.

CO:IMAGINE (2020) / experimental collaboration platform

CO:IMAGINE is a science fiction collaboration platform founded to explore the future with artistic visions and storytelling grounded in science and technology. 

A placeholder brand. Still sketching an alternative launch scenario. Covid-19 🙁 The ride should’ve started in Portland in April 2020. On hold, but revisiting once in a while.

Focal Point Digital (2017) / web development shop

I’ve assembled a team of designers and developers, forming a company and onboarding first clients. Managed several dev projects from 0 to 1.

Exited.

Hacking Politics (2016) / hacktivism 

I was inspired by what was happening in London, and I was really into hacktivism then.

I did two hacks. One in Belgrade and one in Sarajevo.
Realized it’s not safe (we had an unexpected police visit in Belgrade) and that there’s no cash to support the ecosystem development, hence not sustainable in the long run. Maybe I’ll come back to it in the future.

Connecting (2014) / non-profit organization

Let’s do something great for our city, let’s focus on the youth. We should definitely start with startups.

Connecting is a non-profit from Pancevo, Serbia, promoting entrepreneurship, startups, lifelong learning, and education for the 4.0 revolution.

Exited. 

GAJP (2013) / public policy think-tank organization

Co-founded a policy NGO with colleagues from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade. We did a lot of cool things first, like investigating drug policies in Portugal or the digital state in Estonia, or opening the theme of AI and politics. Besides coming up with projects, I was also an Editor.

Exited in 2018.

Zagadjeni Nacisto (2014) / grassroots political movement

My hometown was the most polluted city in Serbia, if not the whole Balkans region. The sky was painfully dirty yellow for days one summer so we kickstarted a movement. We did a lot of creative cause campaigning. I was in charge of all the coordination and all online operations, and a few guerrilla hacks.

VOXER (2016) / media platform 

An attempt to bring deliberative and participatory democracy to a local level by generating public discussions on relevant local topics. 

I invested some of my cash in the project.
We couldn’t make it sustainable so we stopped.

“It’s Enough” (Pancevo) (2014) / political movement

A startup executive (dot-com era) started a political movement in Serbia promoting things like the VC industry (non-existent at that time), tax reforms, and a fully transparent government. I was responsible for building the organization in the city of Pancevo, managing 20 people, and leading the election campaign.  

I soon realized that I am not meant to be a politician. And definitely not in my early twenties. 

Techfugees (Belgrade) (2016) / humanitarian tech & hacktivism 

The world and Europe were hit by the biggest humanitarian catastrophe after World War 2. Startup folks decided to try to help refugees with the smart use of technology.

Belgrade was the fourth city in the world to join the global movement. I founded the Belgrade chapter and did two hackathons, a lot of match-makings, and a few community events. 

Smart and Simple Communications (Serbia) (2014) / pr & marketing

A few friends started a very unsuccessful business.  We had a great office though. Copy(writer). Directed one promotional video. 

Selected clients and talks

Clients 🕴️

Zentrix (Estonia/Serbia) – blockchain business development consultant gig (2023)

Radio Free Europe (Prague) — Data Journalism in Western Balkans (2020), Data Journalism in Tbilisi, Georgia and Prague, Czech Republic (2021) // data journalism innovations and hackathons / link

Techfugees (Paris & London) — Techfugees Global Summit, Station F, Paris (2018) // conference program & workshops

Logikka (Belgrade) — Data Science for Entrepreneurs (2019) // project concept & project management 

VoterSpace / Voterblockchain (US) — Blockchain for voting and elections (2018 & 2019)

NewGov Foundation (US) — Civic tech platform (2016) // fundraising, product

TechSoup (Poland) — Open Data in the Balkans region (Serbia)  (2018) // project management 

Data Science Conference (Serbia) — (2018 & 2019 & 2020 & 2021 & 2022 & 2023)

Neowings (Germany) — Fundraising strategy (2020) // fundraising

I’ve also contributed to several Working Groups, collaborating with the government of/in Serbia in several domains. 

Talks 💬

“Regulations, Network States & Decentralized Science” (Panel) / DeSci Belgrade conference (June 2024)

“Emerging DeSci ecosystem” (Lecture) / Bloxberg Conference, Faculty of Organizational Sciences (November 2023)

“Opportunities in decentralized science” (Lecture) / Attic42 (September 2023)

“Open Data: Why, What, How & Wow” (Lecture) / Code Fest, Macedonia (April 2017)

“Development of open data in Serbia” (Lecture) / Kehl, Germany –  conference organized by European Commision (September 2017)

“Venture Capital 101” (Lecture) / Pancevo, Serbia – Rotary Club meeting (April 2023)

“Why DeSci?” (Opening Keynote) / Belgrade, Serbia – World of DeSci: Belgrade conference (June 2023)

“Why open data”? (Lecture) / Startit Center Vršac, Serbia (March 2018)

“What is open data and why should we care?”  (Lecture) / Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (December 2017)

Belgrade Venture Forum: Open Data (Panel) / Belgrade, Serbia (October 2017)

“The role of technology in a humanitarian crisis” (Panel) / Point Conference, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo (May 2016)

“AI for Good” (Panel), Data Science Conference, Belgrade (November 2019)

“AI in Government” (Panel), Data Science Conference, Belgrade (November 2020)

“Fundraising 101” (Lecture), online/word (March 2021)

“AI in Public Services” (Panel), ICEDA project, online/ Western Balkans (June 2021)

“What does ethical AI actually mean?” (Panel), Data Science Conference, online/word (November 2021)

Other interesting stuff

Startup Supermarket. We’ve organized the first summer startup school in Serbia in 2014. 

Policy Days. I’ve conceptualized the public policy conference that gathers 150 people annually for the last 8 years.

Campaigning. Earned a few front-page media covers. 

Impact numbers. Reached thousands through NGO activism and implemented more than 20 different, mostly educational programs.

“Bridging Serbia”. Creatives from Portland, Oregon, and Serbia wrote a book about Serbia. Published. 

Published poet. I sent a poem once to an open call. They thought it was cool and published it. Wrote 400 in high school.

Basketball. Almost professional. I was staying up all night to catch a piece of NBA action. My playing style? Allen Iverson!

Astronomy. Organized 3 astronomy camps and several events. 

Web developer. I’ve created several websites.

Journalism. Published articles on electronic music festivals, internet business models and culture, tech, politics, and many other unrelated themes.

Parties. Organized countless, some were medium size (200 people). Adore electronic music. Mostly weird stuff. Loove to dance.

Hackathons. Always a pleasure.

Why “never stops”?

Someone I respect once told me that it’s one of the best domain names for a personal website. It was a gift from one of the dearest friends who was – and still is – frustrated with my intensity and inability to stop.

I also don’t ever plan to stop starting new, necessary things.
And I’ll probably be working on something on the day I die.