Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, many companies had to digitize their business to continue as much as normal business. Food and package deliverers were the ones who worked the most at the time of the lockdown. Even salespersons on the street market sold their products through platforms such as Facebook and its groups, and the same continued after the measures were relaxed. Even the state has accelerated its processes for things people would otherwise spend time at the counters, now some of them could be done online.

According to the results of the analysis of digital readiness of Croatian cities in 2020. Consulting company Apsolon announced that City of Koprivnica is among the cities in Croatia that have significantly jumped in the number of digitized forms and services, and interesting content for citizens. The conclusions of this year's study state progress compared to last year, especially in the number of online services they provide to citizens, but also shows that Croatian cities in the past year have not made a significant step forward in digital readiness and have not eliminated weaknesses and structural shortcomings in digitalization, which was pointed out by the first study.

According to the Lider media, there are 7 positive changes brought to us by coronavirus: a quantum leap in the digitalization of the private and public sectors, the growth of online shopping and the delivery of everything to the doorstep, generally accepted teleworking and flexible working hours, focus on local producers and increased purchases from family farms, contactless payment is becoming the standard, taking advantage of telemedicine, virtualization of events and meetings. 

The same media views the economic situation as an opportunity for some of the industries;

1. biological technology, 2. financial technology, 3. robotics, 4. medicine on demand, 5. solutions for ‘distance’ meetings. It states that entrepreneurs should be able to identify technological trends, market maturity, consumer needs and entrepreneurs in the market and be willing to step out of their current position to seize the right opportunity.

What to expect from this year? Several conferences on topic industry 4.0 are in preparation. Some of them are virtual like Lean Spring Summit Croatia, others will be organized in live like Digital Takeover, LEAP Summit, Croatia 4.0, and 4. Industrijska revolucija.

As far as ECOS4IN is concerned, ENTER is working on establishment of Digital Information Hub. Hub will represent place for community and co-working space for SMEs, Start-ups to connect and have fast Internet to work, will also provide consulting services and high tech equipment. The space may be used for education to encourage learning about technology, creation, innovation and funding resources. Info hub will apply different ICT tools to provide more quality services to its clients. Targeting businesses in North Croatia area including creative industries, startups, freelancers, remote workers, IT and other industries, it will represent place where information on needs of the region are collected, knowledge is transferred 

The project is funded by the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Program (https://www.interreg-central.eu) and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.