Having completed only elementary school, he has always been working for other people, and that was neither easy nor it paid well. He realised that only by starting his own business could he accomplish his goals. As a carpenter, he had skillful hands, but that was all he had. Starting a carpentry production was not easy, and he did not have the necessary skills to make that happen.
Much to his luck, in the end of 2007, Business Start-up Center (BSC) started its operations in Kragujevac by training young entrepreneurs free of charge. Bratislav eagerly embraced this sudden opportunity, and became one of the first members of the BSC family. And he still is today.
"BSC trainings are worth much more than any kind of financial help. Having spent the previous year participating at the BSC trainings, I have completely entered the world of entrepreneurship and acquired knowledge and skills that no money can buy", Bratislav points out.
Ambitious and venturesome, Bratislav has big plans. "Ikea is no. 1, I'll be no. 2", he says with a smile and adds his motto he once learned from a wise man: "Have big dreams, otherwise you'll end up achieving a bunch of small ones". Bratislav Petković's big dreams are coming true now.
Slavica Scepanovic, Business Plan Competition winner, Bar. Aging is a natural process, even in healthy people. Everyone becomes old and illness is a part of one's life. Nevertheless, there seems to be a great shortage in any kind of social care for elderly people. Bearing all this in mind, Slavica Šćepanović has chosen to care for the elderly, since the Employment Agency launched a pilot project "Take care of elderly persons in Bar" in 2004. The activities of the project were united within the organisation Caritas in 2007.
After five years of theoretical training and practical work with Third Age persons, during which Slavica analysed current needs and expectations of the elderly, she came to the conclusion that there is a great interest in these services. Slavica decided to participate in Business Plan Competition in Bar with the plan to start an agency, which would offer services to elderly and sick persons. There is no competing agency in Montenegro at the moment, and as such it represents a unique form of non-institutional social care for elderly and disabled persons. Today the agency, named "IMPULS", operates with two full-time employees and five volunteers.
Claudy te Boome, Ecorys in Rotterdam:“We are very satisfied with the cooperation with SPARK/ ATA. This programme is a very attractive way for us to get intern’s from the Balkan’s. The interns have learned very quickly about our work and have been very supportive in the acquisition process of international EU funded projects. Among others she has written two reports on Business Development for the Balkans and MEDA region, supported the proposal writing of a Women Entrepreneurship project for Turkey and a regional development project for Croatia”.
Prof. Francis R. Ille, International reviewer of PSD research projects. “What is very interesting in the approach promoted by SPARK is the association of distinguished though young faculty members of major universities of three Western Balkan countries to put together and compare the organizations and programmes existing in their respective countries which have all been facing difficult political situation since the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991. The methodology used by our triad of professors is very academic but something that is not so common for academia is the high level of concern for private sector interests”.
Valton Berisha moved back to Kosovo to accomplish his dreams SPARK's Business Start-up Center in Kosovo has generated the first 25 start-ups. Read more about how the business plan competition convinced Valton Berisha to move back to Kosovo and accomplish his dreams.
Results 
Claudy te Boome, Ecorys in Rotterdam:
