Project Smart Parking, by student of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, will enable easier finding of parking spots

Project 5X4SK – Smart Parking, created by Dražen Minić, student of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Montenegro, won the first prize at the Competition of the Career Center of the University for the best start-up idea. He was also awarded with the first special award- a three-day visit to the largest start-up campus in the world Station F, in Paris. The project Smart Parking treats the problem of finding a parking spot, in a way that it will connect parking devices with the parking application, which will give users the opportunity to find out how meny free parking spots are at a certain location

Awarded student said that this is not the first time to participate at a start-up competition, as well as that this idea came quite spontaneously.

"For a long time, at each step, you can hear people saying “I will be late, I cannot find parking spot " or people decide to use taxi services just becaouse they know that they will not be able to find parking spot at a certain location. I have been in this situation many times ", he explains, and adds that he noticed that this is a big problem in a contemporary society where time means money, as he said.

Student said that he was thinking about the way how to resolve this problem, and came up with the idea to connect parking service with smart phones through the application.

"In this way, users could use a map with parking spots in the city in real time, they could also make reservations of the spot so that they would not worry if somebody will take that place until they arrive to the location", he explained.

Dražen thinks that the interest of students for star-up ideas at a low level due to the fact that they are often not familiar with the competition demands, or because they consider that an idea is not good enough or the realiyation could be too demanding.

"They eather do not have enough funds or they are not ready to take the risk to start a start-up idea, resulting in a very low number of students willing to try to realize an idea. I believe that the main motivation is a will to change the society and to resolve a problem they have encountered themselves", he added.

He would like to send a message to his colleagues who wants to step into the world of start-up: "Apply to as many Calls and Competitions as you can, because this is the best way to get advice from competetnt persons and to get starting funds. Also, do not reject any developing idea, you can never know if someone will see the potential just in that idea ".