About GEN in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Global Entrepreneurship Network has been connected to Bosnia and Herzegovina's entrepreneurial community since 2009 when the country first appeared among the roster of nations taking part in Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), led by the Republic Agency for Development of Small and Medium Enterprises (RARS). The Banja Luka-based government agency coordinated the country's GEW campaign, bringing together six partner organizations for seven events that reached 270 participants in that first fully-documented year.

The campaign grew steadily through its first four years and then control passed in 2013 to START Center, an entrepreneurial hub known for developing business incubation programs for early-stage startups, keeping the campaign anchored in the republic through 2022. While Bosnia and Herzegovina no longer fields an official campaign host organization, multiple organizations still hold events tied to GEW and this ecosystem-led approach keeps the country connected to the global movement each November.

In 2019, a collection of organizers maintained a local chapter of GEN's Startup Huddle program, hosted by Innovation Center Banja Luka, for supporting founders and building local startup communities through peer-driven, monthly meetups.

More recently, in 2026, Sarajevo-based Authority Partners led a virtual GEN Founders Academy workshop, supported by PayPal. The session focused on building enterprise-wide AI literacy and aligning AI investments with measurable business value while also balancing risk, compliance, and governance guardrails.

GEN’s presence in the Balkan country has also included a national affiliate which for several years connected local founders to the wider global network under Vladimir Corda. Corda, who was instrumental in rolling out GEW and Startup Huddle for START Center, described Bosnia and Herzegovina's ecosystem as still in an early stage of development with funding coming predominantly from foreign donors rather than local private capital. He pointed to a modest improvement in the policy framework for entrepreneurship over the years along with growing private-sector willingness to back entrepreneurship support programs.

GEN’s ongoing mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina is to keep the country’s founders, investors, and ecosystem builders connected to global markets, capital, and knowledge — helping ensure that the country's growing base of innovative, export-oriented startups can scale well beyond the region.