Slovenian science and technology are world-class. Besides a well-organized university system, public and private, the research institutes are vital partners in the field of technical support for the industry. The most important research institutes in Slovenia are Jožef Stefan Institut, Energy Efficiency Centre (www.ijs.si) and the NIB (National Institute of Biology). At the meeting, Prof. Dr Tamara Lah Turnšek, former Director at NIB and Dr stefan salej (SGBN) talked about the opportunities for Slovenian companies on the international level to cooperate with NIB. An outstanding example of such cooperation is a start-up BioLinker (www.biolinker.tech), founded at NIB by Mona Oliveira, PhD and Sandi Ravbar, and now successfully established in São Paulo, Brazil.

Many Slovenian high-tech companies have their origins in S&T institutions in Slovenia. One of them is XLAB d.o.o. (www.xlab.si), an outstanding IT company which operates in many countries around the world (Japan, USA, Germany, UK etc.). SGBN talked with one of the company founders and partner, Mr Jure Pompe, on how to expand their international presence through the SGBN’s networking platform. XLAB d.o.o. is already a 3rd Slovenian company which, in their international strategy, is utilising the contacts of the Slovenian business diaspora through the SLOVENIAN GLOBAL BUSINESS NETWORK.