The biggest startup event in Serbia this year was held on Saturday May 16th in Belgrade, with more than 700 people who attended a celebration of the growing local startup scene.

In some ways, what was celebrated under the motto We know we can was not just entrepreneurship, but a spirit of optimism, energy and determination in an apathetic country which takes second place in the world in the brain drain category due to harsh and absurd economic and social conditions.

Third generation of Startit Startup Academy will be graduating in front of 600+ people at the most important startup event in Serbia this year. Startup Academy Demo Day will be held on Saturday the 16 of May in Belgrade.

This event will also be an opportunity to get important updates from the Serbian startup community which will be gathered at this event. SEE ICT, NGO which has played an important role in kickstarting the local startups, will share important milestones in the evloution of the scene, look into trends that will shape the future and announce exclusively a number of new programmes.

Bulgarian accelerator Eleven is, many would agree, one of the greatest supporter for regional early strage startups. They have just annonced 12 new teams that have entered in the 8th batch of this accelerator which makes total of 95 teams funded.

Although focused mainly on tech startups, this time around Eleven is venturing offline quite seriously with its first apparel, second healthy food and one sanitary ware company.

Winners of Indie Prize Showcase were announced last night at the party after the second day of Casual Connect EE held in Belgrade. Among the competition of 40 indie developers from Eastern Europe, Serbian game Awakening of Heroes has been rewarded the first prize – critics choice.

More than 70 international speakers from 4 continents will take the stage at How to Web Conference 2014 to talk about technology, entrepreneurship and innovation in Bucharest 20-21 November.

Different topics will be covered – Internet of Things and the evolution of hardware startups, the revolution of electronic payments brought about by crypto-currencies, the opportunities and challenges of startup financing, including crowdfunding, or how and why it is the perfect moment to start building video games.

Silicon Gardens Fund is announcing its first set of 5 investments, that became part of their portfolio since May, when this regional fund based in Slovenia was launched. This means that they invested in one startup per month, which could be considered very active for a fund that is focused on SEE region.

Please visit Tesla Nation for the latest news and analysis of the Serbian tech scene.

Eleven Accelerator and its partners host 6 local events in the major startup cities in CEE as part of their annual tour Start Trek and bring along inspiring entrepreneurs, investors and partners from all over Europe including David Scanlon (Enterprise Ireland), Lorcan O’Sullivan (Start in Ireland), George Dita (How to Web), Lucie Montel (Rainmaking Loft) and Salim Virani (Founder Centric.)

In in 12 days StartTrek will visit Istanbul, Bucharest, Belgrade, Podgorica, Zagreb and Sofia. The mission of Start Trek is to inspire the local startup communities and empower community leaders from all over Europe and the event format is more developed than previous year – there will be a pitching session, lectures, workshop and networking.

As Casual Connect, one of the biggest gaming conferences in the world which is happening for the first time this year in Belgrade, we talked with the director of Casual Games Association, Jessica Tams. This year in November Casual Connect for Eastern Europe is gathering more than 800 game development experts and lovers in Belgrade, capital of Serbia.

Coinvest is a regional platform that is building a relationship between high-tech startup companies and investors. In October and November they organize Startup investment-readiness training for innovative projects from eight countries of the Adriatic region: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.