For many, the beginning of student days just means adapting to new surroundings. For our scholarship holders, it is usually the beginning of many unforgettable experiences and beautiful friendships. This is the story of two friends, two Hastor Foundation scholarship holders whose wonderful friendship has spawned a multitude of innovative and productive ideas.

Amina Okanović and Ajna Čančar completed primary and secondary education in their hometown, Zenica. They are currently second-year students at the Polytechnic Faculty, University of Zenica, studying at the Department of Software Engineering. Although they were inclined to natural sciences in their high school days, due to a combination of different circumstances, they discovered their other side, which led them to a common turning point – the Polytechnic Faculty.

The idea for the NGO Cloud project arose as part of a project assignment for the course Software Analysis and Design, where Amina and Ajna and their team thought about doing something innovative that would improve their society. As all other team members are also volunteers in various NGOs, they’ve come to realize how difficult their work actually is. Accordingly, in cooperation with colleagues from the team, Amina and Ajna came up with the idea to digitalize the work that NGOs are currently doing.

Our primary goal was to unite several parties into one system. NGO Cloud is a platform that brings profit to almost everyone, starting with citizens who can quickly and efficiently search through any NGO and find out basic information and the latest news through NGOs that would keep records of their work on the platform, and finally, the government sector that is in charge of registering NGOs as well as issuing the necessary documents.

In this way, the idea of ​​the NGO Cloud project was born and the realization itself followed. Before starting out, the team decided to conduct surveys for NGOs and citizens to examine their opinions and attitudes.

We must admit that it was challenging to organize a survey of citizens, especially in the context of a pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus. After conducting this survey, we decided to survey non-governmental organizations to which we sent the form by e-mail.

After gathering the necessary information, they decided to implement the project and tried to extract the essence and unite the demands of non-governmental organizations and citizens. What was very challenging during the realization of the project, in addition to learning new programming languages ​​for creating such a project, was the time limit in which they had to successfully complete the first phase of the project. Still, good organization and discipline are the key to any success, so this team of 6 students successfully overcame all obstacles.

In this whole story, it is important to mention colleagues without whom all of this would not be possible, and they are Belma Dedić, Musab Kozlić, Nedžla Sitnić and Zlatko Totić.

After the end of the first phase, they visited the Ministry of Justice of Zenica-Doboj Canton, where they discussed and presented the implementation of the project with the representatives and collected all the necessary data for the continuation of this project.

It’s important to note that we have improved the position of non-governmental organizations and that in the future we face a new challenge – specifying and implementing the requirements we received from this ministry.

Amina has been a Hastor Foundation Scholar for five years. She found out about the Foundation in high school through her teacher.

Over the past five years as a scholarship holder, the Foundation has left a big mark on my life. I have met wonderful young people through volunteer activities, and it was those activities that helped me become a more responsible person and constantly strive to contribute to the work of the Foundation through volunteer engagement.

Ajna first heard of the Foundation in high school but spending time with Amina and talking about the Foundation encouraged her to do more online research online.

I was delighted with the work of the Foundation, its activism and vision. Looking at it all, I too wanted to become a member of such a large and successful team. During the five months that I have been a member of this great community, I have been given the opportunity to socialize and collaborate with wonderful people who have given me incredible support and encouraged me to be better and more successful each and every day.

As for their future plans, their primary goal is education – completion of the first and second cycle of studies, as well as training and acquiring new knowledge and skills so that they can become as successful as possible in this field.

We wish Amina and Ajna a successful realization of the NGO Cloud project, and we are sure that they will have the opportunity to better themselves even more by working on future projects.

Prepared by: Alek Isaković

Translated by: Ajša Đuherić