Aljoša Valentinčič of the Ljubljana Faculty of Economics lauded Slovenia's openness as an advantage in attracting talent, but assessed that the country will soon have to allocate more funds and energy to developing young generations.
Deana Jezeršek, co-founder and head of studies and development at LanguageSitter, and AmCham top potential of 2017, meanwhile highlighted the role of teachers and mentors.
"To fully develop talent, high expectations of mentors are crucial: without that the talent's potential cannot be fully developed."
She believes a change in education is needed to give a greater role to teachers and professors, whose importance people are not truly aware of: "We should never say that somebody is too good to be a teacher."
According to her, Slovenia is an excellent place to start a company, because there is plenty of know-how as well as good mentors. However, "we're still performing badly at keeping talents here ... it seems that we don't know what to do with them".
This was taken up by Adecco head Miro Smrekar, who believes that Slovenia does not do well in developing talents and using their potential. "Cooperation among the educational system, companies and society should be improved. We have to be open for various ideas," he said.
The event was held as an introduction to an international conference Talent Counts, which is held today at Brdo pri Kranju.
