.ME Donates Funds for the Development of Two Montenegrin Startups
Here at .ME we’ve always firmly believed in providing an online home for all those who value the power of having a personal space in the world of the Internet. We aim to keep our neighbourhood safe from harm and ensure every .MEr feels safe in their online home.
For the past 11 years, since founding Domain.ME, we have invested over a million euros in the community through various CSR activities intended to raise awareness in Montenegro about the benefits of the digital world and equip people, especially youth, with skills needed to successfully navigate it.
But the appearance of COVID-19 pandemic has put many in our community, both offline and online one, at greatest risk and grave position. That is why earlier this year we donated 25,000 EUR for the purchase of a respirator and necessary medical equipment for the Montenegrin health system.
Trguj.ME and Honorarium: Digital Solutions to Advance Montenegrin Economy
Around the same time, we began talks with two local initiatives – Trguj.Me and Honorarium, which stood out at the first Montenegrin online hackathon for COVID-19 relief, CoronaThon.me, held during the month of April.
At the hackathon, the Trguj.ME team presented the idea of creating a domestic platform for online sales of agricultural products. The platform would be used by anyone involved in agricultural production, without the cost of site development.
All domestic products will be highlighted in searches and will bear a special trademark of geographical origin. We want to encourage the purchase of domestic products and reduce the export of money from our country.
The representative of the team behind the Trguj.Me platform, Ivan Radunović, explains that as the creators of the platform, they will take special care of greater visibility of domestic production.
On the other hand, the Honorarium team presented the idea of creating a platform that will connect those who offer certain services or skills, with the demand for the same. Their platform will operate in a way that creates profiles and opportunities for greater interaction than standard classified ads, thereby rendering more engagement and more optimum results.
Alike many ideas that never reach full realisation, Honorarium faced the same imminent danger. However, quite unexpectedly we received a call from the representative of Domain.ME, telling us they’d like to support our idea by offering us financial support along with business advice, in order to help us reach a clear concept of how to further develop the platform. We hope that the realization of this project will result in more innovative projects and that together we will help develop the digitalization of our society.
Explained Mladen Mihailović, who will work on developing the Honorarium platform.
Based on the inventiveness of the ideas both teams presented, especially when observed in terms of the impact on the Montenegrin economy, we decided to donate 40,000 EUR for these two young teams and support them on their path of development as businesses.
