XPRIZE Rainforest competing team

Kreativno pero

Pređi na Srpski jezik Photo by Kunal Shinde on Unsplash
From more than 300 registered teams, we are one of the selected 36 teams from 18 countries to advance to the second round of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition.
We are a team of young educated enthusiasts, nature lovers who are working to create a more hopeful future for all. Our team consists of biology, physics, geography and ICT professors, the environmental engineer, mechanical and aerospace engineers, and students from ES Kreativno pero.
“The forest is not a resource for us, it is life itself. It is the only place for us to live.”
- Evaristo Nugkuag Ikanan
Photo by Waren Brasse on Unsplash

Aleksandra Nedeljković

TEAM LEADER

Aleksandra Nedeljković is one the Founders with her sister Gorica Nedeljkovic Bogdanović and she is the School Board President of Educational System Kreativno pero.

Their vision is to create a school that sets a balance between education and knowledge, gaining traditional values and spirit of the time, fostering awareness of belonging to the community and responsibility towards others.

Gorica Nedeljković Bogdanović

PR LEADER

Gorica Nedeljković Bogdanović is one of the Founders with her sister Aleksandra Nedeljković and she is a psychologist, an environmental activist.

She is the leader of the PR team.

Vuk Vujović

TECHNICAL MENTOR

Master of electrical engineering and Master of business administration. Working at the Faculty of Information Technologies at Alfa BK University in Belgrade on position as Assistant Professor for two courses: Programming and Software Engineering. Other fields of my education: in the process of finishing PhD thesis: “Contribution to the development of information systems aimed at improving business in construction companies in Serbia”.

Biology Mentor – Kornelija Vukelić

“I graduated from the Faculty of Science-Department of Biology and Ecology, University of Novi Sad, Serbia in 2002. From 2002. I have been working as a teacher in primary and secondary school, with the main idea to develop and issue educational contents of Biology to my students. As someone who is interested in science I continued my training and in 2019 I became the Specialist engineer of technology, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Agriculture”.

Biology and technical team member – Djordje Ogrizović

Djordje Ogrizovic is an undergraduate student at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade. Since the high school period, he has been dedicated to the field of Environmental protection, with a special interest in the processing and purification of wastewater. He was a member of the Centre for Talented Youth and the Petnica Science Centre. Djordje conducted several researches, for which he was awarded numerous recognitions, among which the most significant are two gold medals at the International Conference of Young Scientists and the World Intellectual Property Organization Trophy.

Technical team member – Aleksandra Milenković

Aleksandra Milenković received the Bachelor degree of Science from the Faculty of Physics, University of Belgrade (Serbia) in 2017. She is currently a master’s student of physics, with thesis: Optical characterization of thin films and bio layers using spectrometry and sub-micrometric reflectometry. She worked as a Physicist researcher at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Centro de Tecnologia Biomedica, Madrid (Spain), where the thesis was done. Her recent activities include setting appropriate tasks and challenges and encouraging all students to be actively engaged in their own learning and in reviewing their progress against targets, at Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

Geography team member – Jelena Popović Rakočević

Jelena is a geography teacher in the Educational system Kreativno pero where she has been working for the last ten years. She received the Bachelor degree from the Faculty of Geography, and Master degree in geospatial sciences, University of Belgrade, Serbia. She has been a Member of the subject commission for geography and the regional commission for social sciences and philosophy in education reform, since 2001/02. Also, she participated in the Conference on Children’s Education in the Field of Environmental Protection, “Leave it to us”, Eastbourne, Great Britain, 2000. She is a co-author and reviewer of several geography textbooks.

Dragan Petković

Dragan Petkovic brings 25 years of experience in the technology sector, working for major companies and start-ups such as Tivoli Systems, IBM, Oracle, and various system integrators. Dragan started his career as a researcher in Institute Rudjer Boskovic, Zagreb, working on breakthrough technologies such as internet search engines (back in 1996), language entropies, and algorithms for modeling forest fires and virtual reality. In the 2000s, Dragan advised venture capital organizations and seed investment funds and evaluated technologies, products, and companies that led to acquisitions and initial public offerings.

Dragan focuses on security in his current role, particularly the latest trends such as applied machine learning and artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, blockchain, and cloud security architecture.

Dragan is a frequent speaker at technology events and has over a hundred press quotes, articles, and interviews to his name.

Hailing from Zagreb, Croatia, Dragan has Master of Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Zagreb and an Advanced Degree in Data Protection Law from Honorable Society of King's Inns, Dublin, and professional courses and certification, including the Next design framework.

Dragan's volunteering experience includes running a site to identify and discover new species of marine mollusks, founding a charity for monitoring ocean temperature changes, and PADI Project Aware clean-up events.

Aleksandar Grbović

Aleksandar Grbović is a full professor at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (UB-FME) since 2020. He is a member of the Aeronautics Department. He was born in Užice on February 1st, 1970. Primary school and gymnasium finished in Užice in 1988 and graduated (Dipl.-Ing. now MSc) on UB-FME in 1994 on Department for Aeronautics with an average grade of 9.03. In 2000 he earned a Magister and in 2012 a Ph.D. title (both on UB-FME) in the field of fatigue design of superalloys commonly used in aircraft design. He started employment at UB-FME in 1995 being assistant, then 2000 Magister assistant, 2012 Assistant professor, 2015 Associate professor, and Full professor since 2020. His field of scientific work is aeronautics, with the emphasis on engineering fracture mechanics and fatigue life of structures. Aleksandar Grbović published: 1 chapter in the international monograph, 33 papers in international journals referenced in ISI-JCR-SCI list, 11 papers in other international journals, 26 papers in the proceedings of international conferences, 3 chapters in the national monographs, etc. As evidenced by University Library his papers were cited 404 times in 256 different papers. In international cooperation activities, he visited a lot of technical universities and international companies of developed countries and maintains business partnerships with ZF Automotive Germany, SR Technics Zurich, Swiss-Park GmbH and MTU Aero Engines.

Mentor drone engineer - Miloš Petrašinović

Mr. Miloš Petrašinović is an aerospace engineer and co-owner of PR-DC company. He was born on 8. October 1994. in Belgrade, Serbia. After graduating from primary school and secondary school in Belgrade, he received a Bachelor's degree in Science from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade in 2016. (average grade 10.00/10.00) with a thesis: Design, calculation, and parametric modeling of the aircraft's landing gear. Master's degree of Science from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade received in 2018. (average grade 10.00/10.00) with the thesis: Design of Simulated Aircraft Control. He is currently a final year Ph.D. student in Aerospace engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade with the thesis: Research of aircrafts remote motion-in-the-loop piloting systems. He was awarded by the University of Belgrade for outstanding success during his studies as the best student of the generation of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering who graduated in the 2015/2016 school year.

His goal to put Serbia back on the map as one of the countries in the world that produces drones comes from the long aerospace tradition of his family and the fact that once upon a time his country had an important role in this industry. He is a teaching assistant in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Belgrade and at the same time a project leader for PR-DC drones.

Drone engineer – Nikola Petrašinović

Mr. Nikola Petrašinović is an aerospace engineer and co-owner of PR-DC company. He was born on 13. February 1986. in Belgrade, Serbia. After graduating from primary school and secondary school in Belgrade, he received a Bachelor's degree in Science from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade in 2008. (average grade 8.34/10.00). Master's degree of Science from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade received in 2010. (average grade 9.50/10.00) with the thesis: Development and testing of low power wind turbine rotor models. He was a researcher and teaching associate at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Belgrade.

His previous work experience in small series production is very valuable for the whole team, his main interest today is speeding up drone production and further development of production process, composite materials workshop, and tooling while maintaining normal day-to-day operations.

Drone engineer – Mihailo Petrović

Mr. Mihailo Petrović is an aerospace engineer and co-owner of PR-DC company. He was born on 24. May 1994. in Belgrade, Serbia. After graduating from primary school and secondary school in Belgrade, he received a Bachelor's degree in Science from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade in 2016. (average grade 9.44/10.00) with a thesis: Combat turn. Master's degree of Science from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade received in 2018. (average grade 9.80/10.00) with the thesis: Design and technology of aircraft production from composite materials. He is currently a final year Ph.D. student in Aerospace engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade. He is a teaching associate at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Belgrade.

From an early age when he started going to the local Model Rockets club, through many successful World and European competitions where he represented his nation and his club, he was always attached to the most advanced composite materials and their production process. He has already shown that he is more than capable of stepping up from producing models from composite materials to the most advanced drones, where his hobby met his higher education in the best possible way. He now leads a composite material design and their production for PR-DC company.

Drone engineer – Veljko Petrović

Mr. Veljko Petrović is a mechanical engineer and co-owner of PR-DC company. He was born on April 8, 1994 in Jagodina, Serbia. After graduating secondary school, he moved to Belgrade to study mechanical engineering at University of Belgrade. In 2018, he earned a Master of Science degree after defending his thesis titled: Application of numerical analysis for quadcopter airframe optimization. After graduating, he enrolled in a PhD program in numerical mechanics and started working as a teaching associate at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade. After working at the university for 3 years, he left the teaching job to fully commit to R&D at PR-DC and his PhD research.

Combining his knowledge of electronics and understanding of mechanics, Veljko's main job at PR-DC is designing and testing tightly integrated aircraft electronic systems. These include autopilot hardware, power and battery management systems, computer vision, etc. Parts of his PhD research are used for multicopter frame analysis and optimization. Veljko is also the main UAV test pilot in the company.

Drone engineer – Uroš Letunica

Mr. Uroš Letunica works at PR-DC as a research and development engineer with previous experience in aircraft maintenance and design, currently applying his knowledge to create the best product with the insight of the entire production process. He was born on February 28, 1994, in Belgrade, Serbia. After finishing primary school and high school in Belgrade, he graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade in 2016. He received his Aerospace engineering master's degree from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade in 2018.

His job is to track and improve every step in the life of the product, from concept to realization and further exploitation.

Drone engineer – David Pavlović

Mr. David Pavlović is a mechanical engineer who works for PR-DC company as a Research & Development engineer. He was born 26. July 1993. in Germany to Serbian Parents. After graduating from primary school and secondary school in Belgrade, he received a Bachelor's degree in Science from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade in 2015. with the thesis: Mobile Application for calculations of Thermodynamic Cycles. Continued to pursue a Master's degree at the same University at the Department of Design and Engineering. Only to pause education for an opportunity to work as a Design and Production Engineer in the United States for a company focusing on Automotive and Mobility. Where he spent two years. During that period he was involved with a composite rocket part manufacturing company for six months on a contract basis, until returning to Serbia. David's experience with rapid prototyping and design capabilities complement perfectly with the needs of the PR-DC goals and vision.

David has expressed interest in mobility from an early age with multiple appearances in modeling competitions from model cars to boats. This led him to go and join multiple companies that are in a way connected to providing mobility. He is now developing, building, and consulting the development of various projects in PR-DC.

Our students

Jelena Tomašević

Katarina Andrić

Sara Jašović

Una Žarković

Sofija Kurćubić

Marko Jovanović

Bogdan Stamenović

Would you like to join our team?

Application Form

We want to be an example to others and teach them about the importance of the environment, encourage people to live in a way that does not hurt the environment, discover new species by using our technology and support local rainforest communities to participate in this project. Rainforests are Earth’s oldest living ecosystem, diverse and complex homes for more than half of the world’s plant and animal species. Deforestation of tropical rainforests has a global impact through species extinction, the loss of important ecosystem services and renewable resources, and the reduction of carbon sinks. However, this destruction can be slowed, stopped, and in some cases even reversed.

The good news is there are a lot of people who want to save rainforests, and after researching all competition categories we concluded that because of that XPRIZE Rainforest is the most suitable for us.

- Team Kreativno pero

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

>

Video Gallery

LEARN MORE ABOUT COMPETITION

XPRIZE Rainforest

Our Sponsors

As Featured In

CONTACT US