Include has stood proudly for years among the Split Tech City members. Well, “standing” is actually an incorrect word to use to describe this company, whose founder, Ivan Mrvoš, has been enthralling us with his innovations and entrepreneurial spirit since his teenage days.

It’s always active at Include, so we decided to check out what’s new in this factory of smart city solutions located in Solin.

We spoke with Ivona Mrvoš, head of the Marketing Department.

Everyone knows Include very well because of Steora – your smart bench, but the Include product range is actually much broader. What other products are you manufacturing and developing?

“After a significant investment round that took place at the end of 2019, we started Include’s transformation from a producer of smart benches to a global provider of solutions for smart cities and municipalities.

Last year we started selling and installing a redesigned version of the Steora smart bench, while this year we installed the first edition of the Aerys air quality monitoring station, which has been installed so far in Croatia, Montenegro, and Italy.

Additionally, at the beginning of next year, we expect orders from other markets as well where we are already present with Steora benches.

This month we also had the first installation of the Terra waste container which is the third product in our Smart City portfolio.”

Two years ago, you announced the Terra line of waste containers. How come it actually took two years to install the first containers?

“The course of development was disrupted by the arrival of the pandemic which subsequently made us face new challenges.

At the beginning of the pandemic, you couldn’t go to the office, we had restrictions regarding gatherings, and of course, all that made the hardware development cycle difficult, as hardware manufacturing cannot be done remotely and requires people to be in one location at the same time.

The consequences of the pandemic are also the lack of chips on the market due to the increased demand for electrical equipment and devices. Also, very strict measures were implemented in Asian countries to prevent the spread, so factories were often not working.

Altogether this had quite an impact on us and lengthened the development cycle of the Terra waste containers.”

Did Include exhibit at this year’s Smart City Expo in Barcelona, ​​and if so, what were your impressions?

“This year, unfortunately, we were not exhibitors but only visitors. The impressions we had as visitors was that it could definitely be said that this year marks the return of conferences to their pre-pandemic state. This was very evident in the number of exhibitors and visitors in Barcelona.

We certainly hope to return next year as an exhibitor.”

Are you currently looking for new team members at Include?

“We are currently recruiting for new roles and strengthening the existing ones. We are looking for a sander, field technician, quality controller, machine operator, varnisher, and production staff to work on product assembly.

Information for all positions is available on Include’s Careers page.”

What are some of Include’s future plans?

“Now the development process has been successfully completed and the company is currently in a phase where it should focus as much as possible on sales and further production of smart city solutions.

We are talking about very large markets, where existing competitors already generate tens of millions of euros in revenue annually from the sale of such solutions.

Therefore, we now have a monumental task ahead of us to successfully promote and place all of Include’s solutions in different markets.

In the following years, the focus will also be on the European market, that is, on the countries where we currently achieve the best results with the Steora benches.”

We’d like to thank Ivona for sharing updates on Include, and we wish the entire Include team a lot of success with the upcoming business challenges!

Cover photo: Terra waste container
Photo credit: Include