All right, everybody, welcome back to the podcast.
I'm excited to announce our first video podcast here
at All Things Croatia.
So that means if you're tuning in from Spotify,
Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, wherever you usually listen,
you're gonna wanna go to YouTube for this one,
All Things Croatia.
You can find it on the website, allthingscroachia.com.
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You might see some, I won't say familiar faces,
but perhaps familiar voices today,
as our two guests have been on the podcast before.
Nick Kraljevic from episode two,
who's the founder of PLEME, an online community
and app for Croatians to network globally.
And we also have Mate Pavkovic from episode eight,
who's the president of CroDiospora,
which is a nonprofit that seeks to improve Croatia
through economic solutions and assists those abroad
with their challenges in doing business
and returning to Croatia.
Thanks for coming on the podcast, guys.
Thank you.
And just a quick reminder, if you guys haven't,
for our recent subscribers,
if you haven't seen episode two, episode eight,
with PLEME and CroDiospora before,
go ahead and check those out.
I'm excited for our first video podcast here,
but I'm also really excited to learn more about CitizenHR,
which is why we're here today.
So guys, how did this collab happen?
You guys have worked together in the past, right?
Yeah, yeah, Mate, do you wanna go or should I get started?
Yeah, maybe I can kind of tell the overview
of how we got started with this.
So me and Nick have known each other for the past couple
of years, and originally we wanted to kind of collaborate
around PLEME and maybe bring CroDiospora's community
to PLEME, and then since then,
we've just been collaborating with different solutions
and understanding how we can help other Croatians
move back to Croatia.
And Nick has also done a couple other projects
like the business index, Croatian business index,
and then we came to this idea about Croatian citizenship.
And if a lot of Croatian people have seen online,
especially on Facebook, there are many groups
for citizenship, and a lot of people trying
to help each other figure out what paperwork they need,
what they need to go forward with that,
like translators, or if they want to go a legal route
by giving power returning to a lawyer.
So we thought, hey, why don't we make it more simple
for people?
They just put all the information that they have
inside of a calculator, and then it just calculates
for them every single piece of work, paperwork
that they need, and then also the contacts
that are in their area.
And yeah, I think that's pretty much where we came up
with the idea with citizenship and HR,
and then Nick made it happen.
And how long ago did you guys start with this idea?
Because that was just released, what was the date?
Just a few days ago.
Just a few days ago, yeah.
Yeah, a few days ago.
I feel like we probably spoke about this
probably close to a year ago, and we're like,
hey, there should be some sort of calculator,
and it's probably really come together
in the last two, three months, I guess,
well, it's like we've built everything and tested it.
So yeah, it's, I'd probably say two, three months
as we've been hard at work on everything.
And have you guys been involved with any other
organizations or any other people
that you've been collabing with this on?
Yeah, probably want to give a big shout out
to Creation Studies Foundation here as well.
So they gave us a grant as well to kind of help
with building the app.
Wouldn't have really been possible without the guys.
So yeah, that was a big help to both of us.
And I guess they're, for anyone else listening,
Creation Studies, they're doing lots of grants
for creation related projects.
So if anybody has a research project
or something interesting, it might be a good place
to heat up the guys there and get some help.
Let's talk about the app a little bit.
I just want to start off by asking about the picture
that you guys chose for the app.
And I wonder if you guys, because I just learned
about this for the first time a week ago.
And then when I saw the picture, I said, wait,
that looks familiar, where have I seen that?
I don't know if one of you guys want to talk a little bit
about why that picture was chosen.
It's like a, you know, the main,
if we're talking about the main app logo,
it's a mesh, mesh release statue, you know,
Mother of Chorex, I think in English it translates to.
So yeah, it just kind of seemed, you know,
seemed perfect for an app where you're, you know,
bringing creations home or trying to get more people
citizenship.
So yeah, that was the thinking behind it.
Yeah, I like that, that's a cool logo.
You guys mentioned or you mentioned to me that it's
available in multiple languages.
How many languages is the app available in?
And which ones?
Yeah, at the moment, it's Croatian, English,
Spanish, German, French, Italian.
And we've added Portuguese as well, just before we went live.
Shout out to Renato in Brazil.
He actually reached out and said, hey, I think this would,
you know, be really great to have in Portuguese.
We have a large, you know, community with some
Croatian roots in Brazil.
So obviously if it's in Portuguese,
it's gonna help a lot of them get onto the app.
So yeah.
That's pretty cool that they reached out to you.
He reached out to you about that.
So obviously you've chosen the languages that sort of have
the biggest Croatian populations, you know,
outside of Croatia.
Yeah, basically, we've been live for a few days now.
So we can kind of see English is the most heavily used,
I think, followed by Croatian and Spanish at the moment.
So yeah, we're hoping that wherever you are in the globe,
you will at least speak one of these languages.
So you should be able to get through the app.
Awesome.
Well, let's see if we can do a walkthrough, you know,
of the app.
Let's see what it's like if you guys wanna, you know,
talk in more detail about, you know, using it
and what sort of features it has.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let me just try to share screen.
Okay.
One second.
Can you guys see that?
Yeah.
All right, perfect.
Let me just move this over a bit so I can see.
Okay, so when you kind of launched the app,
on the first time you kind of go through a whole walkthrough,
which kind of explains a little bit about the app,
I'll just really cover it off quickly here,
but essentially you kind of just enter your email,
you answer a questionnaire, which is 31 questions.
And then based on how you answer those 31 questions,
we kind of have eight pass to citizenship
or eight pass to Croatian citizenship.
I can never remember them from the top of my head,
despite looking at this, you know, pretty much all day,
but it's, you know, descent, lineage, affiliation,
special interests, naturalization,
marriage, readmission and treaty.
I think I got all of them.
But essentially once you get,
so you do a quick questionnaire,
it'll show you those options,
and then you can kind of in those options,
see what's your closest consulate, you know,
who are some experts who can help you,
and then, you know, kind of a little checklist
of what documents you need, et cetera.
So we'll get started.
I'll just put in my email.
Oh, hang on.
It's not letting me into the, here we go.
Hopefully we can edit that part out.
So you kind of fill out your name, so I'll go ahead.
So, you know, there we go.
Occupation, education,
reconnecting with my roots.
I'm not spelling the trotias today.
Yes, I'm older than 18.
No, I'm older than 60.
So we kind of ask this,
depending on how old you are,
they might, you know, doing the Croatian language test
and certain past decisions,
you may be required,
but not if you're older than 60
or younger than 18, I believe.
I did not ever previously hold Croatian citizenship.
I was born in Australia.
Have I lived in Croatia for more than a year?
I haven't lived in Croatia for more than eight years.
Do I intend to make a significant financial investment?
So we kind of ask this around special interests
and that kind of path.
So we'll say yes for the purposes of the demo,
so you can see what the option looks like.
And then we kind of ask,
have you made an attempt to, you know,
protect the rights of Croatians or promote the interest
or, you know, participate in events, et cetera.
So that's, you know, one of the key things they look at
when considering citizenship via affiliation.
So ancestry, how many parents?
I'll say two.
I'm sorry about the scrolling here.
It's always a bit funky on the emulator.
So no, so, you know, depending on if your parents
or grandparents hold citizenship as part of the other
Yugoslav Republics, you know,
and might, you know, disable you from some options, I guess,
or you might have to look at other routes, for example.
I went into it too much.
I have four grandparents and eight great grandparents.
No.
And then we kind of have a similar thing, no.
Well, hang on.
Sorry guys, this is, here we go.
So did anyone immigrate after 1991?
Maybe Marty, you want to talk about that?
You know, there's, there's some different rules depending
on when your ancestors migrated from Croatia.
So that's a loophole in the law.
So for example, I'll give the example of my mother.
So my mother is not Croatian by any shape,
way or form.
So my father, he left as an immigrant before 1991.
And according to the law, I think it's article 11.
It's some subsection that if you left before the 10th of October,
1991, so when Croatia formally became independent,
that you can actually give citizenship to your wife or to your,
your significant other.
So your wife, your husband significant under if you were,
if you live in Croatia,
you can give citizenship to that person through marriage.
That's the only loophole where you can give it through marriage and
not live in Croatia.
So then we kind of go, are you married?
No, I don't have a spouse, obviously we're looking at how we can kind of
make this questionnaire a little bit smarter.
So, you know, you potentially answer kind of less than 31 questions.
So if you've entered, you know, yes or no to some previous ones,
we'll just hide that question.
So coming soon.
Then we'll look at documents.
So, you know, a key part of applying for citizenship is having,
having a document, having it certified,
whether it's a apostle seal or some other equivalent convention.
Martin, you know, I think we spoke a few times about Canada,
how they're not part of the apostle seal convention,
but you know, they have a different way of, you know,
authenticating and authorizing documents.
So you typically have to have a translation and officially certified document.
And then we just ask that again, just to be sure.
We also through the app do, you'll have to provide a biography about yourself
or in Croatian or, or a CV.
So we always, we also offer a service through the app to kind of do this.
So if folks are interested, they can click in, you know,
they kind of enter their details and we'll get that translated for them.
And then finally, we kind of ask, you know, where you live.
So I'll just say, you know, 300, Sydney, New South Wales, zip code is 2000.
So that's pretty much the whole questionnaire.
So if I hit calculate now, it'll take me to, you know, what kind of options are available.
So I'll tap that it'll take a few seconds while it does all the checks.
Okay, and then we'll show me what pass I'm eligible for.
It'll tell me, you know, I need to do a language test.
So if I click this little button, it'll tell me all about the language test.
So close that but essentially it says based on how I answered,
I'm eligible for citizenship by affiliation, citizenship by special interests,
citizenship by descent, citizenship by lineage.
I guess for any legal folks watching or any experts to set the lineage are essentially the same path.
I think we just for the app we split it, you know, we showed descent as in, you know,
a your parents or citizens or, you know, lineage where you have a grandparent or a great-grandparent.
We've just done that for simplicity reasons because it's, you know, a lot less paperwork if you have a parent or more than one parent.
And once we get into the grandparents, great grandparents, then, you know, typically, you know,
stories we've heard developing the app is there's a lot of legwork involved to find, you know, documents, birth, death records, etc.
So just split it into that.
But yeah.
Yeah, so which one should we click on?
Let's go.
I mean, maybe descent or lineage because I feel like probably that's the majority of people.
Yep. Okay.
Using this. And just to go back real quick, not on the screen but just to talk about what you brought up the language test.
Actually, I thought they had got rid of that but apparently there are some instances where you need to take that.
And so there are some cases as you know, I think via naturalization and in some cases marriage, you're still required.
Yeah.
Okay, interesting. Yeah.
So yeah, once you kind of see the option, you'll see a little screen like this.
They'll look pretty similar for all of the options.
So if we click the get help button, it should show us the nearest consulate.
So yeah, it worked on the first time. So that that's my closest consulate.
So if I hit website, okay, I don't think it actually has a website connected to this. We are still updating our records.
There are a lot of different sources over the web of all the consulates and sometimes they're a bit different.
But if I hit the map, it should take me to where it is on the map.
Which yep, that's it. That's right there.
So yeah.
All right.
All right. And then yeah, so essentially we get, you know, back at the descent page.
It'll kind of show me my documents. So you did notice there was a little pop up. So depending on how you answer it will come, you know, if you need to go get those documents.
And then we kind of have a list of experts. So we kind of collected a bunch of legal firms, a few translation firms and translators, some consulting folks and some other organizations who are kind of in the creation citizenship business so to speak.
So there's probably there's a lot of familiar ones here you'll see. I think Adriatic tours is also here as well as you know like expert in Croatia and a couple other firms.
Currently we're talking to a couple more to get listed so this list will probably grow by the time the podcast comes out.
Yeah. So essentially, if you're looking for, you know, a legal firm, there's a few guys here you can kind of reach out to.
If I show you what an expert page looks like. So if I, you know, I click one of these.
And then you can go to your website or send them an email.
So yeah, essentially that that is kind of the main part of the walkthrough of the app.
It's going to be pretty simple, pretty straightforward workflow come in, answer a questionnaire and then kind of get connected with with the right experts.
Like a lot of people have said, you know, once you kind of know the process it's pretty straightforward but I think for you know you're coming in at the first time and I know myself and I did this by myself, you know, earlier in the year.
And so we're just kind of taking a bit of bit of that knowledge and just, you know, making it a little bit easier to find, you know, someone who can help and yeah, that's, you know, that's the main gist of the app.
And what sort of feedback have you guys had so far about it. I mean, I know it's only been a few days since you released it.
So, well so far we've got like some some really nice positive messages from people saying, you know, really great. So glad this came out I even thought of, you know, doing something similar so those are, you know, always good messages to hear.
We've had a few people come and you know ask questions and about certain functionality and stuff so you know, some to find some bugs and fix those. So it's been a pretty busy couple days for me, getting those rolled out but so far all the feedback has been great, even about any bugs
we've, you know, everyone's kind of, you know, been really helpful in providing information and getting down the path so yeah.
In terms of numbers I think we kind of overshot expectations I think in the first weekend we've had over 2000 downloads and roughly about that many sign ins and about half of that have gone through the whole questionnaire so
I have received emails from people asking questions so we've tried to get back to everyone and kind of walk them through the process.
We're hoping this video helps as well just showing people off the street as well to kind of get through the app. But yeah, really, I'm waffling a bit but really great feedback we've got so far.
It's been really nice.
And Mathe, do you have anything that you want to add as far as you know the app itself and the walkthrough and how it works. I mean as far as I mean I guess anything in that sort of just using the app and then where to go next, sort of those steps.
I think that in general, you know, it's been very positive and of course as Nick said that there were a couple of, you know, bugs in the system but you know that's the point of launching the app so that you can find those bugs and you can see how you can perfect the app.
And you know since then there's been a lot of great people contacting me like either be it lawyers, translators and such and so on from everywhere around the world, you know from South America, North America, even here in Croatia, you know people are interested in you
know helping people and you know creating, you know, more applications for citizenship. And I think that most recently, what I've recently got like a message from Croatian archives is there's a person that works in the split archives, and he wants to have a meeting with
the Croatian archives tomorrow. And I think that that could be something that could be a huge benefit, because a lot of people they literally they come to Croatia on genealogy trips, and they come to all these different places across Croatia to look through
you know the Croatian National Archives just to find the relatives. So if we can somehow have some sort of relationship with you know the Croatian archives to, you know, either display it on our, you know, on our app and help people search for their
relatives or search for people that they've been looking for for a long period of time. I think that that would be the next major step. And I think that this app could, you know, be an exponential help to anybody that is in this process.
So that could be a future collaboration for that you're saying that.
Exactly. I suppose I have a call tomorrow with you know the Croatian archive with Croatian archives so I'll see tomorrow, and then you know I'll, I'll get back to Nick and we can see how we can digitize all all those archives maybe or how we can cooperate even with them.
Mm hmm. And I want to talk a little bit more about you know sort of the future of the app. But first I want to ask you know how can you get access to that. Is it free to use. I mean as a user as a as a business.
Is there anything we should know.
Yeah, so the app is totally free for you to use as a user. So you can, you can download it from both app stores.
We have a website which is citizen HR app. So you will have all the links there.
And then for kind of businesses partner so if you're an expert you're you know really interested in getting involved. If you head to citizen HR app slash expert. There's a little form and then you'll hear from us, you know, pretty soon.
Nice, nice.
So, with Grow the Aspira, my dad that's your forte. That's your position. Is there any upcoming, excuse me, any upcoming related events with grow the Aspira relating to citizenship or usage of the app or anything of that nature.
So we're having a webinar with Bruno Camelin, who is a really good lawyer here in Croatia, she speaks great English, and actually her mother is working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
So she has a lot of experience with, you know, citizen applications and whatnot, and along with explaining how the app works. She'll also be answering anybody's questions pertaining to citizenship so we want to garner as much interest in Croatian citizenship as we can, either through the app with some of the
experts that we have on the app. And we're going to be working the next couple months to get as many people that are experts on the app to answer people's questions through Crow the Aspira webinars in cooperation with citizen HR.
Okay, very cool so that will add a new level of sort of functionality to the app.
So I'm going to ask you a question and answer get help from a person. You guys I mean you already mentioned a couple things, but I'll ask again is there is there anything else that you guys are looking to do in the future with this app or I mean I know you just
released it so I'm sure right now you're just getting feedback and, you know, tweaking a few things here and there and going with that but are there any other plans for the app anything else that you know we should know people who are looking to use it, or people who are
going to go back to Croatia, any sort of last final final thoughts or anything of that nature. Yeah we've probably got some more cool stuff coming up just in terms of just, you know, in terms of I think now we're just making sure that experiences as smooth as
possible. We're going to add a lot more features so you can kind of export your questionnaire and have answered everything as you go into like a nice document that can potentially, you know, take along with you, either consulates or or reach out to any experts with
stuff around FAQ so you know, as Martin mentioned there's a lot of like I guess just, you know, knowledge, you know that people have around the process and share so we're going to, you know, what we can't really build in, you know, nicely into the calculator will kind of, you know,
buff out those FAQs with so you know you'll be able to log on and kind of browse with huge database FAQs. We've got a couple interesting partnerships coming up too I won't say too much because it's not all finished yet but we're looking to do interesting stuff with, you know, with
meetings and travel and flight as well within the app so there'll be some cool stuff I guess as you go through the process. And yeah, I guess much more, you know, obviously guys who've used it would love to hear from you and you think you know there's
something else you'd like to see in the app, you know, we're more than happy to listen to you guys and build that in.
Well, I'll put I'll drop links of course in the podcast description. Once again if you're not watching on YouTube, you know I advise you go from Spotify or Apple podcasts wherever and go to YouTube and you know watch this podcast here and I'll put the links there in the description.
I mean anything that brings Croatians back to Croatia is a good thing. So you know I'm, I'm really appreciate what you guys are doing I know my own sisters are looking to get their citizenship as well. So I'm telling them to look into this for help.
Since I went a different route I was involved in a program that offered, you know, personalized help with that. So they're looking to do that.
But, you know, I want to thank you guys for for coming on the podcast. Again, but this time together. Yeah, it's been cool to have you.
Thanks for showing us the walkthrough something off the download on the app store you said that's on both. That's on the Android and Apple stores.
Yep.
Great.
I don't know any sort of last final thoughts or words or the shout outs.
Thank you to everyone involved. I think we haven't already shouted out into all the guys who've, you know, use the app and, you know, send nice messages or giving us feedback.
Yeah, really, really grateful for all the, all the support so far.
And thank you to everyone for using the app and giving us, you know, very useful feedback about the app and how we can improve it. And I think that the most important thing about this app is that we're all coming together we're all, you know, understanding why, you know, for, you know, multiple
reasons why people want to come back to Croatia. And I think that it's, this is a very important thing for all of us as creations abroad to have this information and to be able to, you know, advocate for a better and a more clear cut solution to getting
back to this relationship and I think that in the past, unfortunately, it's been very unclear for a lot of people and that's why a lot of these forums have come up and hopefully through this app and through, you know, the solutions that we'll provide in the future, that it will become more clear for
people and it'll be clear for people to come back to Croatia.
Awesome. Well, I appreciate what you guys are doing and you know, thank you one more time for for coming on the podcast and showing it to everyone here.
And that's it for today's episode of the All Things Croatia podcast. Thanks for tuning in and I hope you all enjoyed it. You can subscribe to the Patreon and check out the All Things Croatia Instagram page to stay updated.
Feel free to reach out to me with any questions, tips or ideas and make sure to tune back into the next episode. Thanks again and vide moste.