VEZILKA Official Launch Event
Today, VEZILKA, the National AI Factory Antenna of North Macedonia, was officially launched at a ceremony held at Hotel Aleksandar Palace in Skopje. The event gathered high-level representatives from government, academia, the European Union, and the research community to mark the beginning of a new chapter in the country’s AI development.
The ceremony featured addresses from Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Minister of Digital Transformation Stefan Andonovski, reflecting the strong governmental commitment to building national AI infrastructure. EU Ambassador Michalis Rokas underlined the importance of North Macedonia’s participation in the European AI ecosystem. From the academic side, the Rector of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University Prof. Dr. Biljana Angelova and Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering Prof. Petre Lameski spoke about the role of the university as the project’s lead institution. Project Coordinator Prof. Dr. Dimitar Trajanov outlined the VEZILKA’s vision and the road ahead.
Among the highlights discussed was the development of a Macedonian language model and the data donation platform doniraj.vezilka.ai, through which citizens and institutions can contribute books, essays, and scholarly works to build a national digital corpus. This initiative addresses a critical need, ensuring that the Macedonian language and cultural context are not left behind in the rapidly evolving global AI field. The event also highlighted the broader opportunities VEZILKA opens for researchers, public institutions, and businesses through access to supercomputing resources and AI tools under the Horizon Europe / EuroHPC JU framework.
The launch marks not an end but a beginning. VEZILKA’s long-term impact will depend on sustained collaboration across sectors: government, academia, and industry working together to transform this infrastructure into a living, growing ecosystem that serves the people of North Macedonia and strengthens the country’s place in the European research and innovation community.