28. jun 2013. in  Belgrade The Innovation Fund, through the Matching grants programme, has approved financing for the project "World-Class Speech Technologies for South Slavic Languages", together with 17 other projects out of 125 submitted applications. The principal results of this project are expected to be an increase in the quality and flexibility of text-to-speech synthesis as well as in the accuracy of large vocabulary speech recognition for Serbian (including the Ijekavian standard version) and Croatian.
The Matching grants programme aims to expand collaboration opportunities for Serbian innovative micro, small and medium sized companies with strategic partners (e.g. private sector industry, R&D organizations and venture capital/private equity funds) with the goal to increase private sector investment in technology development and commercialization projects for new and improved products/services. The programme is financed from European pre-access funds in cooperation with the World Bank.

Here are some of the statements at the awarding ceremony:
”This result proves the Serbian enterpreneurs have true spirit and believe in their ideas“, said Natasha Kapil, project team leader and senior specialist for innovation politics at the World Bank.
“We are glad to see such a number of innovative ideas and such energy, as reflected by the number of project applications“, said Vincent Degert, Chief of delegation of the European Union in Serbia.
„The success of the Innovation fund is based on contributions of international professionals constituting the independent Expert committee, which ensures integrity in the decision-making process“, said Loup Brefort, World Bank Office Director in Serbia.
More about the results of the call can be found at the website of the Innovation Fund.