At the “Texas Feels Slovenia” conference on April 8, 2022, in Dallas, Texas, we successfully presented Slovenia as a green, creative, and smart country full of investment, business and tourism opportunities. AmCham Slovenia was once again part of the excellent sLOVEnian story, where we cooperated with the main organizer SPIRIT Slovenia and other organizations, the Slovenian Tourist Board, Ljubljana Tourism, the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Sport Media Focus. The conference was held as a part of the business development delegation in the USA, “Go Big in Texas”, which took place in the previous week and was also co-organized with SPIRIT Slovenia. 

Members of the AmCham business development delegation arrived at Houston, Texas last Sunday. During their visit time, Slovenian businessmen and businesswomen from various sectors visited many companies in Houston, Austin, and Dallas, to learn about innovations in energy, renewable energy sources, telecommunications, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and space technology and draw inspiration from successful stories of Americans with Slovenian heritage.

The entire conference was held in the spirit of basketball and the exceptional basketball player Luka Dončić, as he is the reason, why Slovenia has a door wide-open in Texas and after the conference, delegation members cheered for him in a match between the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers. The conference hall was already well warmed up, thanks to  Cynt Marshall, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks and one of the most influential women in the sports industry. She taught us a few cheerleading moves, then said with a smile: “We, in the Dallas Mavericks, are like family, and Luka is like my nephew. It is important to give the players mental and physical support because these guys are under a lot of pressure.”

H.E. Tone Kajzer, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia to the United States of America, emphasized that Slovenia is open to investments and is already looking forward to cooperating economies. Simon Zajc, State Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, pointed out that investors from the USA are already third on the list of foreign direct investments. However, he wishes that this number would increase in the future. Boštjan Koritnik, Minister of Public Administration, also emphasized the importance of Slovenia as a country with an excellent geostrategic position and added: “In a rapidly changing world, the public sector must also change rapidly, as citizens and companies expect customer-oriented, efficient, innovative, tailored and technologically supported services”.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Slovenian economy introduced themselves to the American business community, met potential business partners and investors, presented their views on the Slovenian environment, and confidently confirmed that they can co-create and are globally competitive. Slovenia, a green, creative, and smart country that develops technical innovations and cares about the future of its talents, was represented by the following Slovenian companies; L-Tek, Medex, Podkrižnik, Robotina, and RSG Capital. 

During the conference, we also had the opportunity to hear about the success stories of Americans with Slovenian roots, who emphasized that they succeeded precisely because they have Slovenian DNA, in which perseverance and diligence are written. Everyone was thrilled with Randy Bresnik, an active NASA astronaut, who spent 149 days, 12 hours, and 12 minutes in space. Randy kindly invited everyone: “I grew up with my grandparents from Ljubno and Luče. I always wanted to visit Slovenia, and when I had for the first time a few years ago, all the beauty took my breath away. I urge everyone to visit Slovenia as tourists or as investors. I am sure you will not regret it.”

The program manager of the conference, Vida Dolenc Pogačnik, summed up the purpose of the conference with the following thinking: “Slovenia is not big in size, but it is huge in talent. We wanted to show that and we succeeded. Today, we can be justifiably proud to be Slovenes.”

Ajša Vodnik, MSc, CEO of AmCham Slovenia, concluded: “It is extremely important that Slovenes know how to stand together and present ourselves as we are – the best. Together with our partners, we successfully created a great story, which we told with emotions because I feel SLOVENIA can not be told in any other way. The excellent Americans with Slovenian heritage  and the Slovenes living in Texas were another proof that we are destined for greatness.”