Connecting the next generation of cyber professionals in the Western Balkans

23.09.2026

Over the past two days, WB3C hosted the Global Cyber Policy Dialogue: Western Balkans Next Gen, gathering young professionals and experienced experts from across the region to exchange perspectives on some of the issues shaping the region’s cyber future.
Discussions ranged from AI and cybersecurity and AI governance, to the evolving UN cyber processes, regional cooperation on incident response and confidence-building measures, societal cyber resilience and disinformation. The programme also looked closely at a challenge shared across the region: how to develop, attract and retain the cyber talent needed by governments, businesses and other institutions, and how to convert talent into operational capability.
What stood out throughout the dialogue was the strong interest of participants in connecting people and institutions across the region, sharing experience and finding practical opportunities for joint action. This is precisely the kind of regional professional network that can make cooperation more effective long after an event has ended.

The dialogue was organised by Observer Research Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and the Western Balkans Cyber Capacity Centre (WB3C), with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Montenegro.
A particular thank you to Anneleen Roggeman, Bruce McConnell, Katherine Salinas and Jeffrey Bean from ORF America for another excellent collaboration, and to jantine van Bakel for the close partnership with the Netherlands. From WB3C, many thanks to Maja Miranovic and Gilles Schwoerer for their contribution to making these two days happen.

And thank you to all our speakers and participants for the openness and energy they brought to the discussions, including Vladimir Petreski, Project Manager and Editor-in-Chief of Vistinomer.mk at the Metamorphosis Foundation, who contributed to the exchange on disinformation and the role of civil society in strengthening information resilience and Andreja Mihailovic, PhD for leading the discussion on talent gap.
We look forward to continuing these conversations — and, above all, turning the connections made in Podgorica into stronger regional cooperation.

Other news and events

Visit to RACVIAC, Zagreb

The WB3C Programme Director participated in the conference organised by RACVIAC in Zagreb, entitled “Strengthening SEE Resilience in Cyber Security Against Hybrid Threats.”
The mission provided an opportunity to present the Centre’s activities and discuss several potential areas of cybersecurity cooperation.

The areas under consideration include strengthening the cyber resilience of critical entities in the Western Balkans through NIS2 training and technical training aimed at addressing the skills gap in operational technology security, with priority given to young civilian and military talent.

They also include training on artificial intelligence and the implications of the European Union’s AI Act, the development of new cybersecurity curricula with universities and military academies in the region, and the possibility of providing cybersecurity training to military units in cooperation with RACVIAC.

Foreign Ministers of Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia visit WB3C on the margins of the Berlin Process

We were much honoured to host today at WB3C the Foreign Ministers of Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia, together with their delegations, following the Berlin Process Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Montenegro.
Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Federal Minister for European and International Affairs of Austria, Petr Macinka, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and Juraj Blanár, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia were welcomed by Naim M. GJOKAJ, on behalf of the Government of Montenegro as one of WB3C’s founding partners, and Gilles Schwoerer, WB3C Programme Director. The visit was also attended by Minsiter Marash Dukaj and resident ambassadors of Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in Montenegro.

Their visit gave us an important opportunity to show, first-hand, what WB3C has become and where it is heading.
After a tour of our facilities, we presented the Centre’s mission and work across cybersecurity, cybercrime, cyber diplomacy and hybrid threats, as well as the partnerships that make this regional model possible. Particular attention was given to our cooperation with the European Union, including the EU-supported regional programme, and to the growing network of European and international institutions contributing expertise to our activities.
What matters most is the purpose behind this work.
WB3C was created to give the Western Balkans a permanent facility where countries can build capability together: strengthening public institutions and critical entities, supporting law enforcement and the judiciary, developing the skills of the existing workforce and investing in the next generation through cooperation with universities.

Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are closely engaged in the European integration of the Western Balkans, while the Berlin Process continues to place regional cooperation, security and the region’s European future at the centre of the agenda.
For WB3C, the longer-term direction is equally clear: a Centre increasingly shaped, supported and governed by the Western Balkans themselves, firmly connected to European institutions, standards and expertise.
We greatly appreciated the ministers’ interest in our work and the opportunity to present the role WB3C can play in making regional cooperation in cyber security practical, lasting and genuinely owned by the region.

Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence training at WB3C

This week, WB3C hosted an Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) training in Podgorica, delivered by Ljuban Petrovic for SOC, CSIRT, CERT and IT professionals from critical entities across the Western Balkans.
Building on the foundational CTI course delivered earlier this year, the four-day programme goes further into advanced threat hunting, Threat Intelligence Platforms and automation, threat actor profiling and attribution, the MITRE ATT&CK framework, strategic reporting and hands-on work with MISP.
The aim is to help practitioners move from collecting technical threat data to producing actionable intelligence that supports detection, incident response and decision-making, while strengthening information sharing between national and regional CERT/CSIRT structures.
We are especially pleased to see more women then men in this training, which encourages us that our region is slowly breaking cultural barriers and biases.