Jobless Grads Get Lifeline From Tech in Europe’s Youngest State

From the rooftop terrace of Kosovo’s innovation center, Shpend Lila pointed out a red-brick building on a recent weekday morning. Originally the headquarters of a local publishing agency, the modernist structure was Pristina’s tallest for decades. Today, it is dwarfed by high-rises housing a growing mix of tech companies — including SPEEEX, a business processing outsource firm on track to become the country’s first unicorn.

Kosovo’s vibrant IT scene isn’t just changing the capital’s skyline. It is helping to curb one of the most stubborn post-war economic problems in the Western Balkan nation of 1.6 million people: high youth unemployment. Government officials and entrepreneurs hope this will, in turn, slow a long-running brain drain.