The Sportelement representative and the project's leader Uroš Okoren said that the project was designed to bring together start-ups and athletes as well as possible investors and partner companies, introducing new ways of dealing with modernisation and digitalisation in sports through cooperation and sponsorship.

SportTech Stars is the first such effort in Slovenia, providing networking and support for start-ups developing sports-related ideas or solutions based on advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, augmented reality, big data and blockchain technology.

"Solutions could be designed for sports management, the digitalisation of sports processes, following sports news, or conducting sports diagnostics," said Okoren.

Dragić will advocate the sponsorship investment platform by providing global promotion and announcing the winner of the project's competition at his business event GogiTalk in June.

Apart from the popular athlete, Sportelement is also cooperating on the project with Slovenia's Amcham, a number of Slovenian companies and the Slovenian Basketball Association.

Sports associations and clubs are expected to serve as a platform for solution testing and promoting aspiring think tanks in the international market.

Okoren believes Slovenia should follow the US trend of famous athletes not just promoting but also investing in business ventures, using their platform to create or contribute to entrepreneurial success stories.