The 20th NT Conference saw considerably more visitors than last year, when the biggest IT event in Slovenia, organised by Microsoft Slovenija, was visited by some 1,700 people.

The growth in the visitor numbers shows that the IT industry has been given a new impetus and that interest in investments in know-how is on an increase, programming director Martin Pregl told the press on Wednesday.

The event concluded with a business meeting at which representatives of businesses and the public sector presented cases of best practice and discussed Slovenia's competitiveness in the light of digital transformation.

The meeting was opened by Robert Trnovec, director general of the Slovenian subsidiary of Microsoft, who said that Slovenia, according to some estimates, would need another ten years to raise itself to the level before the start of the economic crisis.

He said that Slovenians were ambitious, but that many changes at all levels needed to be made to realise that ambition. Changes are also needed because of the technological transformation, which is taking place in all industries.

PM Miro Cerar, who was a guest of honour at the meeting, said in his address that it is not possible to stand in one place, as "we constantly move, forward or backwards".

According to him, this is especially true today, in the time of fast technological development, when Slovenia needs to fight to make progress.