In Albania, the future is youth and innovation 🇦🇱

Spain has been my home for many years now and there is much I love about it, but when it comes to doing business... Well. It can be challenging, not least due to a feeling that individual entrepreneurialism isn't really valued or recognised, nor seen as a desirable career path.

In Albania, where I am presently attending the Tirana Digital Nomad Festival, it could not be more different - and that's extremely refreshing.

Albania is a young country. Like Spain, it's still reinventing itself mere decades post dictatorship rule, but it's also young demographically, and facing huge challenges. Poverty levels are high, and record numbers are leaving the country, many ending up on British shores after long and difficult journeys.

Albania: The Startup Nation

But many years of brain-draining diaspora, Albania is working to tackle this problem via positive incentives and upskilling, rather than punitive measures. They are investing heavily in the nurture of home-grown talent, and also in attracting the return of the global population, by creating local opportunities through startups, as well as the infrastructure to live locally while working remotely for any businesses, anywhere.

The same infrastructure also supports remote workers and digital nomads who already have those professional engagements, to come and live in Albania, and contribute to the local economy - using business and hospitality services, passing on their skills, and inspiring Albanian entrepreneurs in shared business facilities. The city is determined to create the right environment to welcome a new generation of tech skilled professionals, who can work for projects and businesses all over the world, while enjoying a great quality of life with all that Albania has to offer. This ranges from a vibrant capital city to beautiful mountains and stunning Adriatic beaches, as well as a beautiful lakeside park in Tirana, all for a fraction of the Silicon Valley cost of living.

The festival is a shining example of this commitment, showcasing the best of local projects, creating training and opportunities for young people, as well as opening up registration free to local participants. Tirana is the European Youth Capital of 2022, and firmly looking to the future.

As the first event of what is intended to be an ongoing programme, Tirana Digital Nomad Festival celebrates Albania's unique culture and natural beauty, as well as its forward-looking business environment. The organisers successfully co-ordinated dozens of guest speakers from all over the world, to create a diverse multi-day programme of events throughout the city - a fearsome logistical feat in the face of present travel disruption, but the smiling endless patience of the local team pulled it all together seamlessly. It meant rolling with schedule changes as necessary, but together they created a dynamic programme which embraced all that Tirana has to be proud of, and that the remote work community can bring to a city ready to fly.

It goes to show you what can be accomplished when there is political support for enterprise and innovation - things get done, and fast. Private and public sector, so often at odds, can move mountains when acting together. A huge pyramid monument in the heart of the main district, originally conceived as a mausoleum for the dictator, is presently being repurposed as a youth enterprise centre and cultural hub which will offer free tech training to a new generation - a world away, incidentally, from the Spanish academic curriculum diligently cultivating those destined for top careers in government administration. The deputy mayor of the city proudly showed us around the site, detailing the vision for the new centre, due to open in the spring, in good time for next year's festival.

For me, not only was the content a blend of all my favourite subjects, from content creation to travel to web3, it was also rather like the Future is Freelance podcast had magically sprung to life - as much as I adore and champion the remote work lifestyle, it's always a great pleasure to hang out in person with people like Rowena, Lona, Leah, and Andreas (accompanied by his daughter, my amazing young namesake of 9 years old who won the floor with her account of her world-schooling lifestyle and international litter-cleaning project... after whom I am humbly content to be known to the whole future-of-work community as 'the other Maya' in perpetuity.)

That interpersonal touch:

It's moments like that one we will all remember for years to come, when we return to our everyday life and work, whether nomadic or not.

Someone asked on a panel earlier this week if 100% remote collaboration could truly work for distributed teams, and I think the evidence is firmly in on that one. But there is still so much to be said for layering face-to-face sociable encounters in among the remote professional stuff, and I think that's even more important. There is so little we cannot do online collaboratively, tools exist for every kind of co-creation and brainstorming and communication we could possibly want to do - but still people sometimes talk about a lack of connectedness and energy in the room.

Thing is, that interpersonal connection can be built far away from the work itself, by deepening the relationships through social activities and shared experience. It's those things which make people want to help and support and motivate each other, when they're collaborating professionally.

Don't bring your distributed team together to work, bring them together to have fun and get to know each other. Inspire them to want to be creative and productive together because they relate to each other as fully rounded human beings and like each other, instead of relying on impressions formed through remote professional channels. Have an off-site, send them on a retreat, or send them in teams to an event like Tirana Digital Nomads... where they can learn, explore, socialise, and experiment together, while also meeting others of like-mind.

Or just bring them here anyway, to enjoy one of the many coliving and coworking centres, in the heart of the vibrant downtown area, with a Mediterranean climate and great value hospitality to go with it.

Once you understand that work is what you do rather than a place you go, the possibilities become so much richer and more exciting, you can achieve amazing things together.

With best wishes

Maya Middlemiss

The Storyteller From The Future