‘Harnex.io’ – Stirring the pot with a tech revolution…and bold ideas!
Related Articles
The Curious Case of Parid Varoshi, a Tirana borne tech entrepreneur
-By Gjon Rakipi
A local inspirational story comes to us from our very own, Parid Varoshi, a Tirana borne tech entrepreneur and returning migrant.
Parid periodically finds his way back to Albania while still completing a master program in Germany, all in order to take advantage of a brilliant opportunity in his home country. An opportunity that presented itself in an arid April afternoon, when Parid was looking to upgrade his father’s old Volkswagen for a newer model. In his search Parid came across the only platform that remotely resembled what he was looking for. In his own words, it was a “baffling attempt at e-commerce”. At the end of the day his idea was simple: no good version of it existed, so why not make one?
Taking a page from Mobile.de in Germany, Parid went to work on his new automobile e-commerce platform, all the while finishing the last stretch of his Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering at Epoka University. Being the dedicated go-getter that he is, Parid would not even let moving to Germany and pursuing a Masters in Informatics stop him from working on this new idea. Then, in just over one year’s time, the first ever digital platform for the sales and purchasing of automobiles in Albania was founded, with a name straight out of the Roman era, ‘Harnex’.
Before this, buying a car in Albania would take place in your typical brick-and-mortar stores, and most strikingly, through social media platforms like Instagram, or Tik Tok. A substantial gap in the market indeed.
Parid and Harnex’s story is inspirational for three reasons. First is the important example that is being set for aspiring young talent originating from Albania that has emigrated from the country. The indiscriminate brain drain in Albania has left the country in a developmental standstill. According to UNESCO's 2019 Global Monitoring Report on Education, some 18,000 Albanian students are being educated abroad, and approximately 94% of them report of having no desire to return. Stated otherwise, Albania was found to have the highest rate of emigration of educated persons in Europe. While Germany and other Western democracies benefit from the hardworking and dedicated talent that comes from Albania, the country itself has a palpable void to fill. A necessity for the advancement of Albanian society is the presence of youthful talent that has been trained in the Western world’s educational institutions, and that has come back with a purpose.
Albania can best be describes as a developing country with numerous ‘institutional voids’, as Tarun Khanna, professor at Harvard Business School, so eloquently puts it. These ‘institutional voids’ refer to the lack of developed infrastructure and institutions in countries like Albania. Prof. Khanna argues that where governance has failed to provide these things, entrepreneurs are well-positioned to do so. The institutional void discussed in this story relates to digital technology, but there are numerous such examples in Albania which entrepreneurs and social enterprises can use as a springboard for innovation and development. Notable examples that come to mind are institutional voids in healthcare, food safety, infrastructure that relates to trade, technology in agriculture, urban pollution and so on. The possibilities are difficult to count, and this is precisely why young talent needs to look at Harnex carefully, and consider the possibilities that lie back home.
The second reason why it is important to speak about Harnex is that it focuses on an important sector in Albania, information technology. A substantial portion of the youth demographic in Albania has studied IT (8,458 students in 2021). Moreover, IT workers have the highest average salary of any other employment category in Albania that is not a top-management position. In fact, some returning migrants have found a way to stay with their families in Albania while being employed in a Western country in a ‘working-from-home’ sort of agreement that IT affords. The future of this employment category is therefore promising, and this promise is strengthened when considering the potential that digitization has for increasing cooperation, traceability, transparency, and innovation in Albania. Information technologies have the potential to tackle essentially any institutional void, so in cases where their implementation has been expertly achieved, like has been the case for Harnex, we should celebrate them.
Thirdly, Harnex and its founder Parid are inspirational because they demonstrate the spirit of innovation, hard work and excellence in a country that is downtrodden with corruption, nepotism, and complacency. What Harnex demonstrates and will continue to demonstrate is that the best will prevail. In a country where fair-competition is a farce, companies like Harnex will prove that long-term success in the private sector does not have to rely on political backing, but it can instead rely on providing the best service to the public.
Talking to Parid today you cannot get any other impression than that of a good-hearted, humble and ambitious young man. The latter becomes crystal clear when you ask Parid about the future of ‘Harnex’.
“It will be the standard platform for Albania, Kosovo AND Macedonia. Any one person or any car dealership will be using ‘Harnex’!”
Today the platform is up and running smoothly, but a driven youngster like Parid cannot stop there, of course not! A ‘Harnex’ app is well on its way to ‘Google Store’ and ‘Apple Store’.
“I love my country. I want to help it develop. We need more patriotism here! More love. ‘Harnex’ was my way of doing that. Of helping in the digital transformation of Albania. Technology is what will leads to development…but most of all we can’t possibly have people buying cars on Instagram and Tik Tok!”
As a local expert who was interviewed prior to writing this piece describes, the path towards state-building in Albania may very well rely on economic development first, after which the implementation of the rule of law will naturally follow out of the necessity for economic productivity. In other words, may the best man win, and may the winners prevail. For us at here at Tirana Times, Harnex is one of those winners!
If you’re not yet convinced, take a look for yourself: https://harnex.io
