The Future of Entrepreneurs in Albania – The Story of a Country Waking Up!

Gerdes described it almost poetically.
If the first ten thousand young people start using the technology in the right way, the rest will follow.
A positive pandemic, a wave of knowledge, curiosity, and momentum.
Not a transformation imposed from above — but a grassroots shift, where young people themselves become the country’s most important teachers.

And maybe that’s exactly what Albania needs: a mental shift from hesitation to movement.
When the infrastructure is already there, people become the missing link.

Walk through Albania today and you’ll feel it everywhere.
It’s no longer a country people simply pass through.
The energy is changing in the coastal towns, where creativity is beginning to settle.
Tirana’s cafés have quietly transformed into hubs for creators, entrepreneurs, digital nomads, and returning diaspora.
Young Albanians speak globally, not locally.

But beyond all that, something deeper is happening.
Gerdes articulated it with striking clarity:

"I don’t believe in tourism. I believe in people creating a life they don’t need to escape from."

He talks about growing up in Germany, where people escape their lives twice a year just to breathe for a moment.
They travel to disconnect. To shut down.
They come back to the same wheel they tried to escape from.

Albania can offer something radically different.
A country where people don’t come to switch off — but to switch on.
To participate.
To live.
To learn.

Not a holiday — a lifestyle.
Not a getaway — a homecoming.

In many ways Albania stands where Portugal, Estonia, and Malta once stood, right before their major takeoff.
A place where the future is not yet fully defined, making it possible to shape it.
A place where entrepreneurs don’t have to wrestle with decades of rigid structures.
There is still space between the building blocks — space to think boldly, to experiment, to create.

The country is full of these contrasts:
modern cables underground, but schools waiting for renewal.
youth eager to move forward, but job markets stuck in old patterns.
small towns with little competition, yet huge untapped potential.
investment appetite ready to ignite, but still searching for direction.

These are exactly the kinds of cracks where entrepreneurs thrive.

Then there is the diaspora — one of the most powerful forces shaping Albania right now.
Millions of Albanians have lived and worked in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, and the UK.
Now, slowly, many are returning.

They bring back experience, capital, networks — and something even more valuable:
a sense of how to build something that lasts.

When a country gains both young, hungry talent and returning citizens with global experience, a unique dynamic forms.
Two sides of the same coin finally meet.
And that collision often sparks the biggest breakthroughs.

Gerdes also captured something deeply human about Albania.
He prefers sitting in a village square, talking to people, learning how and why they do things — rather than lying on a beach trying to forget life for a moment.

"I’d rather sit in a square, meet local people, and try to understand why they do things the way they do. What have I missed?"

This is exactly where entrepreneurship begins.
Not in spreadsheets or business plans.
But in conversations.
In listening.
In curiosity.
In the desire to understand the world through someone else's eyes.

Entrepreneurs build companies later —
they build insight first.

And Albania is a place where insight is everywhere.
Where people are open, curious, willing to share.
Where culture is available, not hidden behind high prices or rigid social layers.

It reminded him of Malta, where he once worked with submarine cables and witnessed how a digital infrastructure can transform an entire nation.
Albania, he suggests, is at a similar stage — but earlier, more malleable, more full of open doors.

The cables are already here.
The opportunities are already here.
The young people are already here.
The returning diaspora is already here.

All that’s missing is the spark that lights everything up.

Imagine Albania ten years from now:

Old industrial buildings in Tirana repurposed into buzzing startup studios.
Small coastal towns becoming creative enclaves with coworking hubs and long-stay professionals who came for the prices but stayed for the life.
Young Albanians teaching their own parents how digital tools work.
Fiber cables in rural villages no longer unused assets — but the foundation of local innovation.
A country that builds communities instead of seasons.
A place people choose to live — not escape to.

This isn’t a fantasy.
It’s the natural direction of a country that still has room — the right kind of room.

Albania is not full.
It is open.

Open to innovation.
Open to talent.
Open to returnees.
Open to foreign builders.
Open to ideas.
Open to future.

That makes Albania something incredibly rare in today’s Europe:
a place where the future isn’t just coming — it’s already arriving.

And again, Gerdes says it best:

"What matters isn’t attracting tourists. What matters is attracting people who build their lives here."

That line captures the essence of everything unfolding now.
For entrepreneurs, Albania is not simply a country — it is a blank canvas.
A place where ideas can take root.
Where digital opportunities can flourish.
Where something meaningful can be built.

Most importantly:
a place where people are ready.