By Christen O’Brien

Because the tech markets in both countries are so ‘hawwwt’ right now, Dave and I were on the fence about whether to visit Poland or Croatia for our final stop during the upcoming ‘Geeks on a Plane’ Eastern Europe tour. Then Dave came up with the idea of waging a twitter battle between the countries to determine the victor.

Having lived in the Balkans, I warned him that starting a fight between Eastern European countries sometimes doesn’t end too well…

As expected, the tech communities in the Balkans hit twitter hard, fiercely contending that the Balkans would be the right choice.

OH in the #GOAP twittersphere:

> TONS OF GREAT STARTUPS:  @farmeron, @Toshl, @zemanta, @ubervu, @shoutem, @GisCloud, @Nordeus,  @vox_io, @SalesPod…and a bunch of others
> MASSIVE STARTUP GROWTH:  @igzebedze Because it’s the fastest growing “startups per capita” region in EU. @zemanta
> FOOD: @mdjanic Not to mention we have food that is beyond awesome.
> WINE:  Stevica Kuharski @kstevica @mdjanic and great wine and Adriatic sea
> GEOGRAPHY: @ivospigel Also Slovenian, Bosnian, Serbian #BalkanMafia
> ANTHONY BOURDAIN DIGS IT: @drazendrnas – great startup scene + you should ask Anthony Bourdain also
> COLLEGE DROPOUTS: @MarinaJeger Why #GOAP should visit Balkans in 2012? The highest rate of college dropouts per garage – imagine the potential!
> WORLD’S GREATEST GEEK: @GisCloud Why #GOAP on Balkans? Because we gave to the world the greatest geek who ever lived: Nikola Tesla:

Now, we have to admit – even though the Balkans were kicking Poland’s ass on twitter, we were still on the fence. After all, Warsaw & Krakow are undoubtedly becoming some of the more important tech scenes in Europe. We’d heard for a while now about some of the companies and infrastructure being developed there, and this was not an easy decision.

And then the Balkans threw the final punch – right in the jugular. Croatian President Ivo Josipovic (@ivojosipovic) sent us this personal letter on his Facebook fan page about why we should visit his country:

Not only can’t we turn down a personal invitation from the President, but this is a President who uses Facebook, people!

So…..Croatia, here we come.

However, there are no losers here – we WILL be visiting Poland in the next 6 months, and we are so excited to support the community there and bring GOAP to Warsaw/Krakow soon. We’ll just give you guys some time to mobilize a good ol’ fashioned Facebook letter from your President!

WANT TO JOIN GOAP ‘EASTERN EUROPE’ FROM SEPTEMBER 18-30?  APPLY HERE NO LATER THAN JUNE, 20TH.