SpaceTech Slovenia Austria 2025

27 May 2025 | Ljubljana, Slovenia

Kostja Makarovic

R&D

KEKO-Equipment ltd.

Zuzemberk, Slovenia

My organisation

KEKO-Oprema is a medium-sized company and ranks among the world’s leaders in manufacturing equipment for producing multilayer passive ceramic electronic circuits and other technologies based on layered materials. The company develops and manufactures equipment, ranging from individual machines to fully automated production lines.  With 25 years of experience, KEKO-Oprema possesses extensive expertise, successfully marketed under its own brand in Europe, Asia, America, and Australia. The company gladly expands its activities to meet customer needs, including other products based on casting and screen printing.  Their product line dates back to when they were part of the former ISKRA consortium. Since 1995, the company has been privately owned, with development driven by a team of motivated engineers and developers. In addition to a wide range of established and proven equipment, they focus on manufacturing machines with customised specifications tailored to client requirements. They further strengthen collaboration with existing and future clients through a global sales network, working closely with experienced sales agents. These agents provide reliable customer support, ensuring satisfaction. Knowledge, flexibility, and innovation are their key market advantages, earning the brand worldwide recognition and opening new business and technological opportunities in other industries.  They launched their first series of fuel cell manufacturing machines in 2003, and since 2021, orders for such equipment have significantly increased, expanding into solid-state electrolyte batteries, solid oxide fuel cells, and solid oxide electrolysers. Their activities also include other alternative energy technologies.  Market demand and the company’s high flexibility have enabled them to become equipment suppliers for world-renowned and prestigious manufacturers of the aforementioned devices. In addition, a well-equipped demo room enables the use of our machines to make small or medium-scale prototyping.
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About me

A motivated, communicative, adaptable and qualified professional in the field of design, synthesis, characterisation and upscaling of electronic ceramic materials, ceramic multilayer materials and low temperature fired ceramics. Also an experienced designer of organic components of suspensions and also experience the develop of the process form powder to multilayer product.

Education:

- 2009 Bachelor of Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana

- 2009 Bachelor of Chemical Education, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana

- 2013 PhD in Nanoscience and nanotechnology, International Postgraduate School Jožef Stefan, Ljubljana

Professional background:

- Jožef Stefan Institute, Research fellow, (2009 –)

- Center of Excellence NAMASTE, Research Fellow, Head of Research Group, (2010 –)

- Keko-Equipment Ltd., Head of Materials and technologies Development, Head of Research Group (2013 –)

Qualifications:

- Category B driving license

- MS Office and other MS Windows and Linux PC advanced user of software

Languages:

- Slovenian (mother tongue)

- English (advanced)

- German (intermediate)

- Croatian (intermediate)

- Italian (beginner)

- Spanish (beginner)

Hobbies and interests:

Hiking, mountaineering, scuba diving, cycling, photography, travelling, organic gardening and fruit growing, technical design and development of DIY tools and solutions for my hobbies, amateur-radio operator, and nature lover.

Skills

  • Material Science
  • scale up
  • multilayer ceramics
  • Automization
  • machine lines
  • multilayer circuits fabrication
  • SOFC/SOEC fabrication technologies
  • Tape casting
  • Stacking
  • laser milling

Interests

  • electronics
  • semiconductors housing
  • chip encapsulation
  • heat dessipation
  • high power modules support
  • hydrogen economy and technologies
  • SOFC/SOEC