Outside of his research work, he is also known in his native country as a pioneering advocate for computer literacy amongst school-aged children.

After his father's execution by Yugoslav Partisans and the end of World War II in 1945, Branimir and his mother returned to Zagreb.

Establishing a cybernetics group at the university in 1962, Makanec designed a TIOSS (remote self-organizing system) robot prototype that displayed rudimentary AI behaviour like handing out the pamphlets to public.

The MMC, during nearly twenty years of existence, gave thousands of children and students an opportunity to learn programming and socialise with people of similar interests.

[4] Makanec worked for Ivasim (hr) and was part of the team responsible for the development of the Ivel Ultra.