In 2022 we overcame many challenges, shared both difficulties and successes, exchanged experiences and ideas, discussed and implemented joint projects, initiatives and campaigns. We developed and grew together, created partnerships and moved closer and closer to our common mission Sofia Tech Park to be the preferred platform for innovators, start-ups and businesses based on science and knowledge – The Address of Innovation in Bulgaria.

EVENTS AND PARTNERSHIPS

We have had one of the most active years for events in Sofia Tech Park.

• A total of over 270 events in the fields of education, entrepreneurship, ICT, life sciences, green energy
• More than 100 000 visitors

After a two-year break, we once again held Sofia Tech Park’s annual event – Supersonic on the theme of science and technology transfer – TECH & KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER.

We hosted forums such as:

• Webit, Webit, Powers Summit, Innovation Forum-Forbes, Sofia Science Festival, Bazaar of Professions, European Researchers Night, Hello Space – Science Youth Festival in partnership with the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria; we organized a series of scientific events in partnership with Ratio – Connect and Ratio Forum, Digitalk, Science for Business 2. 0, Open Fest, QA&DEV Conference, JPrime, Fintech Summit, Bulgaria Wants You, European Networking Event, INSAIT Conference on Emerging Trends, Western Balkans DIGITAL SUMMIT PRISTINA 2022, AI&Cyber Event, ISTA Conference, International Biomedical Congress-Sofia, Biotech Atelier, IRIS Open Talk, National Forum for Advanced Space Research, Robotic Strategy Forum, ESG Event, JS Talks, “Големите малки”, Sofia Tech Park of Flowers and Children, and dozens more events and meetings about the innovation ecosystem in the Park with representatives of business, local government, foundations, state institutions, and government.
• Sofia Tech Park also welcomed international delegations from the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Turkey, Mongolia, Republic of Kosovo, Serbia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Lithuania and others.
• We were partners of “Innovative Enterprise of the Year”, BAIT Awards, JA Bulgaria’s Manager for a Day, PARA Robotics Incubator, Bloomberg TV’s “Daredevils”, TU-Sofia’s “Microelectronics and Mechatronics” forum, “Telephone, Telemedicine, Medicine”, Investor Finance Forum, Hackathon “InnoAirChallenge”, event for the Ukrainian community in our country “Ukrainian Sunflower”, Charity Christmas Bazaar in cooperation with Bosch ECS which supported the causes of five NGOs and many others.

We continue to be active in 2023 and can already announce upcoming events:

• The Sofia Science Festival, in May
• European Researchers’ Night, in September
• Supersonic by Sofia Tech Park, in November
• Bazaar of Professions, in November

INCUBATOR

This year, despite the Covid pandemic and the economic crisis, our Incubator generated ideas, businesses grew, developed and managed to overcome the negative effects.

The office spaces maintained a high occupancy rate of over 90%

39 companies are members of our innovation ecosystem

From 2023, innovators, startups and entrepreneurs will be able to benefit from our new incubation program – The SEE Innovators Program

• We launched a joint business incubator with CERN
• Sofia Tech Park became a member of Enterprise Europe Network
• Club House continued to create digital content from our 18 interest clubs and partners

Many of our Incubator companies have achieved success in 2022.

• Barin Sport won funding from the BBB Equity Investment Fund and a Bulgarian Stock Exchange award from Bloomberg TV’s “Drazkite” competition
• MYX and New Energy were the big winners in the Innovative Enterprise of the Year 2022 competition;
• IRIS Solutions was positioned in the TOP 5 of the fastest growing companies in fintech, according to the Bulgarian Fintech Association’s annual report for 2022
• CMYK was the winner of the second phase of ClimAccelerator Black Sea Bulgaria 2022, and won the national selection for startups within the Start up! Germany Tour initiative, held by the German-Bulgarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
• We must be missing some of the achievements of our partners and friends, but we promise to share a lot more information about the development of companies from the innovative eco-community in Sofia Tech Park this year.

TECHNOMAGICLAND

It was also an important year for the development of our interactive science and technology center – TechnoMagicLand. Technomages worked hard during the year to promote the world science and technology among children.

• They created over 300 hours of real-time videos and broadcasts
• Activated the Center’s work with schools in Sofia and across Bulgaria
• Supplemented the exhibit with new experiments and exhibits
• Updated and enriched the STEAM activities and demonstrations offered
• TechnoMedicalLand became part of NASA’s The Museum & Informal Education Alliance

TechnoMagicLand will be 5 years old in 2023 and has already established itself as an important player in Sofia Tech Park’s ecosystem
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ACTIVITIES FROM THE LABORATORY COMPLEX

Our research teams from the 11 laboratories participated in dozens of project initiatives during the year to develop the innovation ecosystem in Bulgaria and the region. The projects were in the fields of ecology, information and communication technologies, medicine, preservation of cultural heritage and others.

Over 100 services were performed in the Laboratory Complex in various fields – virtual and augmented reality, microelectronics, genetics, chemical and biological developments and analyses, communications, etc. We worked in partnership with over 35 companies, scientific institutions and museums, and over 10 scientific papers were published in prestigious journals.

• Sofia Tech Park held a competition and sent five young scientists to a meeting with Nobel laureates in medicine in Lindau, Germany
• Together with The Bulgarian National Television we broadcasted the second season of the joint series “Science for Business” with the participation of researchers from Sofia Tech Park laboratories
• Training of medics on the DaVinci surgical robot
• The Bulgarian student team in synthetic biology IGEM won a silver medal among more than 300 teams from all over the world in the world competition in this field. The team is supported by Sofia Tech Park and carries out its research in the Bioinformatics Laboratory of the Park

DISCOVERER

The Bulgarian supercomputer Discoverer is already in use by a number of scientific teams and business representatives from Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Belgium, France and Bulgaria.

The Bulgarian supercomputer has won funding from EURO HPC JU to upgrade with graphics accelerators.

Discoverer offers a new service for businesses, which can now use the machine’s resource in an “HPC as a Service” method.

The Ezmeral Platform is being built in collaboration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise to offer models and software to businesses so that companies can easily run certain of their research or create products using Discoverer’s capacity.

NEW SERVICES

• We created our own prototyping workshop – Sofia Creation Station
• We completely renovated our sport center – Sofia Tech SPORT