For tenth year in a row, during an official ceremony was awarded the winners in the different categories in the contest “BAIT Awards”. For the first time the event was held totally online and was live streamed.
Sofia Tech Park is a partner of the initiative. The park’s Chief Executive Officer Todor Mladenov presented with an award the winner in category “Contribution to journalism” – the journalist Maya Boycheva-Manolcheva, the host of the tech podcast ICTalks. Mr. Mladenov emphasized that the contest “Bait Awards” without a doubt has proven its importance, mission and contribution not only to the development of the ICT sector in the country, but also in the overall position of Bulgaria on the world map of technology and innovation. “The results from supporting young talented Bulgarians, as well as policies and strategies focusing on supporting the ICT industry in the country, can be best seen today, in the situation of world pandemic and the coming economic crisis. The data and the examples we observe in Sofia Tech Park show that the ICT sector, along with the trade and industry sector, are less affected by the crisis. We wish all companies in the sector to be able to transform themselves, to be flexible and to come out of the situation with minimal losses and many new projects.” said Mladenov. He also pointed out that the mission and the task of Sofia Tech Park are aimed at helping – trough infrastructure, sharing experience and advices with start-ups, small and medium enterprises. “We are working in the direction of innovative and interactive education. Our goal is for the students to find what is interesting for them in the high-tech sector. We are proud to be part of this fast-developing innovative ecosystem.” said Todor Mladenov. The Chief Executive Officer pointed out that the ICT sector in Bulgaria has been developing very successfully in the las years thanks to the support of the media and the journalists. “Luckily, the topic of technology and science is more and more discussed in the public space and the credit for this goes to the numerous journalists that cover ICT events and direct the public interest towards these important topics of our time and of our future.” concluded Mladenov.
This year the award for special contribution was presented by the vice president of the Republic of Bulgaria Iliyana Yotova who emphasized on the support of the president Rumen Radev for the IT sector and defined the BAIT Awards as the spotlight that direct the public attention to the companies in the IT sector. “With your responsible attitude towards the sector and its development and with your support, you are one more incentive for these companies to want to grow and develop in Bulgaria.” pointed out Iliyana Yotova. The winner of the special award is dr. eng. Nikolay Iliev, the first chairman of BAIT and honorary inventor.
The winners in the different categories are:
In “Youth award” category the winner is Radostin Cholakov with his innovative project “AzBuki.ML” aimed at making machine learning technologies available and wildly used in Bulgarian IT industry.
With the goal of motivating the young people to search for personal development in the field of information technologies, the nominated youth was given training vouchers provided by ERP Academy.
The “Educational award” was presented to George Germanov, a student in …. That teaches robotics, electronics and 3D printing. In 2020, he realized projects in which successfully applied practical knowledge in the classes of students from 1st to 7th grade.
In “Public administration” category the award won the State e-Government Agency’s project “Development of public registers for e-Government budget and project control and a portal for access to the e-Government resources for software development”
The startup winner was Ondo Solutions that offers IT services and solutions to the farming industry. The company was awarded for the development of a high-tech system for automatic management of the irrigation, precise fertigation and monitoring of all crops.
The award for “Succseful Bulgarian ICT product/service” went to StorPool Storage for the developing of distributed storage software. In 2020, the company was included in the prestigious Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe Ranking.
The award for “Successful ICT project in Bulgarian economy’s favor” was won by Rabotosposobni.bg Ltd. for the social career platform of the same name.
The winners will get MultiTraining Gold Cards for training in Agile practices basics provided by bTalks Agile, vouchers from Ciela Norma, which can be used in bookstores Ciela. Ardes Information Technologies (Ardes.bg) will provide the electronic devices.
