More than 50 cluster managers, economic development experts from all over the world, representatives of European and international academic circles and institutions visited the Sofia Tech Park and took note of the achievements achieved so far in the implementation of the Science and Technology Park project and the development of the innovative ecosystem in Bulgaria. The visit to Sofia Tech Park was part of the TCI European Conference 2018 – “Turning Challenges into Opportunities through Clusters in Eastern Europe”, which takes place in our capital city from 20 to 22 March 2018 and is under the auspices of the international organization TCI Network . The organizer of the conference is the Sofia Municipality, together with the Association of Business Clusters in Bulgaria (ABC) and Veritas Consulting Cluster. Sofia Tech Park is a partner of the initiative.
The business development expert Mihail Iliev presented to the forum participants the individual components of the park and the stages of their development. He stressed the park’s key role in developing the local innovative ecosystem as well as in achieving synergy between business and science in order to achieve new products and services to successfully market. Iliev pointed out to the guests the main focus of regional development of the Park – ICT, life sciences and green energy. The capacity of the Business Incubator is almost 100% filled, with 19 start-up companies developing their ideas, and some of them already have joint projects with scientists from the 11 units of the Park Laboratory Complex.
Ivo Iliev, an expert from the High Performance Laboratory, and Yavor Papazov, an expert from the Cyber Security Laboratory of the Science and Technology Park, also made representations to the representatives of TCI. Iliev presented the capabilities of the second-largest supercomputer in Bulgaria operating on the territory of the science and technology park as well as the potential application of the capabilities of the machine for business, science and entrepreneurship. Papazov stressed that for every company in the world, it is extremely important to make efforts to achieve a good level of cyber security, so experts in the science and technology park offer training for private companies, representatives of institutions and organizations.
The challenges for the development of the Bulgarian innovative ecosystem were presented by Natanail Stefanov, chairman of the Bulgarian Starter Association. He also gave examples of good interaction between the entrepreneurial community, the country’s institutions and the scientific community.
Later, the participants of the TCI European Conference 2018 met with Peter Statev, Chairman of the Board of Cluster for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
TCI is a leading global cluster of cluster development and competitiveness clusters and co-operatives who share experience and experience in improving practices to promote competitiveness and innovation. Through its activities, TCI reaches over 9,000 representatives of development agencies, government structures, cluster organizations, academic institutions, companies and various NGOs in more than 110 countries. The European Conference TCI 2018, which began in Sofia, will bring together over 300 delegates from European and world organizations. The purpose of the event is to present the opportunities of Eastern Europe and in particular the Balkan region and Bulgaria. The European Conference TCI 2018 will highlight the importance of deepening cooperation between countries and between regions in key areas in order to further improve competitiveness and opportunities for cooperation. The TCI European Conference in 2018 will become a platform for discussing: production development policies – a modern industrial policy; implementation of these policies; business and joint activities between clusters and companies from different regions and countries; the importance of the global development of local competitiveness programs implemented in developing countries.