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The President: Sofia Tech Park Marks the Beginning of a New Stage of Bulgaria’s Road Towards Innovations

Sofia Tech Park marks the beginning of a new stage of Bulgaria’s road towards innovations. This is what President Rosen Plevneliev said, who together with Slovak President Anrdej Kiska, took part in the conference “The role of technological parks in the development of entrepreneurship and innovations.” The Head of State highlighted that the joint work and efforts of the state, the educational institutions and business can place Bulgaria back on the map of high-tech and innovative states.

“Sofia Tech Park will play a key role in support of innovations and entrepreneurship not only in the country, but also in the region of Southeast Europe,” Rosen Plevneliev said and thanked everyone who has contributed to the successful implementation of the first stage of the project. “After the state-of-the-art infrastructure has been built, we are yet to meet an equally great challenge. We should invigorate this place,” the President said and called on the business, scientific circles and the investors to recognize the goals and environment Sofia Tech Park offers.

“I have been following and supporting the project since it was launched and I am proud to be its patron. We went through the procedures in the different ministries and inspected the course of construction together,” the President further said. “We will focus our work from now not on who will manage the project, but how we it will be managed so that it can achieve its most ambitious goals and become a hub of the innovative ecosystems,” the Head of State highlighted.

Rosen Plevneliev was adamant that our capital has already established itself as a regional hub of entrepreneurship. For a second year in a row Sofia was proclaimed the third best destination for start-ups in Europe and the creation of innovative and competitive products with a high added value justifies the efforts made. “We should bring back the talents here and create conditions in which even the boldest ideas are welcomed with enthusiasm and support. This is the recipe for attracting a growing number of entrepreneurs in Bulgaria and also for increasing the entrepreneurship potential of young Bulgarians,” the Head of State called on for in his statement.

Information technologies, outsourcing and car industry have become some of the most rapidly growing sectors in Bulgarian economy in the past years, the President said. In his opinion, this fact is due namely to the Bulgarian entrepreneurs, innovators, programmers, companies and young Bulgarians, who see the prospects they have if the stay in Bulgaria.
The Head of State welcomed the establishment of a Council for Smart Growth at the Council of Ministers, which will pool the efforts of the state, business and academia to implement the Strategy for smart specialization of Bulgaria up to 2020.  “Way back at the beginning of my term in office, I supported the adoption of a long-term vision for the development of Bulgaria. We established a National program for development “Bulgaria 2020” and approved it by full consensus,” the President recalled.

In the statement made at the forum, the Head of State highlighted that Bulgaria and Slovakia enter together these dynamic times of technological innovations. The conference at Sofia Tech Park is attended by tens of Slovak companies and organizations from the agriculture, biotechnologies, cyber security sectors, as well as by representatives of the two biggest technical universities in Bratislava and Kosice. The Slovak Academy of Science also took part in the forum by presenting 25 joint projects with Bulgarian research institutions.

In the President’s words, Bulgaria and Slovakia entered a new stage in their economic cooperation in 2015 and they exchange experience in their scientific and development activities, innovations and start-ups. The two countries actively seek opportunities to bring their business communities closer together and to have the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency, on the one hand, and the Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency and the Slovak Business Agency, on the other, share their knowledge.

“Sofia Tech Park is not simply a building, but a symbol of innovations, of start-ups and technologies and for us, as politicians, it is extremely important to ensure that Europe does not lag behind the dynamically developing economies in North America and Asia, which rely on and invest in innovations and promoting start-ups,” Slovak President Andrej Kiska said at the conference.