From February 26 to 29, the Catalan capital Barcelona will host the new edition of the international event MWC – the largest forum in the field of technology in Europe. The event brings together representatives of global mobile operators, device manufacturers, communication technology developers and many other experts in the field. The CEO of Invest Sofia, Dr. Maria Hristova, will participate in MWC for another year in a raw.

The event will host conferences and meetings with experts, opinion leaders and representatives of start-up companies for networking, making the forum a meeting place for investors and entrepreneurs from around the world. Among the goals of the forum is to help companies and investors from all over the world to establish a connection and undertake new business projects together. Part of MWC is “4YFN” – one of the most influential startup events in Europe, which in 2024 celebrates its 10th anniversary. Once again, the event will present cutting-edge startups in strategic areas such as connectivity, digital health, fintech, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and more. The annual GLOMO Awards, which recognize innovations in mobile technology and related industries, will also be presented during the forum.

Between February 21 and 23, Dr. Maria Hristova was at the European Parliament in Brussels to be part of the discussions focused on the opportunities and challenges facing Europe with the development of artificial intelligence. They were attended by the Bulgarian European Commissioner for Innovation, Scientific Research, Culture, Education and Youth Iliana Ivanova. The Bulgarian MEPs Andrey Kovachev, Andrey Novakov, Asim Ademov, Eva Maydel, Emil Radev and Alexander Yordanov also attended the meetings.

In December 2023, the European Parliament made an agreement with the member states of the European Union on the implementation of a regulation that aims to protect fundamental civil rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability, while promoting innovation and making Europe a leader in this field. The rules are establishing obligations for artificial intelligence based on its potential risks and degree of impact. The members of the European Parliament advocated compliance with the principles of safety, transparency, data protection and the right to legal protection. The recommendations emphasised that AI technologies that have self-learning capacity should be designed to always allow human supervision.

	Over 25% of the robots in the industry and professional services are manufactured in Europe.
	7.6 billion euros within the long-term EU budget 2.2 billion euros for supercomputers 2 billion euros for artificial intelligence 1.6 billion euros for cyber security €580 million for advanced digital skills 1.1 billion euros for the widespread use of digital technologies
	2030 г. 100% of European households will have gigabit connectivity 100% of key public services will be online

Invest Sofia invites you to become even more actively involved in the democratic life of Europe by joining Together for the EU – a community that connects people from all over Europe and allows you to meet others, share knowledge and learn new skills.

Invest Sofia participates in the event, which brings together hundreds of innovators, politicians, business leaders, scientists, experts in various fields and investors from all over the world. The start was given with an official reception in the main hall of the Stockholm City Hall, the hall of the Nobel Prizes, where the head of the “Investment Analysis” department at Invest Sofia, Viktor Gusev, and Radostina Belcheva, chief expert at the Agency, met with the chairman of the city council of the Swedish capital Ole Burrell and Caroline Strand from the management of the municipal structure “Business Region Stockholm”. Among the guests at the event were ministers, members of the team of the Swedish Innovation Agency and leaders from the global technology ecosystems. Tech Arena 2024 continues until February 23, with the participation of more than 250 speakers from around the world, a technology exhibition, panel discussions and trainings. Special areas have been set aside for start-up and expanding companies, expert seminars, meetings with investors and sessions for founders are also part of the program.

Тhe new edition of the international forum for sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship “Tech Arena” will be held in the Swedish capital, Stockholm between February 21 and 23. The event brings together hundreds of innovators, politicians, business leaders, scientists, experts in various fields and investors from all over the world. The head of the “Investment Analysis” department at Invest Sofia, Viktor Gusev, and Radostina Belcheva, chief expert at the Agency, will also take part in Tech Arena 2024.

At the invitation of the Bulgarian ambassador in Stockholm, Mrs. Svetlana Stoycheva – Etropolski, they visited our embassy there and met with the ambassador and the Head of the Trade and Economic Department, Mr. Valentin Stoev. During the meeting, they discussed opportunities to promote investments in Bulgaria and in Sofia in particular.

The Bulgarian Investment Agency together with the Ministry of Innovation and Growth organized the forum “Attracting Investments and Financing – Opportunities for the municipalities”, which was attended by the CEO of Invest Sofia Dr. Maria Hristova and Kristin Dermendzhiev – Chief Expert in the “Investments and Business Development” department.

The purpose of the event was to provide information to the municipalities in an open dialogue about the attraction of investors and financing opportunities in order to ensure sustainable growth of the regions. The event was opened by Milena Stoicheva, Minister of Innovation and Growth, who presented the ministry’s program for the development of the municipalities and the regions. The executive director of the Bulgarian Investment Agency, Mila Nenova, presented the incentive measures that the state grants to support the business. Plamen Panchev, Executive Director of “Trakya Economic Zone” and Dimitar Ivanov, Mayor of Maritsa Municipality, presented the new investment projects in TEZ and the good practices in their cooperation.

The forum also presented the current opportunities for accessing grant funding and financial instruments applicable to municipalities and potential investors.

For third year in a row, the association “Ladies forum” is organizing a discussion to promote diversity and gender equality. The new edition, in partnership with Dir.bg, is called “The power of diversity: changing the stereotypes” and its special guest is the European Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dali. The CEO of Invest Sofia, Dr. Maria Hristova, also took part in the event.

The forum presents opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences aimed at improving equality and inclusion in the European society. The discussion of key topics such as the fight against stereotypes and the removal of barriers to equality are also in the center of attention in order to contribute to the real change of the business environment in our country.

To provide stable opportunities for the development of the economic environment in Sofia and to turn the city into an attractive and business-friendly city, our team strongly relies on partnerships with the local business community. Cooperation with many organizations from different industries is part of our daily work. We are glad to welcome to our contact network for business partnerships the Toncheva & Partners Law Office. At an official meeting between our organizations PhD. Maria Hristova, CEO of Invest Sofia and Attorney-at-law Yanita Toncheva, Managing Partner at the Low Office signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in attracting investments in the city.

In its 28-year history Toncheva and Partners Law Office has established itself as a desirable partner for many Bulgarian and foreign companies. Class A and Class B investment registration, corporate and company law, due diligence, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property and copyright, real estate and construction, public procurement, applicable regulatory regimes, competition and consumers protection, labor law, migration issues and employee relocations are just some of the expertise in which the Toncheva and partners team has in-depth knowledge and many years of experience in consulting clients.

Under the Agreement, our organizations will join efforts to promote, support and facilitate cooperation between business partners related to the mutual interests of both parties. The Law Office will also join Sofia IS – our city initiative with the local Sofia companies aimed at free-of-charge integrated services to investors in Sofia. Invest Sofia will rely on the expertise of Toncheva & Partners in investment inquiries for the provision of advisory services for the selection of an appropriate legal form for investment; general review of legislation in the Republic of Bulgaria; legal research of companies, etc.

The event, which was organized by our partners from the Cluster Sofia Knowledge City, was attended by Viktor Goussev – Head of the “Investment Analysis” Department at Invest Sofia and Radostina Belcheva, Chief Expert at the Agency. In 2024, the cluster launched a new initiative to achieve one of the ideal goals of the association – creating a suitable environment for cooperation in the quadrangle of knowledge (business, science, education and local government) to stimulate the development of Sofia as a city of knowledge. Ivan Goichev, the deputy mayor in the direction of “Digitalization, Innovations and Economic Development”, was invited as the first guest of the Club.

Cluster Sofia Knowledge City unites the efforts of businesses from the knowledge-intensive sectors with the municipality, scientific institutes, development, educational and financial organizations, to transform the capital into a smart city. The cluster is part of Invest Sofia’s partner network in efforts to increase investments, improve the business environment and living conditions in our city. Through its activity, the cluster supports the implementation of the Strategy for Intelligent Specialization of Sofia and the Strategy for Digital Transformation of the City for smarter and more efficient use of human and material resources.

The head of the “Investment Analysis” department at Invest Sofia – Viktor Goussev participated in the conversation which is part of the project “Guidelines for developing policies to increase the capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises in the construction sector through digital transformation”. The meeting was held at the request of the Korean researchers involved in the project. Their main question was about the Agency’s participation in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises in Bulgaria and how it affects the inflow of foreign direct investments, as well as public-private partnership projects related with digitalization and connectivity. Slaveya Minova from the “Digitalization, Innovations and Investments” Directorate at the Metropolitan Municipality also took part in the conversation.

Partners in the project “Guidelines for the development of policies to increase the capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises in the construction sector through digital transformation” on the Bulgarian side are the Ministry of Economy and Industry and Sofia Tech Park in cooperation with the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy.

The event was initiated by the Minister of Innovation and Growth – Mrs.Milena Stoicheva, and organized by the European Innovation Council. Its aim was to present the different directions of the Horizon Europe program and to explain the possibilities for supporting innovators and researchers in deep technologies. The head of the “Investment Analysis” department at Invest Sofia, Viktor Gusev, and Radostina Belcheva, chief expert at the Agency, took part in the meeting.

The European Innovation Council is the European Commission’s largest initiative to support innovation throughout the life cycle from early stage research to proof of concept, technology transfer, funding and scale-up for start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises. Through its three instruments – Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator, the Council provides funding to scientific organizations, start-ups and SMEs in the form of grants and equity participation or investments of up to €17.5 million per start-up beneficiary. The organization has a budget of 10.1 billion euros for the period 2021-2027.

BgGPT has been developed for the Bulgarian state. Users, public and private organizations can now register to test the product

The INSAIT Institute at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” has officially launched BgGPT – the first open, large-scale, last-generation artificial intelligence language model in Bulgarian language. The product will be freely available to Bulgarian public and private organisations. Registrations are now open for those wishing to test working with the system via a bot, API access to develop their own applications, direct access to the model for customisation, and for training on specific own or company data.

The product launch was attended by Prime Minister Acad. Nikolay Denkov, Minister of Education and Science prof. Galin Tsokov and the Rector of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” – prof. Georgi Valchev.

BgGPT is specially trained for the specifics of the Bulgarian language, which will allow the creation of applications and solutions for the benefit of Bulgarian education, business, healthcare, public administration and others, according to the official announcement of Sofia University. In its first version, the model was trained on over 3 billion sentences and consisted of 7 billion parameters.

What is different from other platforms such as ChatGPT, Bard, Bing is that BgGPT is not corporate owned and can be freely used by Bulgarian public and private organizations. It is also a strategic advantage for Bulgaria’s national security that the data used to create the model is not shared with foreign corporations.

BgGPT will be fully available on 3 March 2024 at https://bggpt.ai. Users can now request early access here. In this first phase, priority will be given to users from scientific, educational, public and business organisations. INSAIT will also hold outreach meetings and events with the tech community.

According to prof. Martin Vechev, Full Professor at ETH Zurich, Founder and Architect of INSAIT and tech entrepreneur, the AI model in Bulgarian positions our country as one of the few countries in the world that has its own GPT technology, which will be accessible to all and will be independent of large private corporations. The development of the Sofia-based scientific institute makes the clear statement that Bulgaria can be a technological leader, not just a consumer of new technologies.

The INSAIT Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology was opened in Sofia less than two years ago. It is structured as a special unit of Sofia University. It