Sofia is in the Top 10 of the cities with the best business climate in Europe according to a research of Emerging Europe. The report evaluates the business environment in 75 developing cities in Europe – capitals or cities with a population of more than 200 000 people.
A total of 31 cities from 16 countries ranked among the top 10 in seven different categories of the index. Sofia is placed 8th in the Brand category and 9th in Business Climate category joining the Polish city of Lublin.
The Polish capital Warsaw and the Czech capital Prague are leading the ranking according to their combined result in the seven categories.
Bulgaria is ranked 26th among 160 countries in the Global Peace Index 2019 produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, London. Countries are listed in five groups according to their level of peacefulness: very high, high, medium, low and very low. Bulgaria is in the second group and its place in the ranking is close to the positions of countries like Germany, Belgium, Sweden, The Netherlands, Qatar, and Poland.
Our country is ranked 18th out of 36 countries in Europe. Top 3 of the most peaceful countries on the continent are Iceland, Portugal, and Austria.
Bulgaria is in the Top 20 of the best countries for families with children in the ranking of UNICEF. The research ranks the countries based on four national family-friendly policies in a total of 41 countries: duration of the paid maternity leave, paid leave for fathers, the number of children under 3 years old, attending preschool, and the number of children older than 3 years, attending preschool.
The most favourable conditions for childcare are provided in Sweden, Norway and Iceland. At the bottom of the list are Great Britain, Cyprus, Greece and Switzerland.
Bulgaria remains in the top 20 of the annual Global Services Location Index of the consulting company A.T. Kearney. The index comprises 50 countries and is calculated on the basis of four indicators – Financial attractiveness, People skills and availability, Business environment and Digital Resonance.
In 2015, our country was in the top ten but in recent years it has been constantly stepping back, mainly due to skills components, increase of taxes, insurance and regulation costs. Nevertheless, in general the business climate remains stable and our country is a competitive
The first report on Bulgarian technological solutions in the industries of Construction, Real Estate Management, Property Management, and Facility Management has just been released.
Bulgaria: PropTech & ConTech Mapping Report 2019 is developed by Strategy+ Business Lab. The company is a member of the Management Board of PropTech & ConTech Cluster – Bulgaria and an exclusive partner for Bulgaria of FUTURE: PropTech, London and EU PropTech House, Brussels.
The purpose of the report is to provide an overview of the industry and companies in Bulgaria, which are currently developing cross-sectoral solutions in the fields of Property-Technology and Construction-Technology.
The classification of the companies in the sector follows the life cycle logic of construction and real estate management. Thus, the report reveals which market niches are more densely populated and which are still unoccupied.
Key topics in the report include:
- PropTech & ConTech Industry Analysis
- ConTech Mapping
- PropTech Mapping
- PropTech Companies Already on the Market
- PropTech Startups to Watch
- Companies Supporting PropTech
The Report is available for a free download here: prexcelarate.eu/reports/
A to JazZ Returning to Sofia for the Ninth Consecutive Year
5-7 July 2019
The international A to JazZ Festival will be held for the 9th consecutive time in Sofia. One of the most anticipated musical events in the capital this year will take place on July 5-7 at its usual location – the vast meadow of South Park II. The festival is held with the exclusive support of America for Bulgaria Foundation, Sofia Municipality and the Ministry of Culture.
The program of the A to JazZ Festival 2019 includes again some of the biggest names on the global, Bulgarian and European jazz scene. The festival has free access and the program for the three days of the event is available on the website of the fest.
Design Thinking Camp Sofia 2019
29-30 August 2019
Design Thinking Camp Sofia 2019 is a summer camp for newcomers, practitioners, and experts in design thinking and service design. The event comes with 20+ international speakers and 16+ workshops.
The setup of the conference is inspired by Wonderfull, a Design Thinking Laboratory based in Moscow, Russia. The first edition was held in 2017 and it has been growing popular around the globe ever since. Fabrica 360 and Service Design Network Bulgaria own the rights to implement the format in Bulgaria.
Registration: www.fabrica360.eu/dtcamp2019
Prescriptia and the Bulgarian Association for Personalized Medicine (BAPEMED) organise for a second consecutive year the high-profile event Biotech Atelier.
Biotech Atelier 2.0 will be held on September 25, 2019, in Sofia Tech Park. Its purpose is to bring together leading international experts, entrepreneurs, business leaders, visionaries, and investors in the field of value-based healthcare, intellectual property, biotech entrepreneurship, business leadership and many more.
Convinced that the Bulgarian Life Sciences ecosystem can contribute to 10% of Bulgaria’s GDP, the event will do its utmost to speed up the development of the Biotech environment by creating a platform for international collaboration between science and industry.
The topics
Each panel of Biotech Atelier 2.0 will be organized as an open discussion between the audience and several speakers on the stage on topics such as Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs), AI in Medicine, Biobanking, Personalized Medicine, Active Patient Involvement, Funding Opportunities, IT and Life Sciences, Gene Therapies and implementation in difficult markets and much more.
Pre-event
In addition to the main event, this year there will also be training & workshop pre-event, focused on ‘Intellectual Property&Technology Transfer’. The pre-event is a result of a collaboration between Biotech Atelier, the British Embassy in Sofia and the UK Science&Innovation Network in Bulgaria. It will be held on Tuesday, 24 September 2019.
Approximately 50 senior participants from the Bulgarian biotech SMEs, Bulgarian Patent Office, Tech transfer offices of Sofia and Plovdiv Universities, Sofia Investment Agency and the Joint Innovation Centre of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences will attend the event. UK world recognized experts will give two 90- minutes lectures on IP and TT, followed by two interactive workshops where the Bulgarian participants will have the opportunity to practice through real-case situations. Keynote speakers will be Dr. Stoyan Radkov, founder and director of Priority IP Ltd. and Dr.Ingrid Kelly Spillmann, an UK and European Patent Attorney, currently a TT Manager at Institute of Science and Technology Austria.
The initiators
Prescriptia is an advisory company focused on pharmaceutical research & development, Regulatory Affairs strategies and Health economics. Prescriptia greatest assets are the founders and team members: people with a high academic background, over 10 years previous international regulatory experience, working in dynamic, multi-lingual and high-technology dependent environment.
The Bulgarian Association for Personalized Medicine (BAPEMED) is a non-profit association of scientists, patients, medical and health care professionals, educational and health care institutions, and commercial structures in health
Eight sites for supercomputing centres have been selected across the EU to host the first European supercomputers. They will support Europe’s researchers, industry and businesses in developing new applications in a wide range of areas, from designing medicines and new materials to fighting climate change.
The new high-performance computing machines will be located in Sofia (Bulgaria), Ostrava (Czechia), Kajaani (Finland), Bologna (Italy), Bissen (Luxembourg), Minho (Portugal), Maribor (Slovenia), and Barcelona (Spain). They will support the development of major applications in domains such as personalised medicine, drug and material design, bio-engineering, weather forecasting, and climate change.
The supercomputers are expected to become operational during the second half of 2020.
Bulgaria climbs one place up to 18th out of 48 locations around the world in the global Manufacturing Risk Index 2019 produced by Cushman & Wakefield consultant company.
The index evaluates the countries according to 20 different criteria in order to reach the final rankings in three categories: General conditions, Operational expenses and Risk. The report analyses locations that are considered the most attractive for expansion and/or relocation of the activities by the global manufacturers. Our country is regularly in the ranking and among the first 20 countries because of the low operational expenses and the good conditions for industrial production.
The leaders in the index for 2019 are China because of the high government investments in technologies, and the USA because of the minimal risk of economic and political threats.
Among the European countries, the best-performer is the Czech Republic (number 6 in the overall ranking). Some other Central European countries which are also in top positions are Poland, Latvia and Hungary.
China is also leading the ranking when it comes to low operational expenses. Generally, the Asian countries dominate Top 10 on this criteria. The only countries outside Asia in Top 10 in this category are Lithuania and Romania – in the 8th and 9th position respectively.
The entire report Manufacturing Risk Index 2019 is accessible here.
The Fund of Funds chose First Investment Bank as an intermediary for the implementation of a financial instrument “Microcredits with shared risk” under OP “Human Resources Development” 2014-2020. The budget for allocation to startups and social enterprises amounts to BGN 26.4 million and will be provided in the form of microcredits. They can be up to BGN 48,895 with a repayment term of up to 10 years.
The bank will provide additional BGN 8.5 million of private resources to the public resources managed by the Fund of Funds The funds under the financial instrument are provided at zero interest, thus the final recipients will pay more favourable interest on the loan.
Funding will support entrepreneurship (including social), and individuals from certain vulnerable groups – such as unemployed over 6 months, people with disabilities, youths up to 29 years old, etc. Funds should be used in activities related to the acquisition of tangible and intangible assets; capital in relation to the development/expansion of activities of the enterprise or the self-employed person; the development and upgrading of the skills of the employees or the entrepreneur in the case of self-employment.
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Projects under the programme Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency and Energy Security will be funded for nearly € 33 million. The budget is for street lights, geothermal and hydropower utilisation, energy efficiency in buildings, etc. Beneficiaries can be the state, municipalities and private enterprises that would like to improve the efficiency of their production processes.
The programme is funded by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2014-2021 with a partnership between the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Bulgaria, the Water and Energy Directorate of the Kingdom of Norway and the National Energy Authority of Iceland.
The main objective of the programme is to increase the production of energy from renewable sources, to improve energy efficiency in buildings, industry and municipalities, as well as to increase the expertise in the area of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
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Opportunities for funding for SMEs and Technological centres in the area of manufacturing are available through grants of the project H2020 KET4CP (Key Enabling Technologies for Clean Production).
Micro-funding options up to 50 000 EUR are offered for transnational projects for cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises and at least 2 technological centres. Such projects should have as a goal to integrate key technologies for solving the
The research and development laboratory Industry 2030 – RILab i2030 was opened in Sofia. Sofia Investment Agency is a strategic partner of RILab i2030. The laboratory will provide support to the scientific and development work of small and medium-sized enterprises and high-tech industry with scientific research services and trainings.
The laboratory is located in the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies and it will integrate the already available resources of academic, high-tech and innovative partners: the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; the Institute of Mechanics at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; Festo Ltd. Bulgaria; DAVID Holding Co./SpaceCAD Ltd.; AMG-Technology; Nano Tech Lab Ltd.; as well as the Sofia Laboratory for Innovations SofiaLab at the Sofia Municipality.
GO GLOBAL!
“Go Global!” is the forum for Bulgarian companies looking to expand their businesses on the international market. The event is intended to companies who already export their products or services to foreign markets and are looking for more opportunities for expansion, or yet they are considering trading abroad.The forum will feature some of the most successful examples of bulgarian companies who will talk about the challenges they have faced, the risks they have taken and the doors they have opened to join the big players on the global scene.
Experts, international consultants and business leaders will share their knowledge and experience, provide guidance on how to choose the right markets, how to communicate effectively, how to find the best distribution channel, and how to access finance.
The event is organised by the British-Bulgarian Business Association.
For more information and registrations, please visit go-global.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
The event is part of the application window in the Strategy+Business Lab prEXCELerator 2019.
Participation is free upon registration on the website of the event.
A new platform called MatcHub was presented аt an open event for entrepreneurs and startups. MatcHub is a portal for business networking that helps companies find partners on international markets. The platform is designed to support small and medium-sized businesses and to connect directly the companies with partners interested in the same field of activity or expertise.
Organisations and individuals can register at MatcHub for free and receive access to a network of companies from the local and international market. The platform guarantees the authenticity of the profiles by applying two levels of identity check – detailed information in the registration form and a proven connection and/or recommendations from other participants in the business network.
The new platform was presented by Gianfranco Brussaporci, co-founder and CEO of MatcHub, and in the presence of Georgi Stoev, deputy president of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Alessandro Catenazzi, leader of the economic research of Confindustria Bulgaria – the association that unites the Italian industry community in Bulgaria for almost 20 years. Behind the project stands Internext company, a member of Confindustria Bulgaria.
On behalf of the BINARA team, we would like to invite you to take part in the forthcoming Third Annual Saudi Food and Drug Authority Exhibition (SFDACE) to be held on 30 Sep- 02 Oct 2019 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. SFDACE is the largest annual event for food, drugs and medical devices in Riyadh.
The fair is an excellent opportunity for Bulgarian companies interested in opportunities and expansion in Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf Region. You can either participate as an exhibitor or as a visitor.
SFDACE is held under the direct supervision of the Saudi Food and Drug Authority. Professional Saudi buyers from mass distribution, retail and manufacturing meet the opportunity to source products from several countries and trade with exhibitors displaying a wide range of global offerings of food, drug and medical devices. This event includes an exhibition with a scientific conference, workshops, B2B meetings, and more.
For additional information and support for the participation/registration process, please contact the Bulgarian pavilion organiser BINARA Company – the first services and products marketing platform presented in the Arabic language in Bulgaria.
BinAra LTD, Office 410, ul. “Osogovo” 88, 1303 Sofia Center, BulgariaTrading Department:
TRADING@BINARA.BG
General inquires: INFO@BINARA.BG
024440888 / +359897684087
For WhatsApp click here https://wa.me/359897684087
Event website: http://www.sfdaconf.com / http://www.sfdaexhibition.com/
A total of 13 early-stage startups and social entrepreneurs were selected for the pilot edition of Sofia Municipality ‘Accelerator Startup Sofia’ – a joint initiative of the Municipal Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises (MGFSME), the Europe Programme of Sofia Municipality, and Sofia Investment Agency.
The Sofia-based teams will be supported with a total budget of over BGN 100 000 to further develop their projects, mentorship in the next months in their process of preparing for application for funding from banks and investors, as well as networking opportunities.
The beneficiaries of the programme develop products and services in areas such as 3D bioprinting, consumer experience, marketing and advertising, health, education and more.
At the invitation of The Municipal Guarantee Fund for SMEs, all 13 startups presented their projects at SOFIA’s PLACE – the exhibition zone dedicated to Sofia at Webit.Festival Europe 2019.
These are the projects in ‘Accelerator Startup Sofia’:
Printivo – a 3D-bioprinting startup company
Hololed – hololed 3D hologram devices for indoor advertising
Atlantida Studios – for their innovative process of attracting and engaging online audiences
Effie and Philip – for the brand Tsucky Baby Box
Victoria Grup – a social startup that prototypes new shoe design with a team of people with disabilities
Denitsa Andonova – for the development of HowThriveApp – stress relieving mobile app
Kentavar EM – 3D holography animation for the advertising industry
LesnaMatura – a website and an app using AI and machine learning algorithms to helps students improve their grade
City Glod 25 – an innovative method for the prevention and home treatment of various health conditions
Ocenime.bg – for the development of the online tool for aggregation and analyses of real estate data; the tool applies its own algorithm which compares additional data such as air quality, nearby schools, important sites, transport connectivity and more.
Media Prime – building an HD video life stream between Cardiac Surgery Operating Rooms and conference halls with students in Medicine, cardiologists and more
Oviliv BZ – online center for temporary employment
ITWis – for the further development of Tripinfy – a platform for shared rides