The 6th annual FUTURE PropTech event will return to London on May 13-14. Doubling in size every year since its launch, FUTURE PropTech aims to unite the community facilitating the implementation of innovation & technology in the real estate sector.
Join over 2,500 institutional investors, real estate private equity funds, fund managers, property developers, construction firms, facilities & property managers, surveyors, brokers and VCs to shape the future of the growing proptech industry.
Agenda:100+ speakers across 2 stages, all under the over-aching theme of “Re-Imagining Real Estate”. A mixture of formats will provide deeper insights and encourage the exchange of ideas: from original case-studies, debates and live-demos to intimate “fire-side chats.”
Some of the topics of the 2020 event are:
FUTURE PropTech 2020 is set to be the biggest event in the series yet. Book your tickets by February 14 to get the early bird price.
Experts and companies in the field can get an extra 10% discount with PropTech Bulgaria’s promo code. Contact hello@spbusinesslab.com in order to get your promo code.
For full event information and to book tickets, visit: https://www.futureproptech.co.uk
The Professional Association of Robotics and Automation 2019 (PARA) published its second annual report on Bulgaria’s success stories in robotics and automation. The report tracks the growth, investment and employment in the sector in Bulgaria and illustrates the development of industrial robots, robots in the services industry, as well as projects in the area of education. Festo, ABB, Coca-Cola, Zühlke Electronics, Ocado are just some of the good examples mentioned in the report along with many Bulgarian projects.
The PARA Report 2019 also includes:
The two pages dedicated to the Agency’s activities offer an overview of our work on the Digital Transformation Strategy for Sofia, the creation of a new unit and the newly created position of Deputy Mayor in Sofia Municipality, responsible for the digitalization and innovation development of the city.
The Industry in Numbers
The sector’s revenues in 2019 added up to more than BGN 950 million. More than 5,000 people are employed in the industry. Twenty-four companies develop own products or services within robotics and automation. Apart from these companies, the Institute of Robotics “St. Ap. and Gospeller Matthew” at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences carries out serious development activities, and more than 30 academies, clubs of interest, specialised schools and private schools train students and high school students in the field of robotics.
Some of the Achievements in the Robotics and Automation Sector in Bulgaria:
Two smart factories are expected to open in Bulgaria (Schneider Electric Bulgaria and Ataro Clima Ltd.), while many international leaders like Festo Production, Coca-Cola HBC Bulgaria, Mondelez International and many others have already chosen Bulgaria as their preferred destination to deploy their most modern production
POWER PLATFORM BOOTCAMP
15.02.2020, Puzl CowOrKing
Power Platform Bootcamp is organised globally and held locally. This free event is driven by user groups and communities around the world, backed by Microsoft, and can be attended by anyone who wants to learn more about Microsoft’s Power Platform.
In this full-day boot camp, the participants will deep-dive into Microsoft’s integration stack with hands-on sessions and labs, delivered by numerous experts and community leaders.
KNOWLEDGE CITY 2020
19.02.2020, Capital Fort
The second annual conference on urban development will be held in Sofia on February 19, 2020. Knowledge City 2020 aims at bringing together business representatives from the fields of construction, architecture, investments, technology, infrastructure, finance and banking, as well as employees in branch organizations, institutions and administration.
The conference will focus on smart cities solutions, the municipal strategies and the interaction between business and local government for the development of smart cities. Knowledge City 2020 will also showcase successful examples and good practices from Europe.
For more information, please follow the link: www.knowledgecity.bg
INNOVATION EXPLORER 2020
20.02.2020, Sofia Event Center
For the fifth year in a row Innovation Explorer Bulgaria and Economedia will challenge the global business and academia to think creatively and to strive for a better future.
This year the event aims at exploring what will be required to reignite the spark of innovation in business, education, and government – ensuring Bulgaria`s long-term success in the global economy.
Find speakers’ bios, titles of talks and the full agenda at innovationexplorer.bg
ADDITIVE DAYS
20-23.02.2020, Sofia Tech Park
Sofia will become the 3D printing capital of the Balkans between 20th and 23rd of February for the third edition of Additive Days.
The Balkan forum for additive manufacturing is a propitious opportunity for starting new collaborations and initiatives. The event aims to facilitate a better understanding of the role 3D printing has to play in different areas such as engineering, medicine, business, science, education, architecture, design, fashion, etc.
A record volume of office space was put into operation in Sofia in 2019 – 180,000 sq m or twice as much as in 2018 – according to data from the consulting company MBL. The locations are mainly near Tsarigradsko Shose Blvd. and the Mladost and Hladilnika neighbourhoods. Tenants from the IT sector are most active in the market and account for 43% of the newly leased space, followed by outsourcing companies with a 25% share in the transactions.
The share of vacant offices increased to 9.8% from 8.5%. The average rental levels remain unchanged – between EUR 12 and EUR 14 per sq m of Class A space, and between EUR 8 and EUR 11 per sq m of Class B space.
Another 300,000 sq m are planned for construction. Construction works have not yet started, as the projects are at the stage of receiving building permission.
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Data from 22 sensor stations measuring the ambient air quality in Sofia are available in real time at https://platform.airthings-project.com/. The link to the platform will also be available on the municipality’s specialised site air.sofia.bg.
The sensor stations have been installed by the Municipality as one of the activities under the AIRTHINGS pilot project, funded by the European Union under the Balkans – Mediterranean Program (2014 – 2020). Sofia Municipality is a leading partner in the program alongside four other cities – Thessaloniki, Nicosia, Tirana and Skopje.
Station data can be tracked in real time. They show the status of different pollutants, history of the last 14 days and more. The platform provides data from all five cities in an open, machine-readable format as well. As more data accumulates, the system’s accuracy improves.
The project will last 36 months in order provide an analysis on how climate change across seasons affects data quality and measurements. At a later stage, additional stations may be added to the platform, and the sensors may be upgraded for other types of measurements, such as noise pollution.
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Wizz Air and Bulgaria Air are to open flights from Sofia to St. Petersburg. The national carrier’s flights are the first to launch. Starting on April 18, Bulgaria Air will carry passengers every Wednesday and Saturday. The low-cost airline will fly three times a week – Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with the first flight launching on July 2. Both carriers’ tickets are now on sale.
Start-ups across Europe can apply for the EU-Startups Summit 2020 until February 29. The winner will receive a prize package of €75,000 and will be featured n EU-Startups and other prestigious publications on starting business, entrepreneurship and investment.
A total of 15 start-ups will be eligible to compete for the prize. They will have the opportunity to present their idea, product or service in three minutes to an audience of investors, developers, the media and an expert jury on May 28-29 in sunny Barcelona.
The applying start-ups must be at early stages of development (pre-seed or seed stage), based in Europe, founded no more than two years ago and they should not have received any previous funding (or if they have, it must be under € 500,000).
The application page is here.
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At the end of this year, companies will be able to apply for EU funding ranging from BGN 100,000 to BGN 1 million under the „Support for the introduction of innovation in enterprises” procedure of Operational Program “Innovation and Competitiveness”. The funding is for projects focused on the introduction of innovative processes, products and services.
The total volume of the budget available for beneficiaries is EUR 60 million. The procedure will support projects of micro-, small-, medium- and large enterprises with a minimum of three completed financial years (2016, 2017 and 2018). They may be from all sectors of activity, but the project itself should fall into one of the priority areas of the Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation (IS3): Mechatronics and Clean Technologies, Informatics and ICT, Industry for Healthy Life and Biotechnologies, New Technologies in Creative and Recreational Industries. The implementation period is 18 months.
Projects should focus on product innovation implementations (goods or services) or business processes innovation. The innovation must be a protected industrial or intellectual property. The program will cover costs for machinery, facilities, equipment, as well as long-term intangible assets such as specialised software, patents, licences, know-how, etc. Costs for consultancy services related to the process of innovation implementation will also be covered.
Sofia ranks 27th in terms of concentration of knowledge-intensive jobs out of Europe’s 278 regions, according to the latest 2020 edition of The Geography of Europe’s Brain Business Jobs Index issued by the European Centre for Policy Reform and Entrepreneurship. The study significantly advances the understanding of the geography of knowledge industries and highlights their importance for the future income and productivity growth in Europe.
The Sofia region is praised as a new brain business hub of Europe. With the third fastest growth rate of knowledge-intensive jobs, Sofia keeps building on its previous strong position in earlier versions of the Index, followed by Prague and Bucharest.
This year, Sofia increased its share of brain business jobs to 10.1% of the working age population employed in Brain Business Jobs, which is more than twice higher than the national average and higher than the European average of 6.3%.
According to the report: “It is evident that the Eastern and Central capital regions, such as Bratislava, Sofia, Prague and Bucharest, are the new hotbeds of Brain Business Jobs. It is likely that these regions will increasingly be linked to the strong Nordic and Western European Brain Business hubs, such as London, the Oxford Region, Paris and Stockholm.”
The 2020 Index contains individual reports on Bulgaria and 30 other countries:
In Bulgaria, the number of employees of the most knowledge-intensive firms has grown from 155 200 in 2012 to 194 600 in 2019. Out of the 39 400 new Brain Business Jobs, fully 73 percent have been created in ICT, 12 percent in creative professions, 8 percent in the tech sector and 7 percent in advanced services.
Compared to the rest of Europe, Bulgaria has strength in design & other creative professions, IT-services as well as telecom, programming and the pharmaceutical sector. In fact, the concentration of highly knowledge-intensive jobs in these sectors is higher in Bulgaria than the European average. Weaknesses are found in head offices & management, engineering, R&D as well as publishing.
Bulgaria has a stronger concentration of knowledge-intensive jobs than Romania, Poland, Croatia, Italy, Greece and Spain. The country has considerable opportunity to continue catching up to the leading European nations, granted that reforms, including anti-corruption policies and investments in higher education, are introduced to boost the business climate.
The report is being published for a third consecutive year. It maps 31 countries and 278 regions
Sofia ranks 27th in terms of concentration of knowledge-intensive jobs out of Europe’s 278 regions, according to the 2020 edition of The Geography of Europe’s Brain Business Jobs: 2020 Index issued by the European Centre for Policy Reform and Entrepreneurship. The study significantly advances the understanding of the geography of knowledge industries and highlights their importance for future income and productivity growth in Europe.
The Sofia region is praised as a new brain business hub of Europe. With the third fastest rate of growth of knowledge-intensive jobs, it keeps building on its previous strong position in earlier versions of the index, followed by Prague and Bucharest. This year, Sofia increased its share of advanced jobs to 10.1 percent of the working age population employed in Brain Business Jobs, which is more than twice the national average and higher than the European average of 6.3 percent.
The report states: “It is evident that the Eastern and Central capital regions, such as Bratislava, Sofia, Prague and Bucharest, are the new hotbeds of Brain Business Jobs. It is likely that these regions will increasingly be linked to the strong Nordic and Western European Brain Business hubs, such as London, the Oxford Region, Paris and Stockholm.”
The 2020 Index contains 30 individual country reports. The analyses for Bulgaria sais:
In Bulgaria, the number of employees of the most knowledge-intensive firms has grown from 155 200 in 2012 to 194 600 in 2019. Out of the 39 400 new Brain Business Jobs, fully 73 percent have been created in ICT, 12 percent in creative professions, 8 percent in the tech sector and 7 percent in advanced services.
Compared to the rest of Europe, Bulgaria has strength in design & other creative professions, IT-services as well as telecom, programming and the pharmaceutical sector. In fact, the concentration of highly knowledge-intensive jobs in these sectors is higher in Bulgaria than the European average. Weaknesses are found in head offices & management, engineering, R&D as well as publishing.
Bulgaria has a stronger concentration of knowledge-intensive jobs than Romania, Poland, Croatia, Italy, Greece and Spain. The country has considerable opportunity to continue catching up to the leading European nations, granted that reforms, including anti-corruption policies and investments in higher education, are introduced to boost the business climate.
The report has been published for the third consecutive year. It maps 31 countries and 278 regions
In December, the Export Hub Bulgaria initiative was launched at the John Atanasoff Innovation Forum launched. The initiative aims to develop the export potential of Bulgarian companies. Twelve organisations signed the Agreement on the Establishment of Export Hub Bulgaria in the presence of the Minister of Economy Mr. Emil Karanikolov, ambassadors and trade attaches, the Executive Agency for Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises (BSMEPA) – initiator, the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, CleanTech Bulgaria, Sofia Tech Park – host, Bulgarian Entrepreneurship & Startup Community (BESCO), SoftUni, the Association of Business Clusters, the Bulgarian Industrial Association.
The initiative will provide guidance on the steps that Bulgarian companies need to take in order to gain a foothold on international markets successfully. The initiative is hosted by Sofia Tech Park. A platform will be established that will facilitate businesses in their entry into foreign markets and provide them with access to information on the specifics and features of markets around the world such as regulatory frameworks, areas with high potential by country, practical advice.
In the beginning of 2020, Export Hub Bulgaria will organise an export program for 15 Bulgarian companies that have a product already on the market and will assist them to access foreign markets through mentoring, practical training and direct support.
Follow the BSMEPA website for additional information and the launch of the companies’ registration form.
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The Fund of Funds selected Vitosha Venture Partners to manage the last of the three Acceleration and Initial Financing Funds (FUNF II) under the Operations Innovation and Competitiveness Program 2014-2020, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.
Vitosha Venture Partners will manage public funds amounting to BGN 35.6 million with an addition of at least 10% private equity. At least 76 companies will be financed with an investment amount of between BGN 30,000 and BGN 2 million. FUNF II’s investment period will continue until the end of 2023.
The new fund will support companies in the earliest stages of development with capital and know-how, in exchange for a minority stake in their capital. Part of the funding is also aimed at more advanced startups.
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The Information Day of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) aiming to stimulate the application and participation of Central and Southeast European countries in various competitions and projects will take place in 2020. The first of two planned events will be held on January
Mr. Vladimir Danailov, CEO of Sofia Investment Agency, presented the business environment in the city, the conditions for starting a business, the fastest growing sectors, the human capital and the quality of life in Sofia in front of a German delegation. He also introduced the major German companies already present with their business in Sofia including Lufthansa Technik, Behr Hella, Kaufland, Bosch, DHL, ProSiebenSat.1, Festo, Lidl and others.
The delegation featured both companies planning to expand their business in Bulgaria, as well as those intending to invest in the country for the first time.
The representatives of the German business also met with the Minister of Economy Mr. Emil Karanikolov, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Mr. Boyko Borisov and the President Mr. Rumen Radev.
The delegation was organised by the Eastern Commission of the German Economy with the assistance of the German-Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce, which confirmed the news that Commerzbank AG plans to build a large IT centre in Bulgaria next year. Initially, 400 jobs will be created for highly qualified IT professionals, with the intention to increase their number to 600.
During the meetings in Sofia, it became clear that German investors are interested in the areas of transport infrastructure, water and waste management, mechanical engineering, e-health, the food and banking industries.
INNOVATIVE MEDICINES INITIATIVE INFORMATION DAY
17.01.2020, European Commission Representation in Bulgaria
The upcoming IMI2 information day aims to bring together representatives and key figures from the research and business sectors in Bulgaria and SEE in order to boost application and participation of CE and SEE countries in different IMI calls and projects. The first of two planned events will be held on the 17th of January 2020 in Sofia.
Along with the general information about IMI, a representative from the initiative will join the workshop and will present detailed information about the upcoming funding opportunities in 2020, as the focus will be on IMI2 – Call 20.
Access is free upon registration.
SOFIA GAME JAM
31.01 – 02.02.2020, Sofia Tech Park
Sofia Game Jam is a 48-hour hackathon where everyone is free to experiment with game mechanics, explore their imagination and try out new ideas. Everyone is welcome – from those who are really into game development to those who are gamers or just want to try making games.
SGJ Week is a completely non-profit event organized by volunteers with the support of the Bulgarian game dev community. The event is a proud member of the Global Game Jam family – one of the fastest growing initiatives in the world. In 2019, 47 200 participants from 860 sites in 113 countries around the globe created 9 010 games in 48 hours.
Sofia Game Jam Week 2020 is co-organized by ARC Academy and supported by Institut français de Bulgarie, Instytut Polski w Sofii, Sofia Tech Park, Incineration Productions JSC, V-Ray Chaos Group, Ubisoft Sofia, Creative Assembly – Sofia, SEGA, Black Sea Games, 11 bit studios, SUPERHOT, ChibiPhoenix, TELUS International Bulgaria, Global Game Jam.
Register to be a participant at the official SGJ page here.
The international rating agency S&P Global Ratings upgraded Sofia’s long-term credit rating from BBB- to BBB with a ‘positive’ outlook. The agency expects Sofia Municipality to continue to maintain the high level of own revenues as it has before, and the results of the local elections are considered a sign of continuity in governance and a basis for further financial stability and high liquidity.
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According to Eurostat, 11.19% (or 3,059 in total) of the companies in Bulgaria are classified as high-growth enterprises. They provide employment to a staff of 276,880 people. The latest data available is for 2017 and includes active enterprises with at least 10 employees.
For the European Union, the total number of these companies is 190,000 with 16.4 million employees and an average EU-wide share of 11.3%.
High-growth enterprises dominate the service sector, with the highest share being held by Information and Communication (17%), Administrative and Support Services (15.3%), Transport and Storage (14%) and Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities (12.7%).
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Bulgaria is among the countries with the highest English proficiency, according to the English Proficiency Index 2019 survey of the international education company EF Education First. One hundred countries around the world are ranked in five levels of proficiency – very high, high, medium, low and very low. Bulgaria is rated in the “very high proficiency” category alongside such countries as Hungary, Romania, Switzerland, Estonia, Greece, and Argentina.
The survey is based on online tests completed by 2.3 million volunteers worldwide. Out of the maximum 100 points, Bulgaria has a score of 58.97, which puts us in 24th place among the 100 countries or in the first 25% in terms of results.
The EF Education First index shows that in Europe, the best English is spoken in the Scandinavian countries and in the countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
Western Europe is lagging behind. The leaders in the index are the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway.
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Bulgaria is the best country on the Balkan Peninsula for living and working as an expat and is ranked 11th among 64 countries worldwide in the sixth annual Expat Insider ranking.
The ranking takes into account the results of the surveys of a minimum of 75 respondents per country and includes criteria such as quality of life, working conditions, financial situation, family life, ease of settling in.
Our country is highly-placed in indicators such as
Bulgarian startups are developing solutions according to the latest global technological trends and almost half of them (47%) offer world-class innovation, according to data from the fourth annual InnovationShip report of the MOVE.BG Foundation’s open digital network EDIT. Compared to the previous year’s survey, there is an 18% increase of companies that believe they are innovating at a global level.
Another key finding from InnovationShip 2019 is that nearly 60% of startups consider their business as socially significant and contributing. According to the survey, the specialisation of Bulgarian companies in the spheres of automation systems, blockchain technology and the internet of things (IoT) is increasing significantly. This puts Bulgarian companies in line with global trends, the report concludes.
The study involved 233 innovative micro, small, medium and startup companies. They mainly focus on:
Key challenges for innovative digital enterprises include: timely access to funding (36%), qualified experts (33%), lack of institutional support (31%), and easy access to administrative services (25%).
You can find more data on the development of Bulgaria’s startup ecosystem in edit.bg’s publication. You can download the full InnovationShip 2019 report in Bulgarian and English.