At a special event in Hall 3 of the National Palace of Culture, the first in Eastern Europe Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology – INSAIT has been officially launched in Sofia. The institute is structured as a special unit at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski ”and is created in partnership with two of the world’s leading technology universities in Switzerland – ETH Zurich and EPFL.
The mission of the institute is to establish Sofia and Bulgaria as a global destination for research and innovation, an attractive hub for scientists and talents, as well as to create favorable conditions for the development of an economy based on products with high added value and intellectual property.
World-renowned scientists from the United States, Israel and Switzerland will provide expert supervision and assistance to the new institute. Members of the Institute’s Supervisory and Advisory Board include world-renowned scientists from ETH Zurich, EPFL, IST Austria, MIT, UC Berkeley, Yale, Princeton and Technion.
At the invitation of the organisers, the Chief Executive Officer of Invest Sofia Dr. Maria Hristova attended the opening of the INSAIT Institute. The project for the Institute of Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology in Sofia is backed by the Bulgarian government, global tech giants such as Google, DeepMind and Amazon Web Services, local technology companies, entrepreneurs and investors. The INSAIT Institute has all the prerequisites to become a world-class research center that attracts the best researchers and talents from the region and the world.
The official launch was attended by President Rumen Radev, Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, Minister of Innovation and Growth Daniel Lorer, President of the European Research Council (ERC) Prof. Maria Leptin, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Maria Gabriel, the Rector of Sofia University Prof. Anastas Gerdjikov, representatives of academia and business from Bulgaria and abroad.
You can find more information about INSAIT on: www.insait.ai. A video recording from the official opening is available here.