On 8th of March in Brussels within the broader context of the S3 activities, was held “Synergies between European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) & Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Funding: The Stairway to Excellence (S2E)”. The 2017 Conference on the synergies between Horizon 2020 (COSME, ERASMUS + etc.) and ESIF was organized in collaboration with the European Parliament (EP), and DG REGIO to raise awareness of major stakeholders on (1.) the progress in exploiting the synergies between Horizon 2020 (and other funding programmes) and ESIF and (2.)Discuss practical bottlenecks emerging when R&D&I actors will start implementing the available tools for synergies between funds.

This event presented the achievement of the project, lessons learnt and discuss challenges ahead with regional and national managing authorities who are involved in the managing R&I funds in order to exchange ideas and good practices. 

Key objectives of this event were:

• To present the achievement of the project, including lessons learnt from the S2E National Events organized since 2015.
• A better understanding of the national (and regional) innovation ecosystem with a special emphasis on the identification of obstacles, barriers and potentials to innovation.
• Raising awareness of the actions needed to enable synergies between different EU funding programmes for research and innovation.
• Sharing experiences in combining Structural Funds and Framework Programme to improve excellence in R&I systems.
• Drawing lessons for the future and identifying follow-up actions to enhance the potential synergies between different EU funds in the MS.

The "Stairway to Excellence" (S2E) initiative is a pilot project funded by the European Parliament (EP) and focused on supporting European Regions and Member States in enhancing synergies in the use of different EU funding sources for research, development and innovation (European Structural and Investment Funds and Horizon 2020, also taking account COSME, ERASMUS+, Creative Europe and so on).

The Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) are now a reality in Europe. With EU regions and nations having completed the technical fulfilments of the ex-ante conditionality and related action plans, the activities are now moving to the implementation phase. More information is available.

Mr. Peter Statev – Chairman of ICT Cluster was a keynote speaker at the 1st  brokerage event on 6th of March in Sofia, Bulgaria organized by the MOVE European Strategic Cluster Partnership.

In the event participated representatives of clusters, companies and universities from Bulgaria, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Macedonia. They presented their organizations and main activities in the field of transport and logistics, smart mobility, smart cities, ICT and green technologies. Mr. Peter Statev made a presentation to the participants about the cross innovation and smart cities.

Massimo Da Via from Italy presented the opportunities for internationalization in Third countries’ markets – Morocco and Brazil.

MOVE's European strategic cluster partnership got wider with joining of six new clusters from Germany, Macedonia, Poland, Italy and Bulgaria, wich develop their activities in the area of transport and logistics and IT.

The B2B part of the event gave opportunity to participating companies and clusters to meet each other and identify possibilities of cross-border and cross-sectoral cooperation.

Smart Factory Hub project has started with he kick off meeting held in Sarvar, Hungary on 9-10 February 2017. The project is financed under the first call of the Danube Transnational program.  The partnership includes 12 partners from 10 countries of the Danube region. 

SMART FACTORY HUB (SFH) main objective is to improve framework conditions for Innovation in the area of smart factory/Smart Manufacturing, based on Research and Innovation Smart Specialization Strategy (RIS3) centred model.

The meeting put the framework of the future successful project implementation as partners agreed on project administrative and technical procedures. The tasks and deadlines for the first reporting period were underlined.

Together with the kick off meeting on 10th March the kickoff event of the project took place. The event was attended by the representative of JTS and the mayor of Sarver. The project partners had chance to visit the Flex factory and see the future technologies for optimization of production and HR processes.

More information about the project you can find here.

На 16.02.2017 г.  в Министерство на Икономиката /МИ/ се проведе среща между представители на Министерство на Икономиката и Асоциация на Бизнес Клъстерите.
 
От страна на МИ в срещата участваха:
Доц. д-р Теодор Седларски – министър на икономиката;
Г-н Васил Караиванов – съветник на министъра;
Г-жа Евелина Пенева – Главен директор на ГД “ЕФК”;
Г-жа Людмила Тозева – Началник отдел, “Програмиране, наблюдение и оценка на ОП”, ГД “ЕФК”;
Г-жа Нина Цанева – Директор “Връзки с обществеността и Протокола”, МИ.
 
От страна на АБК в срещата участваха:
Г-н Венцислав Славков – председател на УС на АБК;
Г-н Петър Статев – член на УС на АБК;
Г-н Светлин Рангелов – изпълнителен директор на АБК.
 
Г-н Славков запозна участниците с развитието на клъстерите в България, като обърна внимание на големия брой регистрирани клъстери – 298. За сравнение в страни, като Германия, Австрия, Румъния, Унгария и др. техния брой е значително по-малък. Забелязва се тендеция в годините, в които се обявяват сесии за подпомагане на клъстери, регистрациите да се увеличават лавинообразно, например през 2013 г. те са 106, през 2016 – 60, при среден брой 8-10 регистрирани клъстера годишно. В тази връзка бе отбелязано, че по предложение на АБК от МИ е въведена система за категоризация на клъстерите на “новорегистрирани”, “развиващи се” и “развити”. Приложен е и диференциален подоход за финансиране, в зависимост от степента на развитие на съответния клъстер.
Г-н Славков изказа задоволство от съвместната работата през последните две години с екипа на МИ, мнение, което бе подкрепено и от г-н Петър Статев.
Дискутиран бе и въпросът за възможността АБК да представлява федералната асоциация на средния и малък бизнес в Германия /BVMW/. Темата за представител на BVMW в България е била поставена по време на посещението на Президента Радев и г-н Седларски в Берлин. Решено бе този въпрос да се консултира в оперативен порядък със СТИВ – Берлин.
 
 
От своя страна г-н Статев постави въпроса относно проблеми възникнали при подаване на документи по електронен път, за редица конкурсни сесии – както по ОПИК, така и по Националния Иновационен Фонд. За устойчивото решаване на проблема, бе предложено на МИ експертна помощ от водещи специалисти в ИКТ клъстер. Поставен бе и въпросът, за недопускането до текущия конкурс, на клъстерни организации регистрирани в обществена полза – практика противоречаща на принципите на съвременния социално отговорен бизнес и европейска практика. Представителите на МИ споделиха, че затруднението по този въпрос идва от Министерство на финансите. Общото желание бе, за следващите сесии това да бъде регулирано по подходящ начин, така че клъстери членове на АБК с такъв статус да не бъдат ощетявани.
 
Страните се обединиха около нуждата и желанието да бъде осъществяван подходящ, навременен и ефективен мониторинг върху резултатите от финансирането и се договориха да продължат диалога за намиране на ефективни и своевременни решения на поставените въпроси.
 
Във връзка с подготовката на документите за следващия конкурс за иновативни клъстери, г-н Петър Статев посочи, че съществено предизвикателство пред Българската индустрия е прехода към автоматизирани и ефективно управляеми производствени процеси. Предложено бе фокусът на следващия конкурс за клъстери да са именно принципите заложени в модела за преход към Industry 4.0.

Paola Gushterova a NE form Bulgaria successfully her exchange of experience in Greece under the project Ventures 8 within the program “Erasmus for young entrepreneurs”. She sprend 2 months with Anastasios Ioannidis,the host entrepreneur, within his company - Motive Consulting witch is in the field of legal, fiscal and other consultancy services.  

As partners of Webit.Festival 2017 we would like to inform the members of ICT Cluster about the latest news for the event.

In April, the festival will welcome more than 5000 attendees from 80 countries and over 100 speakers. Among them you will find some of the companies on the Fortune’s 500, top brands, policymakers, founders of some of the most innovative businesses and the most exciting startups, not only in the region, but throughout the world.

The event is held on 25 and 26 April under the patronage of the President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, the Mayor of Sofia Yordanka Fandakova and the European Commission. It will be attended by successful mayors in the country and abroad.

Your presence on Webit.Festival will make you part of a global community of some of the most influential people from 5 continents, who draw the future of the world.

The communication with representative of the highest levels of the private and public sectors will contribute to the development of your B2B Communication and will improve the interaction of your business with government institutions.

Speakers on Webit.Festival will share their experience in improving the quality of services, mastering new technologies, providing innovative solutions, creating opportunities to improve software education, cooperation between public and private sectors, development of healthy business climate and promotion of fair competition.

Along with Webit you can help for improving the level of public awareness about the state of the ICT sector in Bulgaria and develop the image of Bulgarian software and communications industry abroad.

Events during Webit.Festival are conducted in three main areas - Enterprise, Policy and Startups.

In Enterprise you will find out more about the world of software development (Dev Summit), marketing and innovation (Marketing & Innovation Summit), digital transformation (Digital Transformation Summit), managing large databases and cloud services (BigData & Cloud), financial technology (FinTech Summit), internet of everything (IoE Summit) and privacy and security (Security & Privacy Summit).

During the Dev Summit you will learn about current trends in topics like: What is DevOps, How can you streamline and automate Ops, Agile & DevOps, Boosting developers productivity with DevOps and Managing deployments and infrastructure with DevOps.

The conference will meet you with people like Don Dodge (Developer Advocate, Google), Jonas Jacobi (VP, Cloud and Mobile Technology Strategy, IBM), Peter Heinrich (Developer Evangelist, Amazon), Christoph Auer-Welsbach (Partner Innovation Leader Europe, IBM watson) and Patrick Hagerty (Technical Advocate, IBM Bluemix).

Meanwhile, the Digital Transformation Summit will give you information about the best practices of digitizing your business, so that in can be successful in the technological age. During the conference you can listen to top level speakers, such as the CEO of JetPack Aviation David Mayman, the Founder of Change Sciences Group Inc Pamela Pavliscak and the CMO of AngelHack Brian Collins.

Three host entrepreneurs and one new entrepreneur from Bulgaria represented by ICT Cluster as their Intermediate Organisation successfully completed their exchange of experience within the project Ventures 8 under the programme Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs.

Paola Gushterova started her exchange of experience in Greece as a young entrepreneur under the project Venture8 within the program “Erasmus for young entrepreneurs”.

Anna Naydenova – executive director of ICT Cluster took part in the European cluster matchmaking event. The event was organized by the European Cluster Collaboration Platform on 30th of November 2016 on the eve of the 2016 European Cluster Conference “Clusters 4_0”. The large-scale matchmaking event brought together more than 300 cluster policy makers and cluster managers from 114 cluster organizations, from 21 countries, which discussed the future of European cluster policies.
The fifth edition of the European Cluster Conference kicked off in the morning of 1st December 2016 gathering more than 300 attendees from all over Europe.  This year the conference was focused on Cluster 4.0 – Shaping Smart Industries and included high-level plenary speeches, panel discussions and interactive sessions where participants had the chance to share their experience and challenges. Anna Naydenova, Executive Director of Bulgarian ICT Cluster was a “hard talk” speaker at the panel session "Clusters facilitating new cross-sectoral value chains".
The European Cluster Conference and also attended by members of “Balkan and Black Sea ICT Clusters Network” – Krasimira Shindarova “Bulgarian cluster telecommunications”, Stelian Brad “Cluj IT Cluster”, Milan Solaja “Vojvodina ICT Cluster” and Peter Indovski “MACES”.
For more information about the European Cluster Conference 2016, speakers and presentations – http://clusterconference2016.eu/documentation.jsp
Video of the European Cluser Conference - https://vimeo.com/194036247

The European DIGITAL SME Alliance launched #DigitalSME4skills, a new ambitious campaign for digital skills. The alliance pledged that digital small and medium sized enterprises will train 5 000 ICT professionals by 2019.

Oliver Grün, DIGITAL SME president and software entrepreneur, presented the pledge at the launch of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition at the presence of Commissioner Oettinger, Vice President Ansip and the Belgian deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. The Coalition is a multi-stakeholder partnership promoted by the European Commission to tackle the lack of digital skills in Europe.

Digital SMEs that subscribe to the campaign #digitalSME4skills will offer work experience schemes, namely Apprenticeships, Traineeships and Internships, to train ICT professionals. The primary target group will be pupils, students and young practitioners. However, work experience schemes will be offered also to more disadvantaged population groups, such as unemployed, older and disabled people. The campaign aims to reach 5.000 ICT professionals by 2019.

“Europe has thousands of digital SMEs that are the real drivers of our digital economy. They are the key contributors to the digital transformation of European industry. We believe that skills are essential to the future of our sector and all other sectors that use digital technologies. Digital SMEs want to give their contribution for Europe to have more and better ICT professionals” said Oliver Grün when presenting the pledge.

Find out more about #DigitalSME4Skills campaign here.

Тодор Митов – представител на ИКТ Клъстер взе участие в националния форум „Библиотеките днес”. Двудневното събитието се състоя на 29-30 ноември 2016 г. и бе посетено от над 900 представители от цялата страна на библиотеки, читалища и организации заинтересувани от развитието на библиотеките в България.
През първият ден бяха посочени ключовите проблеми на българските библиотеки и читалища и бяха направени предложения за справянето с тях. Бяха представени успешни истории и практики както от страната така и от чужбина.
Вторият ден, форумът се проведе в различи зали и с различни теми на обсъждане. Пленарната сесия: „Технологиите в бъдещето на библиотеките” засегна темата за необходимостта от вкарването на нови технологии с цел да се задържи вниманието на поколенията върху библиотеките като място за на просветление и придобиване на нови умения.

ETSI, the European Telecommunication Standards Institute, nominated Vladimir Poulkov as new vice president.
ETSI members have elected Prof. Vladimir Poulkov as vice chairman of the ETSI general assembly representing the user members of ETSI. Prof. Poulkov was supported by DIGITAL SME, the first European association of the ICT sector focused on representing the interests of SMEs, and by Small Business Standards, the European association of small and medium-sized enterprises for standardisation.
Prof. Poulkov will serve as ETSI vice-chairman for the next two years until November 2018. He replaces Mr. Peter Statev, the outgoing vice-chairman, who concluded his mandate.