On 23th April 2016 at Park Hotel Kyustendil was held BizzIT Kyustendil 2016 conference. More than 150 people attended the event, including 8th - 12th grade students from the local schools. The conference was held around the country. The idea of the conference is to bring attention to the general public with the opportunities and the developments in the IT sector. At the event it was discus are the steps to a career in the IT industry and the creation of successful IT business globally.
The topics of the forum were digital marketing, programming, robotics, home automation, e-commerce and business creation.
At the conference, Todor Mitov, Project Assistant ICT Cluster, presented the program "Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs" and the opportunities that it provides.
Ivo Vasilev told his successful story as a young entrepreneur in the “Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs" and the development of own business. Ivo Vasilev was a participant in the program in 2012 with the support of ICT Cluster as intermediary organization.

On April 12th at 10:00 in the morning the team of the ICT Cluster organized a meeting of morning coffee with journalists bar "Memento".

At the meeting, journalists were introduced to the objectives of the programme "Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs" as well as the opportunities that provide and the steps for applying.

On April 12th 2016 at 10:00 in bar “Memento” ICT Cluster held a morning coffee meeting with journalists. The aim of the meeting was so to present the ICT Cluster’s position on the successes achieved in recent years of European cluster scene, trends in the development of clusters in Europe and Bulgaria's policy in this regard. Press release from the event can be found here.

Brussels 21 March 2016 – The largest group of ICT clusters in the Balkan and Black Sea region, BBS ICT Clusters Network, becomes member of the European Digital SME Alliance.

The European Digital SME Alliance was officially launched on 15 March 2016 during the CeBIT of Hannover. The alliance is a Brussels based international non-for profit association that promotes the interests of European digital SMEs in the EU.  

The BBS ICT Clusters Network is the joint effort of 19 national and regional clusters in South East Europe.  Its aim is to strengthen collaboration among clusters and increase the competitiveness of the sector on the global market.

Dr. Oliver Grün, president of the European Digital SME Alliance welcomed the new membership: “The BBS ICT Clusters Network is a strong regional partner for our Alliance. With it we strengthen our position as the largest organization representative of the ICT SME sector in Europe. Thanks to our existing and new members we now reach about 20.000 SMEs in 18 countries both EU members and neighbors.”

Stelian Brad, President of BBS ICT Clusters Network for 2016 sees in this membership a big opportunity to increase the visibility of the ICT sector from the Balkan and Black See region in the Western part of Europe and true chances for new Est-West ICT-related businesses. “We see this step well-aligned with the paradigm of playing together a smarter game, not draining brain”, Dr. Brad said with the occasion of official announcement of the new membership.

On 14th of March ICT Cluster and Small Business Standards (SBS) with the methodological support of European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) organized seminar “Education about Standardisation for SMEs”.
This seminar brought together experts from European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Small Business Standards (SBS), Bulgarian Standardisation Institute (BSI), European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC), representatives of ICT Cluster and universities from Bulgaria and Balkan Region.

The seminar gave the participants knowledge and understanding on the ETSI curriculum about EaS (Education about Standardisation) and its approach.

To reach the above mentioned goals the seminar’s agenda included the following modules.

• Standardisation, challenges and opportunities for SMEs
• Standardisation – a key tool for ICT SMEs
• Standardisation and competitiveness for SMEs
• Education about standards for ICT SMEs

The results reached in the seminar are as follows:

• The four universities – New Bulgarian University, Technical University of Sofia, University of Skopje and Technical University of Cluj – Napoca expressed their interest in the creation of Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes on standardisation, based on the ETSI methodology. The universities’ representatives accepted the challenging task to create and organize respective courses on standardisation this autumn.
• The representatives of BDS, Bulgarian experts of ETSI and ICT Cluster decided to start closer collaboration among them on the presented topics during the seminar.
• SMEs’ representatives defined their interest on certain standards. ICT Cluster will provide them with the necessary information.

Education about Standardization for SMEs – Mr. Hermann Brand

The EU Regulatory Framework and the Role of Small Business Standards – Mrs. Christel Davidson

Trainings to SMEs on how to benefit from and why to participate in standardization - Mrs. Ingrid Soetaert

BDS role for Bulgarian SMEs in collaboration with universities - Mr. Ivelin Burov

Review Of Etsi Tc Attm - George Babinov

ETSI Technical Committee TCCE TETRA and Critical Communications Evolution - Mr. Emil Dimitrov

The Role And Goals Of The European Digital SME Alliance - Mr. Peter Statev

The experience of the Technical University of Sofia in education about standardization – Mrs. Milka Vincheva

ICT Cluster е партньор на Форума и изложението за интелигентни градове 2016. Събитието ще се проведе от 5 до 7 април в София и цели да покаже модерни технологии и работещи практики, които могат да превърнат градовете ни в по-екологични и ефективни системи. Повече за събитието на: http://viaexpo.com/bg/pages/smart-cities

 ICT Cluster joint with European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and Small Business Standards (SBS) are organizing one-day training seminar that will take place on 14th of March 2016 in Sofia, Bulgaria.
This seminar will provide participants with knowledge and understanding towards ETSI curriculum outline about EaS and its approach, and will include following modules:
• Standardisation, challenges and opportunities for SMEs
• Standardisation – a key tool for ICT SMEs
• Standardisation and competitiveness for SMEs
• Education about standards for ICT SMEs

The organization of the seminar is the first step till development of Balkan Academy for implementation of ICT Standards in Higher education curriculums. The main purpose of the seminar is raising the awareness of ICT standards role, function, process of preparations, implications on business competitiveness.

On 8th March 2016, in Brussels on a “Cluster GO International” Launch event, the GIVE partnership was awarded with a label ESCP-4i for European Strategic Cluster Partnership. Mr. Peter Statev – chairman of ICT Cluster, the leading cluster organization, received the certificate on behalf of the partnership. 

The Green ICT Development (GIVE) partnership is focused on building up a strategic cluster partnership in the field of smart green technologies among the three industries: automotive, renewable energy and ICT. It is based on cross-industry, cross-cluster, and cross-border and cross-regional collaboration as it encompasses 8 partners from 7 different countries, 2 European regions and 3 industries. The partners in the partnership are: Foundation Cluster Information and Communication Technologies, IT Cluj, HAMAC, AITA, MASIT, ICT Cluster Plovdiv, Automotive Cluster Slovenia and Green Current Renewable Energetics and Innovation Cluster.

The label will give more visibility of the partnership and its members and they will benefit from the information and support resources of the European Commission in order to achieve their strategic goals and SME internationalization.

This Network Meeting was focused on strengthening the project management knowledge of the Intermediary Organisations (IOs) in the programme and increasing the peer-to-peer learning amongst them.
The interactive sessions provided IOs with opportunities to share their practices with fellow IOs, as well as to discuss new developments in the programme with the European Commission.
ICT Cluster is intermediary organization in Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme for Bulgaria since 2009. At the present cycle 8 of the programme ICT Cluster is a partner of consortium Ventures 8.

Project Ventures8 COSME-04-2015-692734 under the "Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs" programme is financed by the COSME program of the European Commission.

The project implementation started on 1 March 2016 and has two years time period.

Lead partner is Coventry University, and the consortium has partner-organizations from 11 countries Britain, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Albania and Romania.

ICT Cluster is an intermediary organization for Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs since  2009. ICT Cluster has realized 22 exchanges of experience, 18 of the participants successfully grow their own business.

More about the program can be found here: "Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs"

The Strategic ICT Clusters’ Meeting for Danube ICT Clusters’ sustainable cooperation for smart and inclusive growth project was held on February 18th and-19th 2016 at Art Hotel Belgrade, Serbia. The meeting was organized under the framework of the DANUBE ICT Project, financed by START program of Danube Strategy of the EC. The meeting is part of the Activity 1 of the project, which main aim is to enhance the creation of favorable conditions for future sustainable collaboration among ICT Clusters from the Danube region and other Balkan countries in the field of cross-industry collaboration.

The meeting was attended by 26 cluster representatives from the Balkan and Black Sea region, members of the Balkan and Black Sea ICT Clusters Network: Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine. Special guests of the meeting were: Mr. Mohammed Al Hammadi, founder and Chief Executive of InvestSource and Mr. Sebastiano Toffaletti - Alliance Secretary General of Digital SME Alliance - The European Voice of High Tech SME. During the strategic meeting the partners have shared good practices and experience in cross- industry collaboration. Presentations and positions on focused industries were made. The meeting was attended by the representatives from technology park Belgrade and some Serbian Start ups.

The Strategic ICT Clusters’ Meeting for Danube ICT Clusters’ sustainable cooperation for smart and inclusive growth project was held on February 18th and-19th 2016 at Art Hotel Belgrade, Serbia. The meeting was organized under the framework of the DANUBE ICT Project, financed by START program of Danube Strategy of the EC. The meeting is part of the Activity 1 of the project, which main aim is to enhance the creation of favorable conditions for future sustainable collaboration among ICT Clusters from the Danube region and other Balkan countries in the field of cross-industry collaboration. 

The meeting was attended by 26 cluster representatives from the Balkan and Black Sea region, members of the Balkan and Black Sea ICT Clusters Network: Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine. Special guests of the meeting were: Mr. Mohammed Al Hammadi, founder and Chief Executive of InvestSource and Mr. Sebastiano Toffaletti - Alliance Secretary General of Digital SME Alliance - The European Voice of High Tech SME. During the strategic meeting the partners have shared good practices and experience in cross- industry collaboration. Presentations and positions on focused industries were made. The meeting was attended by the representatives from technology park Belgrade and some Serbian Start ups.