Future Cities Bulgaria 2026, an international forum dedicated to digital and sustainable urban transformation, successfully took place on 19 March 2026 at Grand Hotel Sofia, bringing together key stakeholders from across Southeast and Central Europe.

The event gathered 128 registered participants, from at least 10 countries across Southeast and Central Europe, including Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro, Croatia, Moldova, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Slovenia. Out of these participants 64 were SMEs, alongside municipal representatives, technology providers, researchers, and innovation organisations. The strong participation highlighted the growing interest in practical, scalable solutions for smarter and more sustainable cities.

The forum provided a dynamic platform for exchanging knowledge, showcasing solutions, and fostering collaboration between cities and technology providers.

Participants engaged in:

• Panel discussions featuring international speakers and practitioners
• Lightning talks presenting innovative technologies and real-world applications
• Matchmaking session connecting municipalities with solution providers
• Networking opportunities leading to new partnerships and pilot project ideas

Discussions throughout the day focused on:

• Smart cities and municipal digitalisation
• Sustainable urban development
• Digital twins and urban modelling
• Emerging technologies for public sector innovation

The event emphasised the importance of cross-sector collaboration and innovation ecosystems in accelerating urban transformation.

We’re truly encouraged by the strong interest in the event and the many promising collaboration opportunities that emerged. As a next step, we are planning to organise follow-up brokerage sessions with interested participants - more information on this will be shared soon.

We’re especially happy to see such a strong turnout and to have formed an active and engaged community around the Future Cities initiative - one that is genuinely interested in urban innovation and the reinvention of the region.

It was particularly encouraging to see the strong participation of SMEs, which clearly demonstrated the potential for deploying cutting-edge solutions in real municipal environments, and we’re beyond grateful for the interest.

About the Event

Future Cities Bulgaria 2026 was organised by ICT Cluster in cooperation with the Sofia Municipality and the GATE Institute, within the framework of the projects InnovationAmp, CI-HUB, and MetaCities.

We are proud to have had the support of our media partners, Bloomberg TV Bulgaria and Investor.

For more information about the initiative, visit: https://www.futurecities.ictcluster.bg/