Edible coffee cups from Plovdiv , Formula1 simulators from Gabrovo, “smart” houses from Stara Zagora, High School of Innovation in Burgas , vertical oyster farms from Varna, hand-woven carpets for the British royal family from the town of Kostadovo …
Just as with innovations , businesses can develop where there is someone looking for opportunities and willing to take risk.
The integrated Ekomilk iBond milk collection system from Stara Zagora became a worldwide novelty in 2015. Plovdiv’s sliding doors are sold in Kazakhstan, Qatar, Dubai. Every fifth cosmetic or toothpaste tube in the world is manufactured by a machine that was created in Gabrovo. Varna underwater oyster farms operate in Romania, Georgia and Turkey.
” Think globally, act locally .”
Pay less taxes with a Bulgarian company and invest in your business ideas .
Ivan Bondokov, entrepreneur from Plovdiv
His marketing agency is working on the strategy of Trakia Economic Zone for turning the region into the ” high-tech industrial heart ” of the country. “Both Bulgarian and international companies invest a lot of resources in the professional training of young people and in creating good living conditions in the city. We have a municipal business unit that is trained to support new ventures, ”Bondov says. According to him, Plovdiv needs to build public development centers and a vision on how to keep the so-called Digital Nomads.
Martin Pavlov from the Gradishte Foundation in Gabrovo adds that if there is an organization that could create an individual economic concept for each region, this would support overall development . The city is now building mutual trust both among entrepreneurs and between them and the municipality , which are innovative initiatives. Gradish plans to open the first shared workspace in the city. “Some of the companies do not know each other and, until recently, they did not look for a solution to the problems together, but we are changing this with the help of the municipality through networking,” he adds. The events of the Foundation attract students, entrepreneurs at the “idea” stage, through such a “prototype” level, to representatives of large local companies.
With the Robotics for Children , Zara Lab Academy finds future entrepreneurs at an early stage in Stara Zagora. According to the Institute for Market Economics, the city “has unused potential to develop in the field of information technologies and outsourcing after the example of Plovdiv.” In Stara Zagora, the leading companies are in the field of high technology , but the opportunities for formal and non-formal education in this industry are still limited. Petko Petkov sees the strategic advantage of the region precisely in its specialization in the so-called smart cities, cloud services , the Internet of Things,engineering , and robotics . “The demand in these areas exceeds the supply. We have to invest in development and education , ”he says.
