Prof. Silvia Ilieva, Director of the GATE Institute, participated in the webinar “Global Innovation Index – Radar for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Bulgaria”, which was held on June 30, 2022.
In a discussion with representatives of the entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems, she presented the GATE Institute with its focus on applications of public importance with implementation in practice to address social and economic challenges. “Our mission is to build a new generation of researchers in the field of big data and artificial intelligence, to establish a research environment and culture that stimulates the creation of innovations,” said Prof. Ilieva.
As the main prerequisite for innovation, she stressed the implementation of the quadruple helix cooperation model – in addition to technology push, there must be a market pull, i.e. innovations to meet the needs of and to benefit certain stakeholders. Prof. Ilieva gave examples of successful cooperation – with Sofia Municipality, technology firms and start-ups within the pilot project of GATE “Digital Twin City”.
“Our goal as a data space hub is to be a driving force in engaging businesses and public and city administrations, and to accelerate the creation of innovations based on data sharing,” said Prof. Ilieva.
Her message to the innovation ecosystem was to improve cooperation, dialogue and tolerance for the views of others and to increase confidence in the usefulness of research and innovation in problem-solving.
In the second part of the webinar, the Global Innovation Index (GII) was presented as the main benchmark for measuring Bulgaria’s innovation performance.
The initiator of the event was the association INCREDA, which works to accelerate the development of entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems in Bulgaria. Co-organizers were the Faculty of Economics of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski ”and the independent online media with a focus on tech and startup ecosystems in Southeast Europe, The Recursive.