Kiryakov obtained his M.Sc. degree in AI from Sofia University, Bulgaria, in 1995. Today he is a top expert in semantic graph databases, reasoning, knowledge graphs, text mining, semantic tagging, linking and search. He is also an author of signature academic publications with more than 2500 citations. Atanas is a partner and a board member in Sirma Group Holding – one of the biggest Bulgarian IT businesses, listed at the Sofia Stock Exchange. In 2016 Atanas Kiryakov has been included in the “New Europe 100 — changemakers in Central and Eastern Europe” list compiled by Res Publica, Google, Visegrad Fund and the Financial Times.