From the annual Report for the activities of Evrika Foundation for the year 2007
The following report outlines an evaluation of the performance and achievement over year seventeen of the “Eurika” Foundation along with its level of productivity in terms of both the strategic goals laid down by the founding fathers and the objectives subject to ongoing review to keep up-to-date. Whether we have and to what extent managed to support and encourage the advance of technical and scientific production among juveniles and children, in what ways did we foster young innovators and entrepreneurs and have we learned how to nourish their enterprising spirit, if and what have we committed to the dissemination of scientific, technical and economical knowledge, have we learned the ways and resources to help upgrade the qualifications of and cultivate expertise and specific competencies in young people talented in the field of science and technology, what sort of cooperation have we extended to junior scholars and experts to create scientific production, make a statement and turn their ideas reality. It is possible that we feel what contented us several years ago is now meager and incommensurate to the changed realities and the objective analysis and evaluation will certainly be very resourceful in reviewing our current agenda of priorities while optimizing our efficiency in order to keep our level of achievement and pursue our mission successfully.
The activities over the past year were arranged according to the Foundation’s programmes. The latter took into account our basic goals as well as the priorities fixed. In pursuing our goals and objectives we took advantage of the background experience we have gained as well as the best practices in our own work and peer work in Bulgaria and abroad. Our of the BGN 258 thousand estimated, provided and allocated among programmes, we were able to fund 65 own and other organizations’ projects. The Foundation spent a total of BGN 594.117 of its own resources as well as external monies from various funding sources and individual donors.
To date, knowledge lies in the basis of any great achievement in human history. It is moreover bound to show an ever growing impact. Right from the onset of the Foundation, we are completely aware that the accumulation of knowledge is the indispensable first step in development in general; hence, it also shapes the basis of our strategic goal. The latter largely refers to children and young people who have identified tasks and functions in the development of society and technological advances thus changing the roots of human existence. Considering modern developmental trends and strictly observing our organization’s underlying principles and guiding documents, we are devoting our mind and energy to providing better conditions and support to children and young people in their strive for knowledge and creative development.
1. Nurturing knowledge in the natural, engineering, and economic sciences, skills, and culture in the young generation; facilitating the pursuit of education, qualification, and re-qualification of the young who have a particular aptitude in the area of natural sciences, technology, and management.
Public development strategies in the coming years directly relate to life-long learning which basically begins with the first virgin steps in the acquisition of knowledge. Major achievements in science and technology largely depend on what the early years of the achiever wherein the foundations of a creative approach to mastering the basics of scientific knowledge were built. This is the basic concept of the “Talents” programme currently in operation which is dedicated to the identification of young talents, the provision of the necessary resources for their deployment, and to furthering the talented young so as to enable a more favourable environment for their progress.
Over the years the programme has been underway it has provided substantial resources for scholarships to students with excellent academic achievements, awardees of personal scholarships, winners of international natural sciences and engineering competitions, and winners of corporate or other scholarships. While we apply specific scholarship selection principles, as of today we are supporting a total of 51 scholarship students, of whom 44 university and 7 high school students. Among the Foundation’s scholarship students over the last year, there were 3 gold medal winners from international high school Olympics, 10 silver medal winners, 13 bronze medal winners as well as 8 laureates of national academic Olympics and other national-based contests in science and technology.
Our collaboration with the Student’s Institute of Mathematics and Information Science continued. The Institute proved to be a viable venue and instrument to find and countenance students recognized for their special talents in mathematics, information science and computer technologies. We founded the Institute seven years ago in cooperation with the “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” International Foundation, the Union of Mathematicians in Bulgaria and the Mathematic and Information Science Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Science. A wide range of 118 projects were received during the two rounds of the competition during the past academic year concerned with miscellaneous topics in mathematics, information science and information technologies. The scientific programme of the school featured lectures, seminars and individual work on specific topics and tasks.
The time-tested cooperation we have had with the Ministry of Education and Science continued in terms, for instance, in the organization of the Young Talents contest. High school students from throughout the country are allowed to take part in the competition with projects related to natural sciences, information technologies and social sciences. The national round of the competition shortlists the future participants in the European round while some of the other teams with excellent results are invited to participate in international actions through the Foundation.
It has been a proved tradition for us to uphold through our Talents programme the organization of summer schools as a form of involvement of students who have already been acknowledged for their specific interests and talents in various fields of science, technology and enterprise. For yet another year in row, we pursued collaboration with the National School of Management for High School Students in a project and arranged for a summer camp-school. 380 students from Sofia and the country took part therein. Another school was that at the Student’s Institute of Mathematics and Information Science.
Two young scholars presented their scientific projects at international symposia with our financial support.
2. Promoting scientific research, inventions, and other innovation activities of the young.
For a young talent to deploy, one needs to develop their natural skills in a creative environment and render their achievement public as well. The crucial factor for the progress of a young talent is to provide for a favourable background. On the one hand, the latter refers to the material and information-specific conditions in which a creative process of scientific research and innovatory problem-solving may take place; on the other, certain conditions should be made available for a person’s personal statement by arranging competitions and other forums which should have certain reference to the nature of that creative work and age-specific as well. Well aware of the latter, we are working hard to involve in these processes and adapt our programme modules to the sectors at issue. Our programmes “Scientific Research” and “Information, Releases, Contribution and International Cooperation” completely fulfill the afore-mentioned aims and what has been done within their scope has been very productive even in the course of the year; we should therefore optimize our methods to streamline the selection of topics for such contests in terms of the advisably growing impact we are willing to have by means of attracting more participants.
The progress of science everywhere is a precondition for a nation’s overall progress. Our “Scientific Research” programme aims to make up for the insufficiency of resources for research work in institutes as much as possible while the successful pursuit of this programme is owing to our excellent interaction with the National Board for Scientific Research. Thus, year thirteen as of signing an agreement for cooperation again witnessed the regular round of the “Young Scholars” contest took place at a very sophisticated level. Following a time-tested tradition of ours, we engaged in a process of intensive consultations with prominent Bulgarian scholars and thereupon selected the following new topics: “Study of the Information Security Levels in the Information Exchange via Computer Networks” and “Agro-ecology”. The clear structure of our cooperation with the National Board for Scientific Research and the professional work of expert panel committees allowed for the timely evaluation and selection of projects. Of the selected 22 projects, funding agreements were signed for 4 chemistry, 1 medicine, 1 engineering sciences, 4 natural sciences, 3 mathematics and information science, 4 agrarian sciences and 5 biology projects.
Contests also present a significant incentive to student. These are still a relatively small number in high schools, the least number devoted to natural sciences. In 2006 the Eighth National Contest “The Cosmos – Mankind’s Today and Tomorrow” under the auspices of the first Bulgarian astronaut Georghi Ivanov. Flattered by the support of Bulgarian scholars working in the field of the exploration and acquisition of the Cosmos, it was extended by a new section in the topic-specific competitions for 10 to 18 y.o. students related to the computer-assisted graphical art production such as drawings, computer games, animations, web-based artwork, etc. Again, young authors of drawings and literary works took active part in the competition – 680 participants presenting artistic projects plus other 72 with literary ones. The winner of the first place amongst the authors of ideas for scientific and engineering experiments was Zornitsa Valkanova, student at the High School of Business “Kniaz Simeon Tarnovski”, Stara Zagora, for her project named “Gravitation lenses”, Velizara Gorchovska, student at High School of General Education “Hristo Botev”, Karnobat for cosmic models and trial projects – trial model of Orbital Station “Kom A-01 BG”. Ivo Levicharov, student at the Professional High School of Business “Atanas Burov”, Panagyurishte, was awarded for the “Solar System” website he developed against a stiff competition of other excellent 34 projects in the field.
For yet another year the high school-level Young Talents competition took place within the 6th Framework Programme, and the Foundation was partner to the Ministry of Education and Science in its organization. The “Eurika” Foundation delegated Young Talents contest prize winner Ekaterina Mounina, student at First English Language School, Sofia as a national representative at the European exhibition in Tarragona, Spain among the 436 young scholars from 28 countries. The project she presented was for a terahertz oscillation generator with certain applications in medicine, communications, air navigation and security.
The National Programming Contest organized in cooperation of “Eurika” Foundation, Microsoft Bulgaria, the Institute of Mathematics and Information Science at the Bulgarian Academy of Science and the editorial of the Computer magazine is already a tradition with many participants. Itself a model for the workable collaboration of science, the business and NGOs to the benefit of talented young people, with its 15 years of history this contest has become a launch platform for talented young people to participate in national and international mathematics and information science Olympics.
Over the past year we have enabled Bulgarian young people to partake in international competitions organized by peer or partner organizations of ours. We take pride in the fact that the Second Science and Youth European Day in year 2006 used the signature emblem of Maria Nikolova, 10th grade student at Sofia School of Mathematics and winner of the international contest for developing a logo for the occasion. The “Eurika” Foundation was national coordinator of the Bulgarian delegation to the international competition for topic of the day in various fields of human knowledge and logo for this day. As a result, European schools hosted actions named “Water fountains” marked with the logo of the Bulgarian girl winning the first place in the contest on Apr 24. 2006. For the first time ever during the last year we have managed to send participants at the 11th Student Projects Scientific Exhibition in Budapest, Hungary. The Foundation also facilitated the participation in year 2006 of several scholars and research scientists representing the academic circles and the business at a Working Meeting in Salonika, Greece, which was dedicated to food safety and food quality.
The Foundation is partner to various organizations in the process of arranging competitions and contests for children and students. In the course of the year within the programme “Information, Releases, Contributions and International Cooperation” 18 projects received funding, in national scientific and engineering actions for 5-8 grade and 9-12 grade students /I-IV level/; national competitions in aero-, auto, ship and rocket-modeling contests; the student’s contest “Devices for the Physics Lab”; the national competition for student’s projects related to ecology and environmental protection; the 34th national conference on the issues of the study of physics named “Physics in Biology and Medicine”, the national competition “Nature – Our Home” for 5-8 grade students; the student’s contest in mathematics and information science. The year-long success in the organization with the support of the “Eurika” Foundation of the latter actions, all particularly important to children and young people, has a major contribution to the increased scientific and public awareness and effect these activities have while providing students good grounds to become knowledgeable of the role and interaction of natural and exact sciences, enabling their direct communication to universities and scientific institutes and bridging generations. There is a notable positive trend compared to previous years for an increased number of student and young scholars initiatives in which the Foundation is a co-organizer. This is mostly due to the increased dynamics of student groups in their reach out for opportunities to make a statement at home and abroad and their active approach to identifying would-be sponsors from business circles. We provided support to the organization of the National University Students’ Math Olympics in 2006. Again, we co-organized the 14th Quantum Electronics Int’l School named “Laser Physics and Applications”, the 5th National Chemistry Conference for students and post-graduate students, the South-European Regional Forum of the International Association of Forestry Students and the 18th Int’l Forum of Computer Art „Computer Space 2006”. Our contribution to all these competitions was crucial since it allowed for many children and young people to make a statement of their skills and receive an objective evaluation by scholars and experts with certain public acknowledgements in their field and establish contacts between young people sharing interests to enable their future cooperation.
During the reportable year, of greatest interest to the public have been the competitions for the “Eurika” prizes for achievements in science, young managers, inventors and farmers. The prizes enjoy a good tradition and prestige. The 2006 “Eurika” prize for scientific achievements was awarded to Dr. Svetoslav Petrov Savchev, Eng. from the Technical University, Sofia, author of 17 scholarly publications and papers as well as 3 patent applications for inventions, which he received for his excellent doctorate defense on “Synthesis of Manipulation Mechanisms for Automats and Customized Robots”. The 2006 “Eurika” prize for young inventors was awarded to Ass. Prof. Dr. Nikolay Ljubenov Nikolov, Eng., head of the “Theory of Mechanisms and Machines” department at the Machines and Technology Faculty at Technical University Sofia, author of 75 scholarly publications, co-author of 5 inventions related to mechanisms and customized robots, for his invention “Dozing Foundry Manipulator”. The 2006 “Eurika” prize for young managers was awarded to Pavel Ezekiev, Manager of the official agent for Deutsche Bank in Bulgaria. The 2006 “Eurika” prize for young farmers was awarded to Krasimir Netsov Minev from Stara Zagora who processes 12.380 decars of agricultural land.
Competitions prove to be a very good form of statement for young people and children who are largely motivated by the particular competitive spirit they have. Our organization is already known and creditable for its operation as an objective and unbiased organizer and evaluator. The partnership with other NGOs and the media proved to be especially useful. It would have been rather difficult for us to achieve the same efficiency alone, had we lacked the valuable cooperation of institutions and organizations such as the Superior Attestation Committee at the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Unions of Mathematicians, Physicists, Biologists and Chemists in Bulgaria, the Federation of Science and Technology Unions, the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria, many publishers, e.g. the Az buki paper, the Science magazine, the Manager magazine, the new Farmer paper, the special programmes of the Bulgarian National Radio, releases of other organizations and scientific institutes. We could not have made it without the direct support and competent participation in the various committees and assisting bodies of prominent Bulgarian scholars and major specialists, which should continue to shape our method as well as our practice in future.
Key to the success of young people is the ongoing extension of their competencies by allowing access to novel and specialized knowledge and professional information. The consultation rooms designed to face the demands of the young and their organizations are still operating. Experienced specialists work as consultants in them and are invariably ready to help the youth and our organization as an intermediary between young people with their needs and knowledgeable and skilled professionals. The Foundation facilitates young people whenever necessary in identifying applicable advisors most times thanks to certain members of the Board of the Foundation and members of juries and commissions. Acknowledgements for their reliable responsiveness and all they have been doing to the benefit of young people.
We also continued with the release of our raise-awareness leaflet informing about the operation of the Foundation, the activities it involves in and the achievements of our beneficiaries and their organizations. Our cooperation with many specialized programmes and the releases of our long-term partners is also very useful in the supply and delivery of information to young people.
3. Facilitating the dissemination of natural science, technical and economic knowledge and data
Life-long learning is for everyone – infant to elderly, scholars to ordinary people. Novel knowledge is an incentive to interest able to provoke pursuits that latter transform in a genuine matter of interest in the unknown, increasing knowledge and professional skills to pure art, provoke creativity and invoke involvement at a later stage in serious scientific studies and sophisticated professional expertise. We are confident that raising awareness about science and technologies is rather important and therefore our support and countenance to their progress.
Last year we succeeded to further expand our collaboration with the National Polytechnics Museum with regard to the implementation of a joint publishing program. We continued to publish the Tehnitarche (Little Technician) Newspaper, which young visitors of the museum receive. We developed an advertising supplement named “The unique exponents of the National Polytechnics Museum”. The “It’s your turn!” feature was extended and now completely drafted by students.
We fulfilled a significant part of our objectives in this field also via the special editions Computer and Napravi si sam (Do It Yourself) that we co-publish. Over the past year these were completed with another edition for the fans of digital photography. In content they are fully matched to our pre-formulated aims and objectives. To a large extent have they been useful for making our activities popular and covered some of our more outstanding initiatives. For yet another year we sent free subscription packages to more than 80 high schools and student training centres. We proceeded with our support to the release of the specialized column “Voice of the Youth” in the “Nauka” magazine of the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria and Nov Tehnicheski Avanguard (New Technology Vanguard) paper. The latter edition again was our very efficient agent before university students at the greatest engineering university in which thousands of students enroll. Nauka was sent to all scientific units and so they already know the Voice of the Youth column well enough. The latter provides an opportunity to publish scientific studies by young scientists, which is extremely important over the course of their academic progress and in the context of their PhD evaluation and academic ranking while also facilitating them as an advisor for scientific paper writing and generator of creative self-estimation.
4. Partaking in international educational, natural science and technological programmes and projects and international youth scientific and technological cooperation
Bulgaria’s successful accession to the EU naturally increased the strive we share to help young people and their organizations in extending contacts with their peers in other European countries.
Over the past years, our most beneficial contacts involve the (MILSET) Movement for Leisure Science and Technology (MILSET) The “Eurika” Foundation is a long-term member to the latter international movement in that the Foundation collaborates in projects it organizes and thus enables Bulgarian high school students to demonstrate the products of their creative research, and also take part in the variegated and wide-range scientific and knowledge programme of the different forums. We took active part in the EU structure of the Movement in terms of the organization of the Second EU Science and Youth Day. We were appointed National Coordinator. Our involvement will also continue this year. The Science Days at schools will be presented on the site of the event open in May. Last year we managed to partake in the general action of MILSET – the European Exhibition for Science and Technologies, which took place in Tarragona, Spain. This exposition is held every two years by the EU MILSET Office and is the second most important action of the organization. It aims to allow children and young people to make a statement by presenting specific projects at a multinational exposition. The current 2007 is a very important year for MILSET for two reasons – the organization’s 20-year anniversary and the 11th Int’l Science Expo to be held in July in Durban, the SAR. We intend to take any effort to ensure the attendance there of a delegation, if small. The “Eurika” Foundation received a letter of invitation and took part in the 11th Exposition of Sciences held in Budapest, Hungary in June, and organized by the „Les petits Debrouillards” international movement with which we share a long history of cooperation. Together with the movement we intend to implement the “Soccori” project, essentially a convention for partnership and an exchange of experience and practices. In our pursuit of a consistent expansion of the Foundation’s scope of action, we work hard to attract funds for international programmes and projects. Thus we managed together with the Slovakian youth organization”ÀMÀVET” to successfully finalize the project “For the soul of nations: youth perspectives”. Young people from Sweden, Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain and Slovakia involved in the project. The Bulgarian team featured seven high school students and a teacher from the Spanish Language School who prepared and presented a dedicated motion picture about our country, its current agenda of issues, daily life and the perspectives of its youth about education, culture, sports, science, celebrities, etc. as they view them in their imagination, fantasy and mind.
The “Eurika” Foundation continued its associated membership in the International Federation of Inventors’ Associations. We do this well aware that this is an investment in future activities. The relatively low number of inventors in Bulgaria is the main reason that we are not full-fledged members in the exhibitions and expositions the Federation organizes for the inventions as well as the opportunity to offer there Bulgarian inventions with a view to their international market presentation. The “Eurika” Foundation is also a member to another distinguished international organization – the European Foundations Centre. Members of the latter are organizations of great stature and capacity such as the biggest corporate foundations in Europe, and in many cases outside of Europe. However, the changes in the structure and management of the organization do not allow for a more pro-active participation there on our part; we are anyway determined to make a final attempt to involve in some of its projects.
Over the past year we continued our bilateral cooperation with the Youth Research Institute, Aragon, Saragossa, Spain. For the fifth year in succession we managed to send participants to the International Scientific Congress for High School Students in Saragossa. Its official language being Spanish, we continued our cooperation with 164th Spanish Language School “Miguel de Cervantes” in Sofia. The preliminary work for this participation took a year committed to the development of projects which were defended at a school-level conference where the top eight authors were selected and sent at the international forum. Our participation was positively acknowledged by the scholarly jury and we received an invitation to take part in its next edition. The implementation of this project and the creation of publicity for its successful results over the years, we cannot but hope to be able to encourage the creativity of students and teachers in the field of science and technology also in other high schools.
In cooperation with our German partners we managed to develop a bilateral project named “Lab under the sky” which we intend to present in year 2007 under the EU programme “Youth in Action”. The project is concerned with ecology and provides for an exchange between Bulgarian and German high school students for a term of two years. Bulgarian students will be selected through a competition at the 73rd High School of General Education, Sofia.
We entered in specific negotiations at the end of the year with several scientific institutes and businesses from the energy supply sector in view of our prospective involvement in a large-scale project subject subject to considerable international funding with reference to the launch and sustainable development on the Bulgarian market of ecological technologies and services. The finalization of our negotiations with Romanian partners for cooperation under a project within the “Leonardo da Vinci” programme is underway, which is concerned with the construction of a European professional counsel network. The project aims to establish an international partnership within Europe dedicated to the cooperation in the field of professional counseling and management and will involve mobile group rounds in France and Italy engaged with the training of human resource management professionals. To date there is yet no final decision and information on the part of Romanian partners who are the leading party and the formal applicant organization for the project.
Through the structure of MILSET we have the opportunity to take advantage of the exchange network and apply for funding within the framework of the European volunteers service in its fields of activity related to work in youth centres, the implementation of specific projects and the organization of youth exchange practices. On these lines, we established contact and gave our consent to partake in a joint project with the Association of Young Greek Programmers aimed at the organization and conduction of a seminar to exchange experience and bring together capacities to enable the future work for the European volunteers’ service.
Willing to provide for an ever expanding international basis of our partnerships, we managed to negotiate our participation in May 200y at the Science Exposition in Brussels, Belgium the major organizer wherein is the youth association „Jeunesses Scientifiques of Belgium”. Our delegation will be presented by four high school students and a teacher from the First English Language School in Sofia who are now in an intensive project development process in the field of biology to be delivered at the exposition.
We extended our contacts with the German organization “Solinno” for yet another year with regard to the development of an ecology project which should involve young scholars and students from several universities. The project provides for research and educational activities so could involve many of our scholarship students.
The intensified course of our international cooperation activities is the result of our new positions as an EU member state. We will take efforts to preserve and extend our current partnerships and create new ones.
5. Encouragement and support for youth business enterprises and economic activities
Over the past year we continued the programme “Business Enterprise Encouragement to support entrepreneurship among the youth by ruling of the Board of the Foundation of the previous year. Via Youth Innovations Fund we provide loans to young people to start or expand own businesses with a main focusd on the development of new products and services or the installation of new technologies and facilities in manufacturing. In order to be able to respond quickly to this demand we created a mechanism for the timely preparation of expert evaluations and within one month after the submission of the project the applying projects receives the decision of the funds grant. This is one of the key advantages of our program compared to certain offers of commercial banks or the governmental programmes encouraging entrepreneurship.
Over the year we tried to identify applicants to realize grants from other sources where the applicant’s financial contribution is required. As of today we have not signed such contracts but are in negotiations with several would-be applicants and if the preparation of documents and projects is brought to a successful end, we will make our best to apply for such grants also. Since our credit fund is relatively small, it is not reasonable to project the expansion of such grant mechanisms; however, we are ready to respond to an increased demand inasmuch as valuable projects are made available.
Due to the fact that the interest rate of our loans is comparable to the one of the banks, one of the ways to make our loans more attractive is to reduce it. Changes may be expected only after we have become aware of the operational mechanisms of some European and governmental programmes providing incentives to small and family business and then identify our role in the process.
6. Some activities associated with non-profit goals and the position and role of our organization in the collaboration progress with other organizations and institutions in Bulgaria
Our long record of activity shows that the performance in our projects and programmes is maximized in cooperation with other organizations and institutions. The majority of collaborations we have had has involved other NGOs both domestic and international. We kept the excellent cooperation we had with the Union of Mathematicians in Bulgaria, the Union of Physicists in Bulgaria, the Scientific Knowledge Awareness Federation, among other. We developed and implemented joint projects some of which in the context of long-term programmes with a sustainable effect. Some examples of our cooperation activities were already quoted hereinabove – such as in the organization of annual schools and conferences, international youth exchange, etc.
Firmly convinced in the benefits of sector-to-sector cooperation, we supported various initiatives related to the empowerment and progress of the NGO sector for yet another year. We take part in the activity and management of the already proved as successful foundation “Help charity in Bulgaria” whose founder we became eleven years ago. The presence of the Bulgarian Donors Forum becomes more and more notable and we therefore have the chance to express a common stand on the regulations as well as to exchange information on topical issues referring to NGO organization and management. We continued to cooperate with the National Association of Youth Entrepreneurship in Bulgaria to which we are co-founders together with the Bulgarian Industrial Association. Having overcome the initial technical stage of this young organization of Bulgarian entrepreneurs under 40, we believe the time has come to identify ways to intensify our collaboration in terms of a development and implementation of quality projects related to the EU integration of Bulgaria, civil education, the international exchange of knowledge and best practices between young entrepreneurs.
Partnership with other organizations is part of a long term strategy we share. We are in the final stage of the preliminary work for a project dedicated to the issue of brand marks together with other organizations which will aim to raise public awareness about intellectual property issues.
We kept and further developed our cooperation with governmental and specialized institutions over the last year as well. Traditionally our best contacts were with the Ministry of Education and Science with which we have a great deal of common goals and operational and interaction objectives in common. We continued to conduct joint national scientific competitions. In the context of the annual MES calendar plan on extracurricular activities we organized events for students in two age groups for science and technology together with the Palace of Children. We partnered and are still the partner of the Ministry in many activities of our common interest and are happy to have achieved the excellent responsiveness of some of the deputy ministers. We also expect that the start of the new funding schemes for extracurricular activities to be able to identify new fields for cooperation and joint action.
Over the year we tried to keep good contacts also with the Agency of Youth and Sports and specifically with the Youth Directorate thereto. To our regret, these could not reach over the framework of routine information channels for all the goodwill and capacity at least on our part. We are ready with a youth exchange project and expect the start of the programme’s operation in 2007 so that we manage to realize our projects facilitated by them in order to expand our cooperation with peer organizations from European countries.
We kept our good level of cooperation with the Higher Attestation Committee at the Council of Ministers from whose management we have the best understanding and support. Among the new members of the Committee there are many representatives of the scholarly sector who have been involved with the foundation’s management, expert councils and juries. This would be useful for the extension of new initiatives, if only such will be offered and supported. Helped by their active cooperation, we continued to work for the public prestige of the scientific achievements competition for young scholars. They assured us the Committee is ready and willing to reach out and identify new forms of interaction. We are receiving help and cooperating with the National Patent Authority for the conduction of the national competition for Young Inventor of the Year.
Over the last year we held a number of successful activities with the National Polytechnics Museum and have reached a good level of awareness on the part of its management as to the need to allow for a closer communication and attract more young people and children to get to know museum exponents. We supported the conduction of joint competitions in the context of their educational programs. We organized some of our events on their sites.
We actively continued to look for contacts with business entities. M+C Hydraulic AD, Kazanluk remained our key partners. We realized a good cooperation with “Germanos” Bulgaria for the administration of five scholarships provided by them to Bulgarian university students and we were assured we will both expand the scope of our cooperation to the benefit of young Bulgarian talents. Our partnership with Microsoft Bulgaria continued as well in terms of the organization of a joint programming contest. We advanced our contacts with the “Technologica” company who expressed their consent to determine a common ground for cooperation among students following a course of academic study in computer and information sciences. We started a useful cooperation with “Partner expo” ltd. in the conduction of a national competition for the Most Successful Young Apiarist in Bulgaria.
Our contacts with the specialized media could be termed as positive. Our activities were very intensely covered by the Bulgarian National Radio. Our cooperation with the Az Buki Newspaper, was very productive, as this newspaper is received by all Bulgarian schools and universities that are our activity target groups. We should also thank the Editors of the Nauka and Computer Magazines, the Nov Tehnicheski Vanguard, Duma, the TV editorials of “BBT” and “Europa” televisions. Traditionally, the media campaign organized on the occasion of the “Eurika” awards was extremely strong, as well as the awards for the laureates in the Eighth National competition “The Cosmos – Mankind’s Today and Tomorrow” and during the traditional official meeting with the Foundation’s scholarship students on the occasion of the Bulgarian university students’ day – Dec 8th.
Based on the report on the progress in 2006 referring to our partnerships with other organizations we may conclude that we have preserved our achievements, best practices and traditions. These take into account the changing social conditions in the country and so we should further expand them in the future. There are substantial reserves in offering joint initiatives and programmes with other organizations and institutions which lies in the basis of European practices for the development of civil society and is provided incentives under European-based funding programmes.