Join IT specialists, managers, R&D experts, entrepreneurs, students, start-ups, management consultants, mentors, university & school professors, incubator and accelerator specialists, business developers and PR experts.

CONFERENCE TOPICS

"DigiThink"
Design Thinking for Digital Innovation
Digital
​Skills
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Accelerating Innovation Workshop
The international conference "DIGITAL SKILLS & INNOVATION @2030" will also present the results of the 'Design Thinking for Digital Innovation' Project - DigiThink  No. 2016-1-BG01-KA203-023719, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.
Please do keep in mind that the programme is subject to change.
No. 2016-1-BG01-KA203-023719
DigiThink Opening
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  • Jose Antonio Campos - University of Deusto & Policy Developer, Spain
Jose Antonio combines his responsibilities as Director of the Executive MBA Programme in Deusto Business School, and as a Professor of the Faculty of Engineering and Deusto Business School (DBS). At Postgraduate Level he is responsible for a common subject about Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Digitalization, and Sustainability in most of the Masters´ of DBS. His work has been linked to Education and Innovation and Entrepreneurship, being the designer and first Director of Deusto Entrepreneurship Centre. Tontxu has been involved in profit and not profit organizations, teaching and consultancy, and also in public and private sectors. Particularly noteworthy is his work as Minister of Education, Universities and Research of the Basque Government for 4 years.  Previously, Dr. Campos held the position of Provincial Minister of Innovation and Economic Development in Biscay, where he developed entrepreneurship policies to foster innovative start-ups creation as part of the economic recovery process for more than 6 years. He was the chairman of two Business Innovation Centers and a Seed Funding Public-Private Company.
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  • Antonia Bierwirth - Tecnalia Research & Innovation, Spain
Antonia earned her PhD in Innovation Management at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Furthermore she holds degrees in Business Administration (University of Sofia) and Political Sciences (University of Frankfurt am Main), with postgraduate studies in Marketing and Economic Management of R&D Projects. Antonia possesses more than ten years of professional experience across a variety of innovation and research areas, such as business forecast & trends analysis, innovation in ICT and financial services, development of new business models. In Tecnalia she is working in the Technology and Society area, as an EU R&D Project Manager. Antonia also serves at the European Commission as a scientific and ethics evaluator of H2020 proposals. Her research interests include Social Innovation and Social inclusion initiatives, Responsible Research and Innovation, creation of sustainable business models and industrial design for personal, social and societal transformation.
Digital Skills Panel
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  • Prof. Tonino Pencarelli - University of Urbino & SME Consultant, Italy
Tonino is a professor of Economics and Management of companies and Corporate Strategies at the Faculty of Economics, University of Urbino and has been an SME consultant on marketing, management and corporate finance for more than 35 years. He has taught in many Italian business schools such as Bocconi and Luiss on corporate strategy, small business management, marketing and management of tourism and services. Prof. Pencarelli is the President of the Scientific Committee ITS Tourism Marche as well as a Member of the Board of Directors of CUEIM Foundation and of the Italian Marketing Society. Tonino is also a Member of the board of director of  CUEIM Fondation Member of Scientific Committee of the Marche Region Observatory for Culture.
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  • Ljubomir Trajkovski - Trajkovski & Partners & Consultant, Macedonia
Ljubomir is a management consultant focused on Governance, Risk, Compliance and Privacy management. He is a postgraduate from University of Ljubljana Slovenia in Information Management,  certified in a few professional credentials such as CMC-Certified Management Consultant, ISACA CGEIT - Certified for Governance of Enterprise IT, ISACA CRISK – Certified for  Risk Information Systems Controls, PECB Certified for Cybersecurity Governance and BSI ISMS Implementer. He has 20+ years’ experience in design and implementation of enterprise information systems and digital transformation with focus on people's challenges and innovation approach for people (management, professionals and users) engagement. Currently he is focused on 'silver economy' ssues affecting innovation in skills improvement and associated challenges of 65+ citizen “learners” part of Erasmus program.
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  • Bianca Muntean - Romanian Association of Software and Electronic Industry & Cluster Manager, Romania 
Bianca is the Cluster Manager of iTech Transilvania by ARIES T and Executive Director of the Romanian Association of Software and Electronic Industry – Transilvania Branch. She is also the founder and vice-president of Transilvania Creative Cluster. During the past years, she specialized in cluster policies and cluster management and, in 2016, she successfully presented her doctoral thesis in Management at the Babeş-Bolyai University, entitled “Excellence in Cluster Management in IT”. Since 2002, Dr. Bianca Muntean has been involved in the elaboration of various development regional and sectorial strategies, thus contributing to the Strategy of Development for the IT Sector in Romania, promotion and SME Mobilization for FP7. She is the recipient of the Innovation Luminary Award in 2017 as the young innovation role model for dynamic, pragmatic hands-on OI2 bridgership in Cluj, in the OI 2.0 event of the European Commission.
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  • Deyan Doykov - 'Ivan Apostolov' English School & Entrepreneur, Bulgaria
Deyan is an entrepreneur and an expert in business planning and design, SMEs management, innovation management and business incubation. He has been consulting companies on leadership, innovation and agile transformation for more than 20 years. Deyan is leading the ‘Entrepreneurship’ Department at ‘Ivan Apostolov’ English Language School and introducing interactive and experiential learning for students through business games. He has been a lecturer at a number of universities such as MTM College, NBU, University of Portsmouth in Bulgaria.
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  • Marieke Veltman - Windesheim University of Applied Sciences & Researcher, Netherlands
Marieke is a researcher in the chair of Educational Innovation and ICT at Windesheim UAS (Zwolle, Netherlands), where she is currently conducting a part time doctoral study (PhD-track at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands). Her PhD project applies educational design research and aims to generate design principles for the design of educational practices in Higher Professional Education. The result is wicked problem solving expertise through boundary crossing. In addition she is a researcher in the chair of New Employment Relations at Windesheim Flevoland UAS (Almere, Netherlands). Her applied research at this centre is mainly focussed on the reflective and participatory monitoring of system innovations in multi-stakeholder projects in the region at the interface of education and the labour market. She holds a Master degree in Development Sociology from the University of Leiden (Netherlands).
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Panel
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  • Carlos Polo - University of Deusto & Serial Entrepreneur & Investor, Spain 
Carlos is a serial entrepreneur with a few successful companies in his portfolio. He is the Founder of NTS - a leading technology company in consulting, development and implementation of computer systems for mobility and Cloud Computing tools. Carlos also established a small venture capital company - MW Ventures and a food industry adventure - salsabastarda.com where he is not only the founder but a Board Member too. Besides his successes in business and the corporate world as former PwC consultant and IBM CRM solutions certified consultant, he is the former Director of the University of Deusto Mater in Software Development, Deusto porfessor in Innovation & Entrepreneurship and the Writer of "Los canallas del Cuarto Cuadrante", a book on innovation and startup creation.
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  • Anita Jamasebi - MJV Technology & Innovation, United Kingdom
Anita has completed her postgraduate from Imperial College London with an MSC in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management. From there, she spent three years working within the enterprise division of Vodafone where she worked across the business but most extensively within the Innovation team, working with strategic clients to deliver value and co-create in new spaces. Anita now specialises in innovation by heading up the London office for MJV Technology & Innovation. Her objective is to help organisations manage business transformation through Design Thinking, a user-centric approach to problem-solving. Anita is always questioning whether we have got to the right problem to solve, working with clients to help them look at challenges in a different way. For Anita, the most interesting part of her job is being involved in designing methodologies that support intrapreneurs develop their ideas inside of organisations. Her most challenging initiative is how to change the mindset of employees and organisations to become more innovative.
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  • Massimo Andriolo - IXL Center  & Entrepreneur, Italy
Massimo is a Principal at IXL Center Italy. After having spent a decade working in strategy consulting and finance in Switzerland, Germany and the US, he decided to “go the entrepreneurial way”, setting-up his own venture firm, investing in the hospitality industry, cleantech and high-tech. Thrilled by the idea of continuous improvement and innovation, he served as head of finance of the digital technology department of TIS Innovation Park. What brings Massimo’s blood to boil is the idea of applying US models for capturing the social and economic value coming out of creative ideas. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Massimo worked for Gruppe Deutsche Börse (stock exchange), AT Kearney (strategy consulting), and Julius Baer Bank (private banking). Massimo has an MBA from Hult International Business School and a BS in Economics from Universtiá degli Studi di Verona.
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  • Ewa Galeziowska - Innovation Consultant, United Kingdom
Ewa is a UK based Innovation Consultant, with experience and a demonstrable track record of working in the art, oil, property, finance and education management industries; supporting companies to innovate organically through creativity and innovation.  Ewa was Head of Portfolio Management of 130 start-ups and early stage companies and Head of Operations for a fund management company in London. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management and an MSc Masters in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from MDX, London. Her Master`s dissertation research paper was to analyse an APInno action project for innovation, identifying the desire for experiential learning in developing innovation behaviour in innovation management amongst university students. Ewa is currently preparing to pursue a PhD in the field of innovation, entrepreneurship, skills and the future of education and business collaboration.

ACCELERATING INNOVATION
workshop

The participants will get involved in a competition game for design thinking, focused on the digitization and transformation of Sofia into a smart city and during the process they will generate and share ideas and solutions. 

Based on the model of  the Global Innovation Managament Institute and IXL Center
presented by
​the Innovation Management Academy.
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  • Milena Koleva - Innovation Management Academy, Bulgaria 
Milena is a certified Innovation Manager by the Global Innovation Management Institute, USA. She worked on strategic management and innovation management projects with Fortune 500 companies. In her work she is specialized in strategic management, innovation and business development, entrepreneurship and new educational models and methodologies for high schools and universities. Milena holds an MBA degree from HULT International Business School, Boston, MA.
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  • Massimo Andriolo - IXL Center  & Entrepreneur, Italy
Massimo worked for Gruppe Deutsche Börse (stock exchange), AT Kearney (strategy consulting), and Julius Baer Bank (private banking). Massimo has an MBA from Hult International Business School and a BS in Economics from Universtiá degli Studi di Verona. What brings Massimo’s blood to boil is the idea of applying US models for capturing the social and economic value coming out of creative ideas.
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  • Ruslan Papazyan - Trelleborg Sealing Solutions & Manager, Bulgaria
​Ruslan is the Regional Managing Director of Trelleborg Sealing Solutions responsible for Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Serbia, Belarus, Ukraine and is also Head of Trelleborg’s Export Markets in South-East Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before joining Trelleborg he held various positions in ABB Sweden such as manager business development, group manager R&D and R&D project manager. He graduated the Electrical Engineering Department of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden as a Doctor of Science. He holds an MBA from the University of Sheffield and had been rewarded “Next Generation Manager” amongst 54 Bulgarian managers.

Wine networking.

Enjoy a glass of wine and network with stakeholders in the digital innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

  • IT specialists
  • Business developers
  • Managers
  • R&D experts
  • ​Management consultants
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Startups
  • Incubator & Accelerator specialists
  • PR experts
  • University & school professors
  • Students
  • Anyone interested in the topics of innovation and entrepreneurship
The DigiThink project aims at taking students out of their comfort zone of learning to not only develop business plans/models but also create innovative products and services, encourage students to start their social businesses, develop necessary digital skills and develop empathy, ethics, values, and sense of social responsibility.

PROJECT PARTNERS
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11 July 2018
Start: 9:00am
Finish: 5:30pm

Registration at the event starts at 8:15am
Inter Expo Center Sofia, Musala Hall
​blvd. "Tsarigradsko shose" 147
1784 Sofia, Bulgaria.