From September 29 to October 1, 2025, the Council on Science and Innovation in Information and Communication Technologies and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences are organizing the International Forum "Advanced ICT Research and Innovation." The event is held under Investment C2.I2 "Enhancing the Innovation Capacity of BAS in the Field of Green and Digital Technologies," part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences will take an active part in the forum, presenting three projects funded under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism:

1. "Innovative Software Platform for Serious Educational Games with Creative Visualization for Building Competence and Responsible Management of Natural Resources – ProNature" with a team leader Assoc. Prof. Detelin Luchev, PhD (Department of Mathematical Linguistics);
2. "Integrated Framework for Health Service Improvement via Analysis of Patient Reported Outcomes Data" with a team leader Assoc. Prof. Krasimira Ivanova, PhD (Department of Software Technologies and Information Systems), and
3. "Models, Methods and Tools for Predicting the Technical and Perceived Quality of Service in Cyber-Physical Social Systems" led by Prof. Ivan Ganchev, PhD (Department of Information Modelling).

The forum will present scientific research and innovations with practical applications and technology transfer. Its aim is to foster cooperation between academia, industry, and the startup ecosystem, encouraging transformation towards sustainable and digital solutions. The event will provide a platform for exchanging ideas, presenting results, and building new partnerships in the field of green and digital technologies.

Key topics include:

• ICT for new and energy-efficient technologies;
• ICT in industry;
• Modelling, simulation, and digital twins in industry and energy;
• Internet technologies and services. Internet of Things (IoT);
• Big data/linked data and geospatial data – Data analysis, data processing/management, data mining; knowledge discovery; machine learning; prediction models;
• ICT in medicine, healthcare, and sports;
• ICT in creative and recreational industries. Rapid prototyping, 3D digitization, and visualization.

The program runs from September 29 to October 1, 2025, at Sofia Tech Park, The Venue Hall, ground floor of the Incubator building.
Registration form can be found here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScC6v7V-a_TeoTEVHBT5lhwRJj-4yqg4d0JYNejJbOiPdKAeg/viewform?usp=header

From September 25 to 28, 2025, the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, under the patronage of UNESCO and with the support of the National Scientific Fund of Bulgaria (contract КП-06-МНФ/2 of 06.06.2025) and the Municipality of Burgas, is organizing the Fifteenth International Conference Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage – DiPP2025.

The conference seeks to highlight innovations, projects, and scholarly as well as applied research in the domains of digital documentation, archiving, representation, and preservation of both global and national tangible and intangible cultural and scientific heritage. Particular emphasis is placed on providing open access to digitized national cultural and scientific heritage, and on advancing sustainable policies for its long-term digital preservation and safeguarding. Keynote speakers invited to the forum include Dr. Giuliano Guffrida from the Vatican Apostolic Library, Prof. Dr. Ioannis Pratikakis from Democritus University of Thrace, and Prof. Dr. Marco Scarpa from the University of Messina, among others, who will present innovative projects and technological developments in the field of digital palaeography.

The distinguished scientific event DiPP2025 will be opened on September 25, 2025, at 12:30 PM at the Cultural Center Sea Casino in Burgas. This event supports Burgas’ candidature for European Capital of Culture 2032.

Co-organizers: Regional Academic Center of BAS – Burgas, Regional Historical Museum – Burgas, Burgas Free University, Regional Library Peyo Yavorov, Burgas, Burgas State University Prof. A. Zlatarov

Accompanying events:

• The 16th National Information Day: Open Science, Open Data, Open Access, Bulgarian Open Science Cloud;
• 4^th Information Day Research Infrastructure Services in the Humanities and Social Sciences, organized by the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics – BAS, presenting research outcomes of the project National Interdisciplinary Research E-Infrastructure for Resources and Technologies for the Bulgarian Language and Cultural Heritage, integrated within the European infrastructures CLARIN and DARIAH (CLADA-BG).

Further information about the conference is available on the DiPP2025 website: http://dipp2025.math.bas.bg/.

Research reports presented at the forum are published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings, indexed in Web of Science and Scopus (SJR), and accessible online at http://dipp.math.bas.bg

The Bulgarian national team in informatics achieved its best ranking in history at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), winning 2 gold and 2 silver medals. In the unofficial team ranking, Bulgaria ranks fourth in the world, ahead of traditionally strong teams such as those of the USA and Japan.

The Olympiad was held from July 27 to August 3, 2025, in Sucre, Bolivia, and brought together 330 competitors from 84 countries. Our gold medalist, Vesselin Markovich, ranked among the top 10 in the world in the individual ranking.

Gold medals were won by:

• Vesselin Markovich
  Vesselin is a medalist from the most prestigious international Olympiads in informatics and mathematics. He has been part of the national team for three years, and this year he also returned with a silver medal from the International Mathematical Olympiad in Australia.
• Aleksandar Gatev
  The 12th grader is a gold medalist at the Romanian Master of Informatics 2025, the Zhautikov and Central European Olympiads. This is his second participation in the IOI.

Silver medals were won by:

• Andrey Stefanov
  Although only in the tenth grade, Andrey can already boast two silver medals from the IOI and a silver medal from the International Mathematical Olympiad. He started programming in the 3rd grade and has been competing actively since the 6th grade.
• Boris Mihov
  Boris is a three-time participant in the national team, with medals from numerous international competitions. He also won first place at the National Olympiad in Informatics in 2025.

The team leaders are Iliyan Yordanov (IMI–BAS) and Viktor Kozhuharov, who, with their long-term work and dedication, contribute to the development of young talents in informatics.

An interesting and little-known fact is that in 1989, at the initiative of Prof. Sendov and Prof. Kenderov, Bulgaria became the organizer and host of the first International Olympiad in Informatics. It was held in Pravets with only 13 participating countries. Today, the number of participating countries exceeds 80. Bulgaria is one of the few countries that has participated in all editions of the Olympiad so far. Our competitors have brought our country 29 gold, 57 silver and 45 bronze medals. In addition to 1989, Bulgaria hosted the Olympiad once more, in 2009, when it was held in Plovdiv.

The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is one of several international science Olympiads held annually around the world. Exceptional high school students from various countries compete in this prestigious algorithmic competition to sharpen their informatics skills — such as problem analysis, design of algorithms and data structures, programming, and testing.

Main Objectives of IOI

• To discover, encourage, and recognize talented high school students in informatics.
• To foster friendly international relations among computer scientists and educators.
• To promote the discipline of informatics to young people globally.
• To support the organization of future IOIs and national contests.

Each participating country selects a team of up to four contestants accompanied by leaders. The team competes individually in two intense competition days, solving complex problems within limited time, testing their creativity, algorithmic knowledge, and problem-solving skills.