Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and the Municipality of Sofia are organising for third time the European Day of the Entrepreneur (EDE) in Bulgaria.

This year it will be carried out on November 28-29 at the Inter Expo Centre, Sofia.

All the relevant Ministries and more than 20 important public, non-governmental and private structures are co-organisers of this significant forum. A lot of foreign institutions announce their interest towards the different events going to be held during the EDE.

Recently, during the concluding forum of the PANEL Network in Munich, the Bulgarian European Day of the Entrepreneur was highly evaluated by Mr. David White, Director of Innovation Policy at the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry in the European Commission.

The Mission

This year the event is oriented towards the initiative of the local and regional authorities to encourage and promote innovation and entrepreneurship in their regions. Mayors, representatives of municipalities and district bodies, banks and entrepreneurial business, public and non-governmental organisations will have the opportunity to exchange their views on basic problems of stimulating competitiveness, and establishment of effective conditions for growth of entrepreneurship and innovation in each recess of the country.

European Day of the Entrepreneur, Past Editions

The first EDE event (October 2003) was held under the motto “Innovation and Development”. More than 300 participants had the opportunity to get acknowledged with successful practices of European networks in support to the innovative entrepreneurship. Foreign partners from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, Spain, Serbia and Macedonia, as well as representatives from the European Commission exchanged their experience and actively participated in the different discussion sessions. The event was highly evaluated by foreign and Bulgarian guests.

In 2004 the EDE had the slogan EU Market: “Opportunities and Challenges”. In two plenary, 16 panel sessions and 3 concomitant events again key stakeholders from Bulgaria and Europe discussed successful models and effective solutions in the implementation of the innovative development of the country and outlined the paths for harmonization of the entrepreneurial activities to the European standards.

The European Idea

The EDE idea is an initiative with earnest traditions of the United Europe. This event is organised in the frame of the PAXIS Network (The Pilot Action of Excellence on Innovative Start-ups) aimed at dissemination of best models for establishing new technology based companies. The concept of this forum is introduced by EUROCITIES (Network of the European Towns) and the European Commission.

Venue: Inter Expo Centre