On 15-16 December, the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics held its traditional annual seminar, organised by its Department of Information Technologies (DIT) and the Centre of Information Society Technologies (CIST). The Seminar was carried out in the Educational and Scientific Base “Prof. Tzvetan Bontchev” of Sofia University “St. Kl. Ohridski”, situated in Rilla Mountain.

The CIST team participated with presenting the progress and results achieved under the implementation of the following projects: DIGITRANS, PAGES, Q4ADHD, SOCIAL ENERGY and the new EURAXESS.

DIGITRANS Project: “Digital Transformation in the Danube Region” is a project financed by Danube Transnational Programme (INTERREG) of the EU. The consortium consists of 17 partner institutions from 9 Danube countries. As a Work Package Leader, the Bulgarian team concentrated its presentation around the selected Digital Transformation Method and the efforts of the Bulgarian team on the organisation of the SME Blended Trainings. 

Social Energy project is financed under EU HORIZON 2020 Programme. The planned innovation actions were presented: recent incentive technologies (localized social externalities) towards effective use of behavioural economics in energy efficiency sector; educate and effectively incentivize utility customers via advanced gaming and gamification technologies; provision of a single point of hosting and advertisement services to consumers, utilities and companies related with energy efficiency products and services; provision of energy information distribution as a service to interested stakeholders. 

Q4ADHD Project: “Quality Assurance in VET for Learners with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity (ADHD)” is financed under the ERASMUS + Programme. The team presented the achieved project results: Compendium of best practices: Quality Assurance Framework, Online Toolkit in support to all VET providers for professional preparation of students with ADHD. 

PAGES Project: Pathways for Guiding Employment Skills for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is also financed under the ERASMUS + Programme. It started in September 2017. Its aims, objectives and expected results were presented to the audience. 

EURAXESS Bulgaria: The based in CIST team of the Pan-European network coordinating its activities on national level used the opportunity of the seminar to report about the state of the art of the network, the current and the upcoming projects and the recent developments. There were reported updates on the Charter & Code process, The Researchers Career Development Center at Sofia U, the projects EURAXESS TOP III and EURAXIND (EURAXESS for Industry) as well as about the starting projects EURAXESS TOP IV and BRIGE (Bridge for Researchers in Danger Going to Europe). 

During the seminar, the academic staff from Sofia University had the opportunity to discuss the last achievements, the new opportunities and innovative training concepts that match technologies and new pedagogical approaches.

Some future possibilities for new projects and innovative trainings for specific target groups were presented as well based on the CIST experience.