The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, attended by 2,500 of the most influential leaders in business and politics was an event that not a single owner of a global company would want to miss. However, certain criteria have to be met first. Plamen Rusev, the founder of the WEBIT world congress, and his team have been working hard for three years in order to achieve success. At one point, they decided to present Bulgaria instead of their own organization along with the numerous investment opportunities here. Such appearances are essential for this country, according to Rusev, because:

“Investment and development policies are decided at such events. It is a great loss for our country that it has never attended one of those so far. India, Korea, Mongolia and Russia had their state-organized attendance, while Bulgaria was presented by our foundation only. At the same time, we managed to attract the most important among those 2,500 guests – over 600 of them. We managed to attract global leaders and I am proud of my team – we changed the concept to advertising of Bulgaria and not of WEBIT. Friendships are created at such venues that can easily turn into business partnerships later on. We wanted to make friends and to invite them to Bulgaria, where they can encounter great people and great ideas that are worth being supported. Once you show a man benefit potential, he will invest here.”

The WEBIT.FESTIVAL event will take place in the period April 18 – 20 in Sofia. Plamen Rusev promises that:

“It will be great. This year Sofia is the venue for our European event, with the support of the EC as well. High-ranked politicians will attend it. There will be meetings with people of business, but also with academic experts. The so-called Policy events will take place for the first time in Bulgaria – not political ones, but events on policies. We will discuss the future development of the entrepreneur community in Europe, also cybersecurity and the demographic issue in Europe, along with healthy lifestyle via organic technologies, the digital transformation etc.  We will have an event, named European Smart Cities which will gather many European mayors. We will have our traditional industry events on innovations and digital marketing. We will help some 150 European companies with their free stand. These are the three main pillars of the congress – events on policies, industry and starting companies.”

What will be the benefit for Bulgaria from this initiative?

“Our strategy aims at turning Bulgaria into the unifier of the Central and SEE countries. We will be hosts and, for instance, Sofia can boast with one of the most active startup ecosystems in Europe, developed in the course of 4 -5 years. We can set an example in this area, while other countries will show their achievements, sharing knowledge. This country’s technological image abroad is substantial. We are really happy that a week ago Sofia voted and accepted our proposal – it will be called a Digital Capital of New Markets. It became part of the city’s strategy for intelligent specialization and we will work on turning this into reality”.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev