The Team Winner of the ENGAGE.EU Competition for Secondary School Students Was Selected

A team named Ino Starch with members - Beatrice Guluganova, Sofia Stoykova and Liliana Taneva became the winner of the Competition for Secondary School Students held within the frameworks of the European University ENGAGE.EU.

The three girls won the Competition in a rival with ten other teams with a project entitled Aqua Utility.

The projects topics were within the framework of innovations and innovative entrepreneurship related to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, namely Goal 12: Responsible Production and Consumption.

The beginning of the Competition was set on 4 October at the National Trade and Banking School /NTBG/. In the rival took part pupils from 11 and 12 grades of the High School divided into teams. The Competition aimed to unleash the creativity, entrepreneurial and innovative skills of the secondary school students.

At the opening of the event: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mihail Musov, Vice-Rector for Research and International Affairs, the Rector Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov and Prof. Dr. Tsvetana Stoyanova, Vice-Rector for Institutional and Business Cooperation and Student Policies of UNWE

The moderator of the event Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kostadin Kolarov, Director of the UNWE Institute of Entrepreneurship and member of the jury, greeted the participants and gave the floor to Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov.

"The Competition is a very important initiative which takes place within the frameworks of the ENGAGE.EU European University Alliance, part of which is the UNWE together with eight other leading business universities from all over Europe. UNWE is a partner with the University of Mannheim (Mannheim, Germany), LUISS University (Rome, Italy), NHH Norwegian School of Economics (Bergen, Norway), Tilburg University (Tilburg, Netherlands), Université Toulouse 1 Capitole (Toulouse, France), WU Vieann University of Economics and Business (Vienna, Austria), Universitat Ramon Llull (Barcelona, Spain) and Hanken School of Economics (Helsinki, Finland)", said the Rector and emphasized: "within the frameworks of the consortium our university as the largest business university in Bulgaria having about 16-17 thousand students at the moment and along with the other universities in the alliance form over 100 thousand students who are specialized in business, economics, administration and management. It is a great potential. I welcome the idea for the team working on this project to have such an international competition for secondary school students with the support of our partners, who will evaluate your proposals. Changes happen every day and we have to be flexible enough to adapt to new conditions. That is why the role of entrepreneurs is very important and our university is one of the few that has a Department, a speciality and an Institute of Entrepreneurship. We encourage this activity by creating a Start-up Hub at the UNWE to help our students realize innovative ideas and there is a lot of interest in it. I wish you success, be healthy and enterprising!", wished the pupils Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov.

"I remember lots of things from my life as a pupil at the Commercial High School in Burgas and all my participation in extracurricular activities what is in particular today`s event. Namely these activities and participation in them will shape you in a very unnoticed way as professionals and as individuals that our society and our economy demand. Congratulations to you for having the courage to participate in today's event and thankfulness to the Director of the National Trade and Banking School Mrs. Emilia Ivanova as well as to all the teachers who were involved in your preparation for today's Competition", said the Vice-Rector for Research and International Affairs Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mihail Musov.

"I have no doubt that many of you will continue educating at our university and in addition of what the Rector said, in April we opened a Startup Hub to support students' ideas. Your entrepreneurial ideas can be further developed by our mentors who are distinguished professionals representing the entire startup ecosystem and they could help you find investors for your ideas", said Prof. Dr. Tsvetana Stoyanova, Vice-Rector for Institutional and Business Cooperation and Student Policies of UNWE and emphasized: "I wish you success, wish the best to win and all the others to improve their ideas and to meet with you again next year as students who develop their projects due to our start-up mentoring programme".

Assoc. Prof. Denitsa Gorchilova, Scientific Secretary of the Public Administration Department and Chief Assist. Dr. Kristian Zhelev, lecturer at the International Economic Relations and Business Department presented to the participants the regulations of the Competition. The Rector gave the start of the race.

The event continued with presentations of students' works.

A five-member jury with members - Prof. Dr. Kostadin Kolarov, Daniel Kostov, environmental entrepreneur, founder of Ecology Bulgaria Ltd. and environmental educational programme Going Green, Nedyalka Dieva, teacher at the National Trade and Banking School, Maria Goncheva, Head of Youth Activities Division at Sofia Municipality and Ivana Radonova from the Higher Education Directorate at the Ministry of Education, evaluated the projects and selected the team winner.

"For us it is another challenge that we have met with honour. You remember that twenty days ago when we had our first gathering to open the competition, I said that our task is difficult because we will defend the honour of UNWE at international level and today we defend our honour and I think that in your face we have succeeded in defending it. Thank you, dear students!", said during the awarding ceremony the Director of the National Trade and Banking School Emilia Ivanova and added: "the field in which you compete now is very broad, it is the field of your dreams. I am proud of the fact that within three days we did a casting of 10 teams, 40 students and they managed to do what they did in 20 days. I'm really proud of you, you can't imagine how proud I am. Good luck, kids! Thank you, UNWE, once again!"

The moderator of the event Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kostadin Kolarov gave the floor to Prof. Daniela Feschian to greet and award diplomas to the mentors on behalf of the Rector of UNWE. Assoc. Prof. Kolarov outlined that Prof. Feschian had supported the project team to make a contact with the nominated school.

Prof. Dr. Daniela Feschian expressed her thankfulness for the honour to award diplomas to the team mentors and outlined the importance of their work in motivating and preparing the children. She reminded the high results of the competing teams not only at today's Forum, but also at all national competitions of the Association of Economic Schools in Bulgaria. Prof. Feschian expressed her gratitude to the Rector of UNWE Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov, to the Vice-Rector Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mihail Musov, to the whole project team from the UNWE and to the Director of the National Trade and Banking School Mrs. Emilia Ivanova for the excellent organization and successful implementation of the Competition.

Prof. Dr. Daniela Feschian is awarding to the mentors of pupils certificates for their contribution to the organization of the international competition.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mihail Musov awarded certificates to the members of jury at the Competition as well as to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Denitsa Gorchilova and Chief Assist. Dr. Kristian Zhelev for the excellent organization of the event.

"It is a well-deserved support for the UNWE not only for this event but for everything you do and as a former teacher I can't hide my emotion because what I see today is unique not only in terms of ideas, great ideas you had, I liked them a lot, especially those with practical applicability. You are lucky to study in such an environment, hearing the applause you greet your teachers, I honestly say to you, ladies and gentlemen, I envy you for having such an atmosphere in which to work. I wish you success!" said Ivana Radonova receiving her Certificate.

Ivana Radonova

"I want to greet you and tell the young people that it was a real pleasure, admirations for them and their teachers and for the University. There were a lot of interesting ideas that could support the development policies of our city", outlined Maria Goncheva.

Maria Goncheva	Daniel Kostov
Nedyalka Dieva	Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kostadin Kolarov

Chief Assist. Dr. Kristian Zhelev and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Denitsa Gorchilova

All secondary school students were awarded Certificates for participation in the Competition.

The Rector awarded the pupils from the team winner and gave them as present a silver jubilee coin with gold plating "100 Years of UNWE".

Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov awarded to Prof. Dr. Daniela Feschian and Emilia Ivanova a silver jubilee coin with gold plating "100 Years of UNWE" for their contribution to the implementation of the idea of the Competition.