XI International Conference on the Entrepreneurship in a Challenged World: The Role of Universities in the of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Development
XI International Conference on the Entrepreneurship was held at the Flamingo Grand Hotel & SPA in Albena resort. It was organized by the Bulgarian Association for Management and Entrepreneurship Development /BAMED/ with the efforts of all its members, among which first of all the UNWE represented by the Institute of Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneurship Department and in partnership with the European Small Business Council /ESBC/.
The 11th edition of the Conference was held after a three-year break, a period in which the Forum lost its founder – Prof. D.Sc./Econ./ Kiril Todorov, a pioneer in small business research and entrepreneurship in Bulgaria, who had received a number of international recognitions as well as bright names in entrepreneurship science and education, who participated as leading speakers and contributed to the development of the Conference – Prof. David Smallbone, Prof. Robert Hisrich and Prof. David Storey.
Greetings to the participants in the Conference were addressed by Prof. Mitko Dimitrov, Chairman of the Board of BAMED and representative of the Economic Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Prof. Ken O'Neill, member of the International Advisory Committee of the Conference and Doctor Honoris Causa of UNWE, Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov, Rector of UNWE, Prof. Mariana Bozhinova, Rector of the D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics – Svishtov and Assoc. Prof. Radan Miryanov, Vice-Rector of the University of Economics – Varna.
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Prof. Mitko Dimitrov and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kostadin Kolarov, Head of the Entrepreneurship Department and Director of the Entrepreneurship Institute |
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Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov, Prof. Mariana Bozhinova and Assoc. Prof. Radan Miryanov |
The key speakers in the current edition of the Conference were Prof. Nikolay Denchev, Founder and Head of the Social Entrepreneurship Department of the Free University of Brussels and Prof. Andrew Burke, Dean of the Trinity Business School of Dublin University.
The conference was attended by researchers, lecturers, PhD students and entrepreneurs from fifteen countries.
Within the frameworks of the Conference 27 papers were presented and a Round Table Conference led by Dr. Paolo Zaramella and Dr. Bruce Whitefield was organized. Its topic was Role of Universities in the Creation and Development of an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.
The reports were presented in thematic sections, focusing on the problems of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, women's and youth entrepreneurship, digital technologies and entrepreneurship education.
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Prof. Nikolay Denchev, Brussels Free University and UNWE, is presenting a key report |
Part of the programme was the visit to the University of Economics – Varna where Assoc. Prof. Radan Miryanov introduced the participants in the Conference to the project Varna Deep Tech Innovation Port and Assoc. Prof. Petar Petrov presented the activity of the accelerator for startups.
At the end of the third day of the Conference were made summaries of the presented papers by the leaders of the sessions – Assoc. Prof. Kostadin Kolarov /who presented the generalizations made by Prof. Dmytro Zherlitsyn), Prof. Olga Tabachnikova, Prof. Tadeusz Poplawsky and Prof. Desislava Yordanova. The nominations for the award Kiril Todorov for the best report were also consulted with them. The difficulties in determining a distinguished report led to the decision to distribute the prize fund among the authors of the four nominees for the award.
All participants highly appreciated the organization of the Conference and expressed their gratitude to Assoc. Kostadin Kolarov and Dr. Maria Vasilska also discussed their ideas and plans for the next edition of the forum.
