Two Lecturers from the UNWE Attended the Inauguration of the US President Donald Trump

Two lecturers from the UNWE attended the inauguration ceremony of the American President Donald Trump. They were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Georgy Nikolov, Head of the Regional Development Department and Director of the Institute of Postgraduate Studies, and Chief Assist. Dr. Ekaterina Bogomilova, Director of the International Master's Programme in Nuclear Security and Lecturer at the National and Regional Security Department. The costs of their visit were fully covered by the host country.

The oldest person who has inaugurated as president – the 78 years old Donald Trump and the 40 years old Vice President James Vance - the third-youngest in the country's history, swore in on 20 January 2025.

Seven Bulgarians attended the ceremony through the list of the Bulgarian Congress of the USA - an American non-governmental organization, which has received from the House of Representatives in the US Congress invitations to the event and the costs were at the expense of the Congress. The Bulgarian American Congress was established in 2023 to strengthen the strong political, economic, cultural and educational bridges and successful business relationships between Bulgaria, the Balkan region and the United States. On this quota, together with our lecturers, at the ceremony also attended the President and Vice President of the Bulgarian Congress of the USA - Pete Christopherson /Plamen Krastev/ and Prof. Dr. Gergana Yordanova, the Nuclear Engineer Dr. Boyan Sechenskiy, Programme Manager at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Valentin Milushev, GERB deputy in the 51st National Assembly, Venelin Dimitrov, founder and CEO of a software company and Nadya Marinova.

"People are filled with great hope that the new president will bring normality both in the US and around the world", told to BNR Assoc. Prof. Georgy Nikolov and added: "There are thousands people moving to the event. There are many media broadcasting the event. People are in high spirits. There are people who have been in the queues since 6 a.m. - singing, excited. It feels very exciting because we are part of an event that has hundreds of spotlights on it, with a lot of expectations focused on it. I'm sure those expectations will be fulfilled”.

"I am glad he is already a functioning president. I hope there will be peace in the world, I hope the wars in all parts of the world will come to a positive end", says Chief Assist. Dr. Ekaterina Bogomilova.

Assoc. Prof. Georgy Nikolov explained that their programme has been very intensive, they had meetings at the White House and with congressmen.

With congressmen

Among the people invited at the ceremony were Elon Musk /in the picture below/, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, and Shaw Chu, the CEO of TikTok, Rupert Murdoch, China's Vice President Han Zheng, the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the leader of the far-right Reformist Party Nigel Farage and many others.