Smart and Sustainable Economy. What is this?
Adelina Marini, November 7, 2011
B2B media is organising for a second year in Bulgaria an international conference on innovation. This year the conference will take place under the slogan "Building A Smarter Sustainable Economy" - all words we hear constantly, especially from Brussels, but which we not always know how are they being realised in practise. In 2011 the conference is two-day long and not as last year just a day, and will be divided into several interesting panels, among which: "Sustainable Industry, Ecological Industries and Modern Environment", the very hot topic "Smart Financing, European Funding and Directives", "Smart TV and New Media". More on last year's event and the expectations for this year you can see in the video file.
Transcript:
euinside: Now we will talk to Nadya Marinova, who is a Manager of B2B Media, organiser for a second year in a row of the Industry&Innovation conference. This year the topic is "Building A Smarter Sustainable Economy". By the way, this is a very European topic, a very hot one. I would just like to mention that euinside is a media partner of the event and I hope that it will be interesting to you. Let us start with what is the idea behind the conference? It takes place for a second year now.
Nadya Marinova: Last year we indeed started with the first edition of the conference. Then we focused more on sustainable business practises. This year we have decided to broaden a little bit the topics and to cover not just practises that are part of the business in Bulgaria and the world, because the conference is international, but we have also decided to touch upon the government policies and what can be done on a state level in order the economy to become sustainable, innovative, to respond fully to the 2020 strategy of the EU, which we know has the same goals.
euinside: What is the experience and the results from last year?
Nadya Marinova: Last year there were very interesting discussions. Representatives of the non-governmental sector took part, of the business. There were also academics, and there was a clash of many and various points of view to problems that are serious and crucial for the Bulgarian economy and the Bulgarian businesses. Everyone came with their own know-how, with their own vision and when these clashed certain decisions started to emerge, certain steps, and then Traycho Traikov, Minister of the Economy, Energy and Tourism, also took part and announced at the conference that a Bulgarian strategy on innovation and a Bulgarian plan toward sustainable economy were to be published.
And, indeed, several days later such a strategy appeared on the ministry's website. Now a year later we expect him to tell us what from this strategy has been realised because we know that a lot of documents are being written in Bulgaria (and not only Bulgaria) but only few are being 100% realised. Now we want to see and hear what has been achieved.
euinside: How do you imagine last year's conference to be upgraded? What can we expect from this year's conference?
Nadya Marinova: Let us start with the formal side - the fact that last year the conference was in one day and now it will be two days. We have much more participants from many and various sectors and, like I said, the governmental presence is increased. This is good, on the one hand, because we see the interests and goals of the government. But, on the other hand, the simple appearance of a minister on stage is not enough. The serious commitments that will be taken have to be taken into account whether they are being implemented. There are also many more sectors of the Bulgarian economy, represented as companies, compared to last year, because last year indeed Industry&Innovation was the forum and we were focused more on big industrial companies in Bulgaria.
This year we will have companies from the technological sector, the utility sector, we will have participants from the so called innovative sector of electro mobility that is broadening and has a more tangible presence in Bulgaria. We will also have representatives of media, who have a panel of their own, and this is also very important because media are also part of the development of a country, part of the development of business and economy and their innovation is also important in this regard.
euinside: It is wonderful that in fact there is something which lacks as expectation, that in fact in our country attention is being paid to innovation in such a hard moment for the entire EU, when we need real growth, based on indeed something we produce. So, I presume this conference will be interesting for everyone. Like I said, euinside is a media partner of the event and we will keep you posted on everything that happens on that conference. Wish you good luck and we will be meeting again on the margins of the conference.
Nadya Marinova: Thank you.