Business Incubator - Gotse Delchev organized a partner meeting under the NEWBIE project, H2020 Program on 22-24 May in Sofia. What results are achieved so far and what would be done were actively discussed by the partners. Access to labor in agriculture and access to markets, capital and land are challenges not only for Bulgarian new entrants but for the EU as a whole. The winners from the National contests of NEWBIE innovative new entrants in farming applied different innovative approaches, however all of them love what they do. Everyone looked forward to visiting 4 Bulgarian farms in the Samokov area: the cow farm run by 3 cousins ​​Barzanovi, former successful skiers, Green to Go Farm – greenhouses for leaf vegetables, the organic raspberries of Alexander Nanov and the mountain strawberries of Didi Blagoeva.

Read more: BI-GD hosted the 3rd NEWBIE project partner meeting in Sofia

The representatives of Regional livestock association, farmers, new entrants, municipalities, district agricultural offices and team of the Business incubator-Gotse Delchev participated in the discussion circle of #NEWBIE project in Kyustendil, Bulgaria on April 2019. Access to land was the focus of it, in particularly access to municipal land in mountainous area. Problems and challenges discussed: farmers could rent less than 1 ha municipal land only for 1 year by a simple procedure, for up to 10 ha they must participate in an open call, where small mountain farms cannot compete with large ones. When new entrants and small farmers rent public high land they put a lot of efforts to remove variety of bushes, even threes and stones during their one-year contract and at the end of the year somebody else takes the land ready because could afford to rent more than 10 ha and suggests higher price.

Read more: NEWBIE Discussion Circle in Kyustendil

On 31.10.2018 in Blagoevgrad there was held the first public event in Bulgaria under the "Strengthening Social Innovation and Entrepreneurial Spirit of Secondary Schools’ Students by Using Highly Innovative Learning System", InnoSchool project. It was organized by the project partner Business Incubator - Gotse Delchev, Entrepreneurship Promotion Centre with the active support of the second Bulgarian partner - Regional Department of Education – Blagoevgrad and gathered more than 40 participants - teachers, school principals, representatives of public institutions, NGOs, media, stakeholders from different places of South-Western Bulgaria.

At the event there were presented the objectives, innovative components and main activities of the project, the expected results and impact in the secondary schools.

Read more: Presenting the "Strengthening Social Innovation and Entrepreneurial Spirit of Secondary Schools’...

Business Incubator - Gotse Delchev was selected by the European Commission to present its good practice, the only one in the Business section, at the conference "Boosting Growth and Cohesion in EU Border Regions", held in Drama on 25th of October.

The Business Incubator presented the pilot activities in support of innovation and smart specialization realized under the Smart Specialization project in the cross-border region Bulgaria - Greece and the main conclusions and recommendations for achieving economic growth in the region. The main barriers to business are the different Bulgarian and Greek legal framework in the region, it is extremely difficult for a Bulgarian company to participate in a Greek public procurement and vice versa, there is no unified e-government and e-services, another issue comes out of the different educational systems and the qualification of the human resources. Suggestions to overcome obstacles:

Read more: Good Practice of Business Incubator - Gotse Delchev at the Conference "Boosting Growth and...