On 15 October 2011, U4Energy Award Ceremony was held at the Sheraton Hotel in Sofia for the regional winners of the first pan-European school competition on energy efficiency, launched by the EU Commissioner for Energy Mr Oettinger in 2010. The competition is carried out by European Schoolnet on behalf of the European Commission and aims to promote the exiting new field of “energy education”. After a successful first year with hundreds of schools from nearly 30 countries submitting entries, U4Energy Regional Awards Ceremony took place in Sofia to recognize the winning projects from Bulgaria...

On 27 and 28 August, an international conference “Say NO! to cyberbullying” gathered in Sofia school principals and teachers from 9 cities and towns and representatives and experts from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria. The forum was co-organised by Madara-Bulgaria Foundation, the Department for information and qualification of teachers at Sofia University and the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre (SIC) at the Applied Research and Communications Fund. Dr. Stefania Dimitrova, Chair of Madara-Bulgaria Foundation, presented several international studies including the EU...

Having in mind the uptrend in internet use via mobile phone among teenagers as well as the young people’s passion for new technologies the Bulgarian Helpline of the National Safer Internet Centre developed an Android application for smartphones. The application is a file of 9 MB of size and can be downloaded from the Helpline website. Besides the opportunity to look at the contents of the Helpline website and its Facebook page, the application provides easy one-touch access to the short number 124 123 of the Helpline, the Skype connection with the operators and possibility to compose and send...

Experts from the Bulgarian safer Internet Centre and the Cybercrime Unit of the Ministry of Interior participated in March in two 3-day trainings of pupils from 4 cities organized by the Center for Inclusive Education in the framework of a project co-financed by Save the Children-Norway and the Swiss Oak Foundation. Two groups of children aged 12-14 and 15-17 from schools in Blagoevgrad, Stara Zagora, Ihtiman and Sofia got to know more about online risks and safe use of Internet. They were acquainted with the principles and methods of the peer research and at discussion sessions defined the...

On 8 February, three deputy-ministers – of education, Ms. Milena Damianova, of culture, Mr. Todor Chobanov and of transportation, information technologies & communications, Mr. Parvan Rousinov, and the deputy-chairman of the State Agency for Child Protection, Mr. Kalin Kamenov, participated in the celebration of the international Safer Internet Day (SID) in Bulgaria. The main event took place at the “Elisaveta Bagriana” school in the capital Sofia, where the four VIP guests launched the new Safer Internet campaign “It’s more than a game, it’s your life.” United by this motto...

On 2-4 December 2010, experts of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre (SIC) co-ordinated by ARC Fundparticipated in a training in the town of Troyan of more than 30 police officers, prosecutors and judges from the Veliko Tarnovo judicial district organized by the International Academy for Cybercrime Investigation Training. The SIC coordinator Georgi Apostolov presented to the auditorium the main aims and activities of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre, the history of the Safer Internet Programme of the EC, the structure and activities of the INSAFE and INHOPE networks and their role in...

Full text (Adobe PDF, 307 КВ) On July, 5th 2010, the Applied Research and Communications Fund presented its conclusions and recommendations toward the national and European policies on broadband development during a discussion on Digital Agenda for Europe, organized by the European Commission Representation in Bulgaria. This policy brief is part of e-Bulgaria 2020 initiative, which aims at providing analysis on state-of-the-art and future developments if information society in Bulgaria. Public policies toward broadband development must be focused on the specifics of individual countries...