Last weekend we celebrated 10 years since the foundation of the Internet Society of Bulgaria.
On the picture: A Moment From the Cocktail Party (click to enlarge).
Members of ISOC (left to right):
Veni Markovski – ISOC-Bulgaria President and Chairman of the Board;
Plamen Vatchkov – chairman of the State Agency for ITC;
Sergei Stanishev – Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria;
Dimitar Ganchev – member of ISOC.bg Board and BOL.BG CEO;
Anelia Delcheva, ISOC member.
Here’s the official press-release of the event:
ISOC Bulgaria celebrated its 10th year anniversary at the Matti Hall of the National Palace of Culture.
More than 250 guests, among them many members of ISOC attended the cocktail party. Among them were the Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev (member of ISOC since 2001), the chairman of the
governmental ITC agency Plamen Vatchkov (member since 1999), M.D. Emil Raynov – deputy-minister of health, members of Parliament Ivan Ivanov and Luben Dilov Jr., heads of other governmental agencies, as well as chief of cabinets of different ministers.
Office of the President was represented by chief of staff Krasimir Stoyanov, and also chief of legal council Boris Velchev, secretary for non-governmental organizations Andrey Bundjulov, Emil Iliev, and others.
The United Nations were represented by Mr. Neil Buhne – head of the UNDP office in Sofia.
Among the guests were also the CEOs of the leading Internet companies – like Nikolai Gorchilov, Nikolai Badinski, Theodore Zahov, and others.
The Bulgarian music industry leaders were headed by Ms. Stanislava Armutlieva, CEO of Virginia Records.
Ms. Nina Selvelieva, Pepa Vitanova, Velislava Dareva, Kalin Manolov, Vassil Chobanov were among many journalists to come to greet the hosts.
IT business was also present with George Sharkov – head of the Basscom – Bulgarian software association; Tihomir Tsolov of Sunny Commputers, Konstantin Stoilov of Hewlett-Packard Bulgaria, Dragomir Tsankov of Comtel, Vladislav Hristozov and Vassil Hristovich of Apis, Simeon Angelov of Omnitel, and many others.
Free and Open Source Software movement and business gurus were also there, among them Yovko Lambrev of IBM, Stoyan Mishinev of OpenIntegra, and others.
The Balkan Acceession Fund C.V. was represented by Thomas M. Higins – managing partner. The Academy of Science was there through Dr. Velizar Shalamanov – one of the top cybersecurity experts in Bulgaria, former deputy-defence minister.
Also present were the people involved in the development of the IT strategy of Bulgaria – Nikolai Gerassimov and Roumen Trifonov of the Coordination Center for ITC to the Council of Ministers, Krassimir Benevski of the UNDP, who were in the company of ISOC-Bulgaria coordinators Ms. Dessi Pefeva and Ms. Julia Velkova.
Supreme Court Judges, prosecutors, investigators and law enforcement officers were all over the place, communicating with other members of ISOC. The first Bulgarian e-notary George Dimitrov was spoted exchanging arguments with Ilia Bojinov.
Many other guests and members of ISOC enjoyed the great catering of Mati and the wines from
ISOC-Bulgaria’s favourite cellars.
For more pictures, visit this web page (in Bulgarian).