Sofia Municipality established a Local Innovation Advisory Group to assist the city in developing more efficient policies for youth entrepreneurship and innovation. The Advisory Group was founded in the framework of the New Generation Skills project, INTERREG Danube Transnational Program, co-funded by the EU funds.

Sofia Municipality and Sofia Development Association are project partners, together with 10 other partners from 6 other countries. The Advisory Group includes diverse experts from the areas of social entrepreneurship (Yuriy Valkovski, Reach for Change Director), incubators and investment funds (Milen Hristov, Founder Institute), education, science and technology (Vasil Karaivanov, Sofia Tech Park Board of Directors Chairperson; Mariana Hamanova, Cleantech; Ivo Ivanov, 134 Secondacy School), Sofia municipal councilors Mihaela Ivanova and Botyo Botev, co-authors of Sofia Youth Strategy. The Advisory Group will stregthen the ability of Sofia to upgrade cooperation between administration, companies, educations, the youth and business support organizations and NGOs to nurture and retain young talent. The first meeting of the group took place on June 1st, 2017.

Further project activities include creating a dynamic learning program for entrepreneurial skills, coaching and mentoring provided through an Innovation Lab, youth policy development through peer learning.

More about the project here: http://www.interreg-danube.eu/approved-projects/newgenerationskills