Elena Marinova, President at Musala Soft spoke at the high level meeting of the West Balkans leaders “Regional Integration in the Balkans” in Sofia on December 6-7, 2017. The event was organized by The World Bank on the occasion of 25 years representation in Sofia and hosted by the Bulgarian government in the context of the forthcoming Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2018 which will put Western Balkans as one of the priorities.
The forum was opened by Kristalina Georgieva, Chief Executive Officer of The World Bank and the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. The high level meeting was attended by political leaders from the Western Balkan countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and the host country Bulgaria.
Elena Marinova presented her vision for the future of the software industry in the region focusing on three main areas „United we are stronger“, „Increasing added value“ and „Removing barriers“. She outlined recommendations for further actions to be taken that would substantially influence the development of the sector even during the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU.
The steps to achieve united and strong software industry in the Western Balkans, presented by Elena Marinova include massive liberalization of the hiring of professionals, talent development through considerable investments in training programs, supported by public-private partnerships and, in the long run, transformation of the education systems, easier movement of workforce through border control optimization and improvement of infrastructure.
According to the data presented, Bulgarian software industry which is the most advanced in the region, is growing constantly already surpassing 1 billion Euro and efficiency about 3 times higher than the average for the country. It has a high added value, it is exportable, substantial, good tax payer, as well as a good employer.
The total capacity of the software industry in the Western Balkans and Bulgaria is over 60,000 people. Despite that, there is not a company with 1000+ software professionals in the region, which is the target of Musala Soft for 2020. By means of united efforts of all Western Balkans countries it is realistic to have bigger players in the region both in terms of scale and innovations.
Musala Soft is among the most successful companies in Bulgaria in the field of information technologies and the biggest Bulgarian company specialized in delivering software services, headquartered in Sofia with offices in Ruse, Burgas and in Skopje, Macedonia. Our clients are big multinational corporations and government organizations around the world. Musala Soft projects are in some of the hottest areas – Industry 4.0, Smart Home, Connected Mobility and Autonomous Cars, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Integration, etc. Currently, Musala Soft has 500 employees aiming to achieve 1,000 by 2020. Musala Soft is committed to build better positioning of the software industry and talent development in the field of natural sciences, mathematics and computer science through own and partners` initiatives.
At the photo (from left to right): Anthony Thompson, Country Manager for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, Europe and Central Asia at The World bank, Elena Marinova, President at Musala Soft and Kristalina Georgieva, Chief executive Officer of The World Bank