NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON E-EDUCATION 2018

Denitsa Sacheva

Deputy Minister of Education and Science

Ms Denitsa Sacheva has a master’s degree in public relations from the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Sofia ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’ and a master’s degree in health management from Prof. Assen Zlatarov University, City of Burgas. She earned a bachelor's degree in social pedagogy from South-West University ‘Neofit Rilski’, Town of Blagoevgrad. She began her career at the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, where she held different positions – from a specialist to a head of sector at the National Center for Social Assistance. In 1999, she took the position of Head of the International Cooperation, European integration and Projects Directorate at the National Health Insurance Fund. In the period from 1999 until 2001 she was Head of the Cabinet of the Minister of Health, in charge of the relations with international institutions, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European Commission. She served as Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Policy from 2016 to April 2017.

Marina Kirova

Advisor on economic governance and European semester, European Commission Representation in Sofia

Marina Kirova is advisor on economic governance and European semester at the European Commission Representation in Sofia since November 2017. She joined the European Commission in 2007, where she worked in the Directorate General for Communication Networks Content and Technology, on defining and implementing policies in areas such as cybersecurity, eGovernment, electronic identification and trust services.

Maria Todorova

Director of 'Vocational Education and Training Directorate', Ministry of Education and Science

Maria Todorova is a Director for Vocational Education and Training at the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science. She started her career as a teacher, researcher and university lecturer. During the last 17 years she has been working in the field of Vocational Training and Adult Learning in Bulgaria, ЕU Member States and EU Enlargement countries in her capacity as an expert, advisor and director of an office of an international organisation. During the last few years Maria Todorova worked as an expert at Cedefop and as a policy officer at the Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and the Directorate General for Education and Culture at the European Commission in Brussels, unit VET, Apprenticeships and Adult Learning.

Dr. Ivana Radonova

State Expert, Higher Education Directorate, Ministry of Education and Science

Ivana Radonova graduated primary school pedagogy at the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" and has seven years of work experience in her main professional fiels. She holds doctorate degree in pedagogy in the field of higher education education and self-regulated learning. She has been part of the Higher Education Directorate of the Ministry of Education and Science for 11 years and her activities are mainly related to the international dimension of the sector, national legislation, entrepreneurship and the links between the education and the labor market. Ivana Radonova was the national coordinator for the HEInnovate review in Bulgaria. She is a member of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of EU team at the Ministry of Education and Science; Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG) and BFUG Board member and Co-chair, Co-chair of the Bologna Implementation Coordinating Group and Co-Chair of the Directors General for Higher Education meeting in the first half of 2018. Leader of the BG TEACHING INOVATION TOOLS IN HIGER EDUCATION project funded by Erasmus+ Program and a project coordinator in different national and international incentives. Ivana has rich experience as a lecturer and speaker on national and international conferences, seminars and meetings. She has number of scientific publications in specialized pedagogical issues in Bulgarian and English.

Dobroslav Dimitrov

Chairman, Bulgarian Association of Software Companies - BASSCOM

Nevelina Kikiova

Deputy Director, SOU 'Yordan Yovkov', Sliven

Professor Kristina Varbanova-Dencheva, PhD

Deputy Dean of Faculty of Library Study and Cultural Heritage, University of Library Study and Information Technologies

Grisha Karanikolov

Partner Manager, Telerik Academy

Prof. Ruslan Penchev PhD

Rector, International Business School

Eva Makedonska

HR Director at Ingram Micro, Sofia

Eva joined the team of the company back in 2012, when Ingram opened its Bulgarian office. Today the HR team that Eva is leading consists of 15 high professionals in the field of Talent Acquisition, Learning and Development, Personal Growth and Development and Administration. United through the HR processes the company gives innovative opportunities for Learning and Career Growth. Ingram Micro works in the field of technology distribution. In the Bulgarian office currently work 1100 employees who mainly support the business of Ingram Micro European entities. For more information, please visit: www.ingrammicro.com

Martin Zhelev

Product Manager, Huawei Technologies Bulgaria

Martin Zhelev is a Product Manager at Huawei Technology Bulgaria with more than 15 years of experience in IT and Telecommunications. His responsibilities at the Bulgarian office include technical consultations in the process of generating solutions that meet the requirements of Huawei customers. Prior to becoming part of the Huawei team, Martin worked at Bynet Datacommunications Bulgaria and Newtech BT and has participated in a number of projects in Bulgaria and Central and Eastern Europe. He graduated from the Technical University in Sofia.

Prof. Boyan Bontchev, PhD

Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics - Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski

Boyan Bontchev has obtained PhD in Parallel Processing at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) in 1993. He followed a career of software engineer and project manager in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Bulgaria. Since 2012 is Full Professor at Sofia University. He has participated in many research and industrial projects in the field of adaptive e-learning platforms, serious games, and semantic Web. Dr. Bontchev was invited speaker at many European conferences and has more than 100 publications.

Elena Paunova-Hubenova, PhD

Institute of information and Communication Technologies - Bulgarian Academy of Science

Dr. Elena Paunova-Hubenova is a Senior Assistant at the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In 2013, defended a dissertation on "Designing and Developing Electronic Games for Students as a Web Based Service". Her professional interests are in the field of educational games and technology to support education. Head of the Youth Project "Data Analysis for the Integration of ICT Resources in Bulgarian Schools" funded by the Bulgarian SRF.

Lachezar Filchev

CIO, American University in Bulgaria

Mirela Petkova

Geography and Economics Senior Teacher, Google certified trainer since 2009 at Elin Pelin High School No 19

Mirela Petkova loves variety and dynamics in her work, which has been an adventure and vocation for her for over 17 years. She enjoyed the participation in a number of international training sessions and conferences for exchanging educational practices as well as in Junior Achievement Bulgaria courses for trainers aimed at Forming Entrepreneurial Skills in the Middle and High School Stages of Bulgarian Schools. She uses innovative methods and techniques to teach her students to use their digital competences and presentational skills by means of cloud technologies and instruments, Google instruments, shared documents, presentations, Google classroom etc. With the view of attracting children’s attention to her subject and increase their interest to study, along with the standard teaching methodology, she uses less-known methods and techniques such as Story Telling, Montessori, Coaching, Studying through playing, by means of exercises in groups or individually at an interactive white board or through mobile devices through different platforms and sites: Setera, Geoguesser Kaan Academy, Kahut, Google expeditions, electronic atlases, electronic textbook, etc. She rarely uses paper for tests since she applies a clicker system for examination as well as Google forms, interactive exercises or through Kahut. She is happy to teach a subject which is a journey to the most beautiful places on Earth. She likes her subject since it is geography that makes students think at a large scale, to observe the variety and differences in nature, population and countries so that they could value the beauty of Bulgaria. It is important for her that she has the opportunity to pay attention together with the children to certain global and local problems as well as to take an active part in their solution.

Klara Arabadzhieva

Head Teacher in mathematics, physics and information technology and Principal of Elin Pelin High School No 19

Head Teacher in mathematics, physics and information technology having acquired SECOND Qualification Grade, specialized in Organization and Management of Education. Principal of Elin Pelin High School No 19 since July 2018, a school whose number of students has increased nearly fivefold in five years (from 250 to 1100) in the most competitive region of Sofia Teaching experience: 28 years. She has worked as a teacher at Todor Minkov School No 20, Evrostar Private Language High School and at Elin Pelin High School No 19, Sofia. Despite the accumulated professional and organizational experience, I continue to learn incessantly as well as to perfect myself. I am looking for ways and opportunities to make the school an attractive place for the young people, a place where they should learn to study passionately, to think, to experiment and to create the future while keeping and appreciating the values and traditions of our ancestors. If you should be a leader, if you should be competitive, you need to get prepared in a contemporary environment: with highly qualified teachers using innovations and technologies, multimedia, virtual classrooms, new methods for motivation and assessment of the knowledge and the acquired skills. The teacher is the one who gives out everything they have in order to see their students successful achievers.

Ralitsa Voinova

Senior Expert of Informatics and Information Technologies, Regional Education Directorate - Sofia City

Tsvetanka Todorova

ICT teacher, SU "Tsar Simeon Veliki", Vidin

Tsvetanka Todorova has been an ICT teacher in SU "Tsar Simeon Veliki" Vidin since 1996. The school accepts students after grade 7 in classes with intensive learning in English and ICT. She graduated with a Math degree from Plovdiv University and has post-graduate specializations in ICT at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. Her professional interests are in the field of implementation of the project work into the school curriculum and the use of web 2.0 tools, e-platforms and social media in learning and education. She has attended new technology courses in Malta, Brno (Czech Republic), Santiago De Compostela (Spain). Tsvetanka Todorova is the school projects coordinator for ACES, ESFALP IV, ESP and cluster coordinator for Connecting classrooms project.

Vasilisa Pavlova, PhD

Senior Expert of Informatics and Information Technologies, Regional Education Directorate, Blagoevgrad

Vasilisa Pavlova, PhD is a senior expert of Informatics and Information Technologies. Works in the Regional Education Directorate in Blagoevgrad. Master – engineer in "Computer Systems and Technologies", qualified in Informatics and IT education and specialization in Economics. Her activities are related to inspecting, controlling and methodological support of IT and to organizing and conducting multiple national and regional competition in IT in the region, she has over 18 years of practical experience in the system of secondary education. Since 2016 she has been an assistant in the Technical faculty in SWU "Neofit Rilski", Blagoevgrad. She uses approbated innovative models to improve teachers’ professional competences in the school education system. Priority areas – the interactivity in electronical and mobile education, the use of cloud services, three-dimensional modelling, augmented reality.

Ivan Stoyanov

Deputy Director of Education Activities and Innovative Educational Technologies, William Gladstone High School No 18

Desislava Nikolova

Deputy Director of Educational Activities, William Gladstone High School No 18