Science and Technology in Bulgaria - Computer Technology and Robotics

Computer Technology and Robotics

Computer technology is among Bulgaria's most advanced scientific branches.

Bulgaria, once known as the Silicon Valley of the Eastern Bloc, has started to regain its position as a leading centre of high-technology research and development, particularly in information-technology (IT) and nanotechnology research, development, production and distribution. Bulgaria became one of the first European countries to develop serial production of personal computers (Pravetz series 8) in the beginning of the 1980s. According to the Brainbench Global IT IQ report, Bulgaria ranks first in Europe in terms of IT-certified specialists per capita and 8th in the world in total ICT specialists, out-performing countries with far larger populations.

In 2009 Bulgaria became the first country in Central and Eastern Europe (excluding Russia) to develop a national nanotechnology R&D centre. The Bulgarian government has signed a partership and cooperation agreement with IBM in order to benefit from IBM's experience in this field and to foster the development of new technologies and registered patents at the centre. This represents the first time in IBM's history that the company has signed such a comprehensive agreement with a nation-state and its leading scientific institutions. A nanotechnological components factory was planned, but due to the financial crisis of 2009, the project was cancelled.

Leading multinational companies, such as Apple Inc. and HP have set up regional technology development centres, offices and headquarters in Bulgaria. As an example of an existing establishment, Hewlett-Packard built its Global Service Centre for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in Sofia in 2006. In 2005 SAP built its leading R&D laboratories for the development of Java application server, Composite Application Framework and NetWeaver platforms in Bulgaria.

The country is also involved in developing automobiles. Bulgaria has built a car - Univers, and is busy developing others (by the company 12B) - the Raven R1, the Reus and the Wildcat The first digital computer was invented by John Vincent Atanasoff, who, through his father, was a half Bulgarian (his mother being American). A Bulgarian, Koycho Mitev, is at work inventing a new unique translation method, involving a chip, which he says could be inserted into any phone and will translate a given language into another. Mitev said: “the invention is based on an in-depth analysis of the structure of human speech. We succeeded in creating a tool which records human speech by means of the digits from decimal system regardless of the speaker’s mother tongue. The same 10 digits are used to record all articulate sounds uttered by homo sapiens.” He went on to note: “the program will automatically convert digital codes from one system to another, thus reproducing the text in the recipient’s language. You can speak Bulgarian, while at the other end — in Norway you’ll be heard in Norwegian with your own voice.” Important questions being asked thus far are: what does it do for disambiguation?, can the parser understand intonations that can change the meaning? and so on.