The European Digital Innovation Hub Trakia (EDIH Trakia) will participate in the workshop “Defensive Frontlines: Strengthening Cyber Resilience in Evolving Threat Landscapes,” organized on January 16 in Bucharest. The event is hosted by the Euro-Atlantic Center for Resilience (E-ARC) under the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of the project “ECYBRIDGE: Strengthening Interaction in Defense and Civil Cybersecurity,” funded by the Digital Europe program.
From the Bulgarian side, the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy is involved in the project. Associate Professor Velizar Shalamanov from the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IICT-BAS) and the leadership of the Cyber4AllSTAR initiative (EDIH Trakia), coordinated by the Union for Private Economic Enterprise, are among the key academic experts guiding the activities of the international consortium. This consortium consists of military and civilian organizations and cybersecurity specialists.
The upcoming seminar is specifically designed for cybersecurity experts, including specialists in defense and civil cybersecurity, leaders of critical infrastructure sectors, experts involved in cross-sectoral security collaborations, representatives of non-governmental organizations active in cybersecurity-related fields, and others. The event will cover several key topics, such as mapping modern cyber warfare, resilience through collaboration, understanding cyber resilience, and more.
The forum’s program includes presentations by experts such as Dr. Hristian Daskalov, project leader of CYBER4All STAR and Chairman of the Board of EDIH Trakia; Andrei Ionita from Bitdefender; Daniel Leu from the Cyber Security Cluster of Excellence (CYSCOE); Gabriel Puiu from Zamolxis; Johannes Steger from Tagesspiegel Backgrounds Cybersecurity, and others.
The seminar is specifically designed to equip stakeholders from various sectors with the knowledge and skills needed to recognize and effectively respond to the rapidly evolving cyber threats they face while also identifying and leveraging emerging opportunities.
Part of the agenda for digital hubs in Bulgaria and Europe, as outlined by the European Commission’s “Digital Europe” program, is to foster strong connections with other pan-European networks and projects to provide seamless services to SMEs within local and regional ecosystems. To this end, EDIH Trakia is actively developing collaborations with partner hubs and other technological stakeholders from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as part of the European Digital Innovation Corridor “Three Seas” initiative. This initiative aims to establish digital infrastructure for better connectivity among innovators in the CEE region under the leadership of EDIH Trakia.
The most recent event under this initiative took place at the end of November 2024 (November 28–29) in Sofia. EDIH Trakia hosted Mr. Sebastian-Dan Naste, Chairman of the Bucharest Cybersecurity Conference (BCC) and Advisor to the President of the Romanian National Cybersecurity Directorate (DNSC Romania), for the informational and consultancy event series titled “European Digital Innovation Days in Security”, organized under the Cyber4AllSTAR project.
Dr. Hristian Daskalov of EDIH Trakia and Mr. Sebastian-Dan Naste were also special guests at the CyberDrill forum held in Sofia by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) under the United Nations. Dr. Daskalov moderated a discussion on government support for cybersecurity startups in Mediterranean countries, further showcasing the role of the Cyber4AllSTAR project in fostering innovation and collaboration in the region.
The topic of support for cybersecurity startups was also central to the European Digital Innovation Days in Security, where promising startups from Bulgaria and Europe presented their innovations to national and international investors. This was the first such collaborative initiative in Bulgaria, organized in partnership with the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC), the National Cybersecurity Competence Centre at the Ministry of Electronic Technologies (NCC Bulgaria), and the pan-European Women4Cyber foundation, which opened its branch in Bulgaria in the summer of 2024.
The initiatives and new partnerships in the cybersecurity sector were covered in the national media by Bloomberg TV Bulgaria and bTV Radio, with commentary from Mr. Yasen Tanev from the leadership of the Digital Hub, as well as by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency.
During the two-day forum held on November 28-29, 2024, at Sofia Tech Park, other key topics in cybersecurity, innovation, and digitalization were also addressed. The program included a variety of panels, presentations, and workshops focused on different aspects of security and investment opportunities in the sector, presented by key figures such as Francisco Andrade from the European Cybersecurity Organisation (ECSO) based in Brussels, and Borislav Bankov, who leads the participation of the GATE Institute in NATO’s Innovation Hub (DIANA) and other Alliance initiatives in emerging technologies.
The forum clearly emphasized the need for enhanced cooperation among EU member states in the field of cybersecurity, as well as the necessity for increased investment in training and awareness-raising. Participants united around the importance of the Digital Europe program and PNIIDIT 2021-2027 as key tools for advancing technology and addressing security challenges.