I'm a European tech observer who founded the region's premier information portal and market intelligence platform, Tech.eu, and currently the founder and managing director of Profoundo, a strategic communications advisory firm for fast-growth tech scale-ups and investors. I'm on a mission to boost the competitiveness of the European technology, startup and investment ecosystems in Europe, and I'd love to have a conversation with you if that aligns with yours. I regularly travel for conferences, to present data on the European tech scene, moderate panels or interview executives, investors and policymakers. Get in touch if you would like to discuss. I am also part of the founding team behind BeCentral, the digital campus located in Brussels Central Station that has helped thousands of people learn technologies, grow a startup and have a positive impact on society. With the Syndicate One seed investment group, I also try to help ambitious Belgian early-stage tech companies realise their visions.

Victor Tchervenobrejki is the Head of AI and ML Solutions at Cloud Office, where he leads the development of advanced artificial intelligence solutions across multiple industries. His work focuses on designing end-to-end AI systems that combine computer vision, predictive modeling, and large-scale data pipelines to solve complex operational and analytical challenges. Victor has led AI initiatives in sectors including biotechnology, finance, insurance, media, and healthcare, developing solutions ranging from recommendation engines and automated claims analysis to forecasting models and NLP-driven insights. In biotechnology, he has contributed to the development of digital twins of biological and industrial processes, integrating machine learning with real-world production environments. With a background that spans both technical development and strategic implementation, Victor works at the intersection of engineering, business, and data science to bring AI systems from research to real-world deployment. Passionate about the societal impact of technology, he has spoken at leading conferences including Digitalk, Capital AI Masterclass, TedX, and the Financial Summit, sharing perspectives on ethical AI and the future of digital transformation.

Dr. Botty Dimanov, CEO & Co-Founder of Tenyks, holds a PhD in Explainable AI for Vision from Cambridge University, invented US Patent for extracting concepts from visual information, and is a Forbes 30U30 honouree. Tenyks is an award-winning Cambridge University spin-out backed by YCombinator.

Matt Berry is a Senior Solutions Architect at WRITER, the full-stack generative AI platform for the enterprise. In his role, he partners with large organisations to design and deploy governed AI agents that automate critical workflows with built-in security and compliance. Matt plays a key role in helping customers navigate the shift from experimental AI to scalable, high-ROI implementations. Beyond his technical work, Matt is an active leader within the solutions engineering community, coaching junior team members and leading strategic sessions with major ecosystem partners. Prior to joining WRITER, he spent several years in pre-sales and analytics, building a reputation for delivering high-value technical demonstrations and data strategies for enterprise clients.

Bogdan is a General Partner of Underline Ventures, a venture capital firm that partners at the earliest stages with Eastern European founders building high-growth startups with global ambitions. Also, founder of the How to Web Conference, one of Europe’s leading startup and innovation events, Bogdan is advising early-stage startups on raising capital, building useful products, or crafting great pitch decks. Previously Partner with Gecad Ventures, entrepreneur (founded and exited Conectoo, an enterprise email marketing service), he was involved with MVP Academy, MVP Angels, TechHub Bucharest, and 3TS Capital Partners.

My main research interests include natural language processing, multilingual representation learning, transfer learning, applied machine learning and more. On a more practical note, BgGPT is a project that I started and am continuing to work on in the present. It is a big initiative to bring better Bulgarian language models and Bulgarian NLP to the scientific community and the Bulgarian society. We have our open models freely available on our HuggingFace org and have created a chat application that excels in Bulgarian language understanding and generation.

I’m focused on bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world. My goal is to build robots with a single, end-to-end artificial 'brain' that can see its environment, understand how the physical world works, and make decisions on the fly. Previously, I was part of the core research team of Wayve, an autonomous driving company. There, I developed one of the first offline Reinforcement Learning models applied to autonomous driving in the real world. With my team we proved that end-to-end AI can drive in complex urban environments such as central London, which at the time was considered impossible by the entire industry.

VC Portfolion Daniel is co-leading Portfolion’s early-stage investment team where he is focused on partnering up with the most ambitious founders coming from Central and Eastern Europe at pre-seed and seed stages.

Investment banker turned early-stage investor, co-founder of LAUNCHub Ventures, a leading CEE VC Fund. He oversaw the rise of the region's success stories such as GtmHub, FintechOS, OfficeRnD among others. Leveraging his substantial experience in investment banking, real estate, insurance, and M&A, he has been supporting teams with global aspirations and mojo to compete and grow.

Drencheva is an outstanding young talent in mathematics and artificial intelligence and a shining example of the success of the EXPLORER program. As part of its first cohort, she became the first undergraduate from a Bulgarian university to publish at ICLR - one of the world’s most prestigious AI conferences, and successfully completed an internship at Man Group. EXPLORER is a bachelor’s program in AI and Deep Tech, developed by INSAIT and leading industry partners, with the mission to nurture and retain top Bulgarian talent in cutting-edge technologies. Maria graduated from the Sofia Mathematical High School with top honors. She is a recipient of the National Diploma of the Ministry of Education, and a long-time member of Bulgaria’s national mathematics teams. Her achievements include a gold medal with a perfect score at the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad, a gold medal from the Zhautykov International Mathematical Olympiad, and a laureate title from the National Mathematics Olympiad

Petar Vlaić, CFA is a President of the Management Board of Erste d.o.o.. Born on 19th July, 1967. He started his professional career as a broker at Ilirika, advancing later on as a portfolio manager and head of sales. After moving to Zagreb he became the first fund manager in the Republic of Croatia in the first Croatian investment fund, Kaptol Proinvest. He continued as a sales head in IB Austria and as a fund manager in the Central Croatian National Fund. In 2001 he became the President of Management Board of Adriatic Invest in charge of management of Plavi Mandatory Pension Fund. At the end of 2003 Erste Mandatory Pension Fund and Helios Mandatory Pension Fund were merged to the Plavi Mandatory Pension Fund that changed the name to Erste Plavi Mandatory Pension Fund. He graduated at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Ljubljana and obtained a title of a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) of the CFA Institute.

Jordi is the Head of SITA Labs. SITA Labs is a highly distributed and unconstrained team with senior aviation professionals, engineers and entrepreneurial minded innovators that pursues bold ambitious ideas using emerging technology Jordi Valls is an experienced entrepreneurial technology executive with over 15 years in the field, specializing in startups and scale-ups, particularly in North America and Europe. Founder of several initiatives like Startup Embassy and 1sleeve Inc. in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley. And also in 2018 founder & CEO of mentor-vr, a Virtual Reality solutions company focused on Employee Experience with clients like CaixaBank, ESADE, Wyser and Emergia. Jordi's career includes significant roles at Decelera, Carnovo, The Knot Worldwide and Sunday. His achievements include successful product launches, managing cross-functional teams, and driving significant growth and innovation in challenging, fast-paced environments. His expertise lies in aligning product development with business goals, leading diverse teams, and leveraging technology to create impactful user experiences.

Jesus Caballero is the CEO and the Chairman of the Management Board of SOF Connect - the operator of Vasil Levski Sofia Airport. He is also a member of the Boards of Terminal B of LaGuardia International Airport in New York, USA and Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan. Previously Mr. Caballero was the CEO of Seville and Melilla airports, and was also involved in the management of Madrid, Barcelona, and Malaga airports. He holds the record for the youngest CEO of an airport in Spain. Jesus Caballero manages investment projects for over EUR 624 million to improve infrastructure, passenger experience and services, digitalization, modernization of Terminal 2 and construction of Terminal 3 at Vasil Levski Sofia Airport. Mr. Caballero is active in the field of sustainable development of the aviation industry as President of the Council of ACI WORLD Fund and as a member of the Board of ACI EUROPE. Jesus Caballero was selected as the Manager of the Year 2024 in Bulgaria by Manager Magazine and Deloitte. He received Businessman of the Year 2025 Award by French-Bulgarian Trade and Industrial Chamber. Under the leadership of Jesus Caballero, Vasil Levski Sofia Airport won ACI EUROPE Best Airport Award in 2025 in the category 5 to10 million passengers.

Petya Rusinova is a Senior Manager of Payment Solutions at Visa, overseeing digital product delivery in Croatia and Bulgaria. She has been with Visa since March 2022, focusing on digital strategy and enhancing the digital consumer journey. Before joining Visa, she spent 20 years at First Investment Bank, Bulgaria, where she held leadership roles, including Deputy Director of Card Services.

Cláudio shapes storytelling, brand, and community for the Constructor Group ecosystem's venture engine. As a five-time founder, he has built and exited companies across fashion, software, talent, and HR tech. He has also led VC marketing by turning founders into platforms through personal branding, partnerships, and curated, invite-only ecosystems. His work sits at the intersection of venture, creativity, and narrative – helping technical founders articulate vision, ambition, and impact, through direct mentorship to founders, an Incubator in Tokyo with Wacom, and a creative global accelerator program. After living in seven different countries, Claudio is currently back to being based in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Hristo Todorov is the Founder and CEO of DiscreteStack, a company building European AI based on open technologies, enterprise control, and cost predictability. DiscreteStack gives organizations powerful AI under their own control, including a fully isolated deployment on a single server — a “dark factory” setup with no internet dependency — while keeping intelligence comparable to frontier providers. Hristo studied at the Vocational School of Computer Technology in Pravetz and went on to build a career in software engineering and technical leadership across telecom, fintech, and aviation. Since 2015, his entrepreneurial path has included international recognition, with the company he co-founded named among the Top 40 developer agencies in the world by Google in 2017; a successful exit with Upnetix in 2018; and the co-founding of CleverPine, which later entered a joint venture with Lufthansa Technik in 2023. That partnership created VAeroLabs, backed by Lufthansa Technik's commitment to invest €50 million in Bulgaria over the following years. In 2025, Hristo started DiscreteStack to build European AI as an alternative to the major American providers. For him, European AI means transparency, control, sovereignty, and predictability — not an American product hosted on a server in Frankfurt.

Alexander Kitov takes the position of VP of Product at Telerik Academy, with a focus on the development of new products and services, as well as the improvement of existing ones. Alexander has over 16 years of experience as an entrepreneur and Product Manager in Bulgaria and Germany, working with companies such as Paysafe and ZenGo. He is a co-creator of betahaus — the first coworking space in Sofia — and Perpetto, one of the early SaaS startups for personalized online shopping. Currently, Alexander is deeply focused on the field of artificial intelligence, actively contributing through the development of new AI-based products, as well as exploring how AI can enhance learning experiences and business innovation.

Elvin Guri is an investor and entrepreneur with more than 15 years of successful track record in banking and private equity. As an investor and adviser, Elvin has been involved in deals in the financial institutions sector (Czech Republic, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia), in technology and biotechnology (Switzerland, Bulgaria), in healthcare and food industry (Bulgaria), and the real estate sector (USA). Prior to Empower Capital, Elvin and Ivan Hristanov co-founded JetFinance International, the largest independent consumer finance lender in SEE. JetFinance was sold to BNP Paribas Personal Finance in July 2007. Elvin started his career as an Auditor at Price Waterhouse in Sofia. Later he spent more than five years with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), both in London and in Sofia. At EBRD, Elvin worked mostly on financial institutions’ deals, but also contributed to deals in food processing, pulp and paper, and other industries. Elvin holds an Executive MBA from the University of Oxford. Elvin is fluent in English, Bulgarian and Albanian. He is also conversational in French and Italian. Additionally, Elvin supports several educational initiatives in Bulgaria and Albania, including AUBG, Teach for Bulgaria (“Zaedno v Chas”) and Junior Achievement.

He started working as a financial analyst in the Finance and Accounting Department of PAC "Doverie" in 1999. He was selected as an employee of the Company among over 200 candidates who appeared for an interview for the position during the "Career Days - 1999" organized by AIESEC-Bulgaria. In early 2000, he was appointed Internal Auditor, from April 2001 he was Director of the Finance, Accounting and Investments Department, and from September 2008 he was Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer. In 2012, he was elected Member of the Management Board, and subsequently Executive Director of the Company. He graduated from the University of National and World Economy with a Master's degree, specializing in "Corporate Finance". Before starting work at PAC "Doverie" he gained experience as a real estate broker and Capital markets assistant manager. In 2020, he was awarded the award "For Overall Contribution to the Development of Bulgarian Insurance" by the "Prof. Dr. Veleslav Gavriyski" Foundation.

Tomislav Tomov is a tech entrepreneur and AI expert who co-founded Presize. After a record-breaking appearance on the German version of Shark Tank, his company was acquired by Meta in 2022. Tomov holds a Master’s degree in Robotics from the Technical University of Munich. Following the acquisition, he joined Meta’s team in London to lead further developments in e-commerce and AI. Today, he is also a prominent angel investor, supporting early-stage startups.

Takayuki Kaneko is an electronics industry executive with over 30 years of experience at Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd in Kyoto JAPAN, spanning product development, strategic marketing, product management, and market expansion. He currently serves as Director at Murata Electronics Europe B.V. in the Netherlands, leading EMEA promotion and marketing activities across electronic components, modules, and solutions. Since April 2025, He has served as Head of Customer Experience, focusing on market communication, digital marketing, sales promotion, and corporate branding. His career includes leadership roles in sensor products and piezoelectric speaker area, supported by engineering master degrees from Nagoya Institute of Technology.

Dusan Omercevic is CEO and founder of *codeplain, an AI-powered code generation platform that turns production-ready software from specifications written in ***plain language. Previously, Dusan founded Cleanshelf, a SaaS management platform, which was acquired by SAP LeanIX in 2021. He holds an M.Sc. in Computer Vision from the University of Ljubljana.

I invest in venture capital funds across the EBRD region. I also lead policy and technical assistance initiatives to support the venture capital ecosystem. Previously I was an economist at the EBRD, developing investment strategies and assessing the impact of the EBRD's investments. Before joining the EBRD, I was a management consultant at Deloitte, focusing on commercial due diligence for private equity funds, strategy development and operations excellence in a number of sectors in CEE. I hold a Ph.D. in Economics from CERGE-EI and am a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA). I am a former professional ballroom dancing champion.

Daniel is recognized as an AWS Hero — a distinction held by fewer than 300 people worldwide and the only one in Bulgaria. Several Clouds is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner and AWS Authorized Reseller specializing in turning AI prototypes into well-architected, secure, and cost-efficient production systems on AWS. Several Clouds builds production-grade AI environments, and holds four AWS Competencies (DevOps, Machine Learning, AI Services, Cloud Operations) and is a FinOps Certified Service Provider.

With over 30 years of commercial experience, Zarko is a seasoned business development and international partnerships professional specializing in startup ecosystems, global events, and strategic growth initiatives. For the past 10 years, Zarko has been part of Dubai World Trade Centre, where they played a key role in the growth and international expansion of Expand North Star within the GITEX GLOBAL ecosystem. This included supporting launches and international editions across Dubai, Morocco, Singapore, Berlin, and Serbia, helping position Expand North Star among the world’s leading startup events.

Svetoslav Hristov is Co-Founder of Evolink, established in 2004, and has been part of the company’s growth from its early days into a provider of connectivity, cloud, video streaming, and cybersecurity services for demanding business and public-sector clients. His professional experience in IT and Internet technologies began in 1998 at one of Bulgaria’s early Internet service providers, Naturella Agency. With a background spanning both economics and information technology, he has long focused on the practical business value of technology and its real-world application. At Evolink, Svetoslav has been one of the key drivers behind the company’s expansion into cloud services, video streaming platforms, and information security, with a strong focus on building reliable digital services and resilient infrastructure.

Миглен Евлогиев е експерт по киберсигурност с над 15 години опит в изграждането и ръководенето на сигурностни програми в облачни, финтех и регулирани корпоративни среди. Към момента е CISO в Evrotrust, където ръководи екипа по информационна сигурност, съответствие и платформа, гарантирайки съответствие с eIDAS и глобалните стандарти за услугите за дигитална идентичност и доверие. Миглен е президент на Българската асоциация по киберсигурност, където работи за укрепване на националната киберустойчивост и насърчаване на сътрудничеството между публичния и частния сектор. Той е също OWASP Sofia Chapter Leader и носител е на отличия от Forbes Bulgaria (Иновативен лидер, 2025) и Career Show Bulgaria (Топ 100 ръководители и Топ 100 най-влиятелни личности в ИТ). Активен лектор на конференции и университети в Европа по теми като AppSec, облачна сигурност, identity и въздействието на AI върху киберсигурността.

Svetoslava Kurteva is a Strategic Partner for Learning and Development at Postbank, where she works on topics related to people development, learning through play, employee experience personalization, and organizational transformation. She is a graduate of the Technical University of Sofia, and her professional qualifications include a certification program with CIPD, as well as a Solution-Focused Coach certification from Erickson International. (Optional) In her work, she focuses on building a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous learning through strategic initiatives such as an Internal University, a Future Skills Academy, and data-driven learning programs. Her professional focus is on increasing the organization’s ability to learn quickly and effectively, and on turning knowledge into a key competitive advantage, especially in the context of today’s dynamic business environment and the rapid development of AI.

Georgi Tonchev is Co-founder & CBDO of MyCFO - an AI-native CFO-as-a-Service platform reshaping how SMEs across CEE access financial intelligence. With 20+ years of cross-border ventures spanning UK, EMEA, the Americas and APAC, he builds ventures and enables ecosystems - and knows exactly what makes them fail.

Ofir is a Viber veteran, having first joined the company in 2014 as the Vice President of Product before being promoted to Chief Operating Officer in 2019. In his previous roles at Viber, Ofir focussed on product management, user experience and operational excellence across the customer support, HR and marketing departments. As CEO, Ofir Eyal drives Rakuten Viber’s vision and expansion into new markets, guiding the company through global shifts towards record business performance and operational excellence.

Irina Stoyanova is COO at Mobile Wave Solutions, where she leads operations, engineering and growth across a 150-person technology organisation. Her work centres on scaling high-performing engineering teams and shaping practical AI services that solve real business problems.

Daniel is the founding partner at Eleven, where he has been supporting some of the most promising and exciting tech founders in Europe since 2012. With 150+ investments to date, Eleven has become one of the most successful early-stage investors in Europe. Being passionate about building companies, Daniel has been involved in startups since early 2000 as an investor and a founder in diverse domains ranging from software to renewable energy.

Elitsa is Chief of Staff at Mouro Capital, working closely with the GPs to drive strategic initiatives, optimise operations, and support investment activity. Before joining Mouro, she was a Venture Lead at Deloitte Ventures, coordinating firm-wide Executive Committees on innovation initiaties and leading the incubation of new businesses. She also oversaw market analysis, venture sourcing, and partnership activities across fintech, AI, and adjacent sectors. She began her career in strategy consulting, focusing on growth initiatives for FTSE 100 clients.

Samir is the Venture Capital Investments Group Manager at Koç Holding, Türkiye’s largest business conglomerate and the only Turkish company in the Global Fortune 500. He is responsible for venture capital investments including direct investments to startups, LP investments to VC funds and management of the Koç Group’s VC Fund. He is a graduate of Yildiz Technical University and holds master’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Istanbul Technical University as well as an Executive MBA from Koc University.

Stela Zlatkova is the Commercial Director at Lion’s Head, where she leads the leasing and marketing of two landmark office projects in Sofia—Megapark and Polygraphia Office Center—since 2021. Her work focuses on identifying trends in office space utilization and creating innovative, tenant-focused commercial solutions. With over 10 years of experience in retail and real estate development, she has played a key role in shaping the commercial property landscape in Bulgaria. In addition to her role at Lion’s Head, Stela currently serves as Leasing Director at Park Lane Developments, where she is responsible for the concept development and leasing of retail parks. Her previous experience includes senior positions at Garanti Koza and Forton/Cushman & Wakefield, where she specialized in retail project development, tenant expansion strategies, and lease structuring. Stela holds a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Lund University, Sweden, and a Bachelor's in International Relations from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She has also completed specialized courses in leasing (ICSC, Frankfurt), customer-focused financial consultancy, and macroeconomics at Raiffeisenbank Bulgaria.

Teodor Antonio Georgiev is the CEO of The Recursive, the leading media and ecosystem platform covering the technology and innovation landscape in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). He is a recognized connector between CEE and the DACH, UK, and US markets, working at the intersection of media, events, and relationship-driven deal flow. Over the past years, Teodor Antonio has been directly involved in organizing 20+ national and regional delegations from Bulgaria and across CEE, and in curating 40+ side events and private gatherings around Europe’s top technology conferences, including Slush, Bits & Pretzels, Web Summit, and GITEX. Teodor is also a startup mentor at Plug & Play, and a Venture Scout at EWOR. Through The Recursive, he and his team have worked with 300+ startups and scale-ups, as well as investors, corporates, and public institutions, helping them gain access to decision-makers, build credibility, and position themselves internationally.

Aric Dromi Jankov is a futurologist, advisor on policy, society, and technology, and a self-described professional troublemaker. For more than two decades, he has worked at the intersection of innovation and honesty, usually finding far more of the former than the latter. He spent ten years as in-house futurologist for an automotive company (yes, that was the actual title), then moved on to serve as strategy and creative director for another, before going on to advise clients such as Mastercard, the Financial Times, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Siemens, Volkswagen, Telefónica, T-Mobile, Henkel, BCG, McKinsey, the World Bank, the IFC, E.ON, Polpharma Biologics, and the governments of Kazakhstan and Moscow, among others. Somewhere along the way he also led development at an emerging telecom company, back when “mobile-first” still sounded radical and flip phones were considered cutting edge. A few of these clients hired him more than once, which he suspects says more about their patience than his charm. Today his work centers on Visoko Darvo in Bulgaria, where the focus is meaningful change rather than choreographed transformation. He is also the author of several books. His thesis, refined across boardrooms, keynote stages, and far too many strategy decks, issimple: every plan that ever actually changed something fit on a napkin. If yours needs 200 slides, you do not have one. He helps leaders, organizations, and the occasional government have the conversations everyone else is too polite, or too billable, to start.

Rali Perduhova is Founder and CEO of 7RCC Global, an asset management firm focused on bridging traditional finance and digital asset infrastructure. She led the launch of BTCK, a pioneering Bitcoin and carbon credits exchange-traded product, and is the founder of ANDRA, an institutional platform for tokenizing regulated investment products on the Canton Network. With more than 15 years of experience in capital markets, including equity trading and investment management, Rali focuses on building the ownership, compliance, and transfer infrastructure required to bring regulated financial products into the digital era. She is a frequent speaker on tokenization, digital assets, ETFs, and the future of capital markets.

Zvezdelin Stoyanov is Head of Data Science at MFG, where he leads the development of AI and machine learning solutions across lending, credit card, and financial services businesses. His work spans credit risk modeling, fraud detection, debt collection optimization, customer retention, and portfolio monitoring, transforming large-scale data into actionable business decisions. Prior to MFG, Zvezdelin worked as a Data Scientist, developing machine learning and computer vision solutions for telecommunications operations and network optimization. He also serves as a PhD Researcher at the Institute of Robotics of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, focusing on completely autonomous AI-driven navigation for unmanned aerial vehicles. Zvezdelin holds an MSc in Applied Data Science from Utrecht University and a BSc in Economics, Management and Computer Science from Università Bocconi. His interests lie at the intersection of artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, financial technology, and autonomous systems.