site.btaBTA Director General: Bulgaria Can Give Valuable Ideas That Make Europe Even Better Place to Live in

Bulgaria can give valuable ideas and propose interesting projects that make Europe an even better place to live in, said BTA Director General Kiril Valchev during the opening of the Burgas Youth Hackathon in the seaside city on Wednesday.

Valchev asked the young people if they knew what a telegraph was and told them that it was used to transmit news 100 years ago, similar to today's Internet and social networks. He emphasised that this is the meaning of BTA. "We collect news from Bulgaria, including Burgas, as well as from all over the world. What you read most often comes mainly from BTA," he pointed out and added that all the media organisations in the country use the agency's news.

"The purpose of our meeting today is for you to make your own news. To propose a project in the field of green policies that will become news and contribute to the whole of Europe," Valchev said.

He told the students that the cohesion funds of the EU are given to member states in order to reach economic convergence among European regions, so that young people don't have to move to the Netherlands, France or Germany to have a better life than in Burgas. "You are the ones who, in just a few years, after you finish your education, will do various projects that will bring us closer to other countries in Europe," Valchev emphasised.

He said that the idea of BTA's conferences in Bulgarian universities is to show that Bulgaria not only receives money, knowledge and skills from Brussels, but that Bulgaria can also give very valuable ideas and implement very interesting projects, which make Europe a better place to live in. "I count on you to make news today with your projects and we, the jury members, will choose the best news", he concluded.

The event, organized by BTA, is held within the framework of the Europe on Balkans: Cohesion Skills project, which the news agency implements with the support of the European Commission. It is also part of the University Open Day.

During the Burgas Youth Hackathon on how to make Burgas a greener city, young people are tasked with presenting green ideas in the areas of renewable energy, circular economy, carbon footprint reduction, transport and mobility, adaptation to climate change. Their aim will be to define a topic they will work on, identify an existing problem in Burgas and formulate an idea or propose an innovative and inclusive solution to the problem.

The ideas will be evaluated by a jury composed of Kiril Valchev, Prof. Milen Baltov, Captain Alexander Alexandrov, Goodwill Ambassador to the International Maritime Organization Ivelin Bakalov.