Sofia participates in the Digital Cities Challenge

As a national leader in the ICT sector, Sofia has ambitions to become a leading European city in terms of ICT business and creative and recreational industries.

The fact is that ICT is the fastest growing industry in the city with a growth of 21.8% in 2016 compared to 2012. The city council has declared that it will formulate a well-coordinated smart city concept and contribute to including all stakeholders in the city transformation process. With this commitment, the city of Sofia joined in early 2018 in the European Commission's programme Digital Cities Challenge, which started at the end of 2017 and will continue until June 2019.

Under this program, the city now has received an easy access to:

• high level experts with local and international expertise to help developing city strategic plan;
• tools to understand what stage of development and maturity the city is and how it should evolve in the future;
• training and capacity building for key staff and city representatives;
• dialogue with other European cities to exchange ideas, experiences and good practices;
• European networks and platforms.

The Digital Ambition Poster of Sofia can be downloaded here.

The Cluster Sofia Knowledge City whats to achieve the same goal. It is currently developing its vision for the city's transformation strategy into a smart city. There is definitely something to be agreed between all stakeholders and the benefit will ultimately be for the citizens of Sofia.