On the last day of the Seventh annual Central Eastern Europe-China Summit, better known as “16 + 1” Summit, which took place in Sofia on 6 and 7 July, the Cluster Sofia Knowledge City was visited by Mr. Stanley Wei, Chairman & Managing Director, and Ian Jiang - Director International Cooperation from the Shanghai-based company Oneness International Group Limited.

The company represents the interests of high-level investors and fund managers from Hong Kong and the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

Prof. Rumen Nikolov - Vice-Chair of the Managing Board and Dimitar Hristov - CEO of the Cluster Sofia Knowledge City participated in the Digital Assembly 2018 that took place on 25 and 26 June in Sofia, Bulgaria. The event was co-organized by the European Commission and the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The Digital Assembly is a major annual forum and gathered more than 1,500 stakeholders and high-level policymakers to debate the EU digital policy and the implications of recent technological developments. At the conference, Mariya Gabriel has - the Commissioner on Digital Economy and Society called for the full implementation of the Digital Single Market strategy by 2018.

The Cluster Sofia Knowledge City took an active part in the EIP-SCC General Assembly. Our representatives were Dimitar Hristov - Cluster Manager and Prof. Rumen Nikolov - Chairman of the Board. The European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC) is one of the European Commission's initiatives to unite cities, industry, and citizens to improve urban living through more sustainable smart, and integrated solutions. Its marketplace supports smart city projects in at least 300 cities with investments of up to € 1 billion, including public and private investors and banks. The purpose of the assembly this year in Sofia was to show investors' commitment to smart cities and to help cities themselves develop strategies for attracting investment. The event provided a unique opportunity to exchange good practice, project presentation, partner search, and discuss innovative ideas.

DAVID Holding, one of the companies initiators and members of the Cluster Sofia Knowledge City, has developed a tool (management support system) for the lighting of the city of Sofia.

This is a small but integral step towards the wider application of smart city technologies and digitization of the city. The system was developed between 2014 and 2015 based on Bentley Systems GIS software.

It aims at facilitating the management decisions in the municipality by presenting the actual state of the lighting in Sofia as one of the important elements of the urban environment.

The information is visualized on the Map of urban lighting.