The Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics and the IT business in Bulgaria

Ivan Soskov

soskov@fmi.uni-sofia.bg

Dimitar Birov

birov@fmi.uni-sofia.bg

Outline

• IT business in Bulgaria• Education in the area of IT • IT Business Partnerships and Collaboraions• The Career Developmen Center• Internships• The IT Leaders Academy• Joint R&D Projects• Meetings with business

IT business in Bulgaria

• Ranking first in Europe and fourth among 38 countries in the world as an outsoursing destination.

• Reasons:– Export oriented IT industry during socialism– Highly qualified IT specialists– Relatively low salaries– Traditionally good education in the areas of Mathematics

and Computer Science.

Current state of the art

• International IT companies with branches in Bulgaria:– IBM, SAP Labs, Siemens, VmWare, Nemetschek,

Johnson Controls

• Several Bulgarian IT companies are presented on the international market:

– Sirma Solutions, Interconsult Bulgaria, Technologic, Datecs,Telerik, Musala Soft, etc.

ICT industry

• Generates about 10% of the GDP of the country– The share of the Communication technologies is 2/3.– 1/3 belongs to the Information technologies– About 60% of the whole production is for export.

• The number of employees is about 20,000.

• The branch of ICT is stable and is not affected by the

economic crisis

Jobs

• Between 1.5 and 2% of all jobs in Bulgaria:– Telecoms 35%– Software companies – 18,5%– Computer services – 10,7%

• The greatest increase of jobs from 6,9% to 18,5% in the last five years is in the software segment.

• According BASCOM in the next three years the demand for software specialists will increase three times.

IT education in Bulgaria

The capacity of all universities is 8615 students.– 1715 in Master’s programs

– 6900 students in Bachelor’s programs

– About 1500 graduates per year.

IT education in the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics

4 IT Bachelor Programs 15 IT Master Programs

Number of courses in the Bachelor Programs – 160~ 2000 students

Number of courses in the Master Programs – 82~500 student

240 ECTS credits4 years – 8 semesters

90 ECTS credits1,5 years – 3 semesters

2900 hours

350 Graduates

 850 hours

150 Graduates

IT education and FMI Leadership and Responsibilities

• Sharing leading position with the Faculty of Computer systems and Management at the Technical university, Sofia.

• 43 % of all employees in Bulgarian IT companies are FMI graduates and postgraduates.– 38 % come from the Faculty of Computer Systems and Management, Technical University, Sofia – 15% from other universities in Bulgaria – 4% from elsewhere.

• The good prospective of the IT business and the leading position of FMI in the IT education in Bulgaria are the milestones of the good relationships between the Faculty and the IT companies.

Partnerships, Contracts & Collaboration

Industry Partnerships and Research

FMI is an associate member of BASSCOM Bulgarian Associations of Software Companies

Partnership with BAITBulgarian Association of Information Technologies Teodor Zahov, Stoyan Boev

CIO (IT Managers) club Miroslav Vichev

Research and Development

IBM research and Development Center

Collaboration with IBM (offices in Bulgaria, Romania, Germany)

Mobiltel (Mtel) Lab

Educational and research programs

Career Development Center

Presents research projects to the students for application in research activities of the faculty

CISCO Lab

Partnership with University Computing Center HP Lab

Managing contacts with the Business

• The Career Centre

• Organization of Internships

• The IT Leaders Academy

• Joint Projects

• Regular Meetings

FMI Center for Students Career Support and Development (Career Center)

• Officially opened on November 28, 2008, with the financial support of Globul (one of the Bulgarian mobile operators)

• Career Center is an administrative unit at the FMI integrated in the educational process

• Promotes guidance, implementation and successful career development of students

• Effective mediation between academia and IT business

• Organizing IT days in the Faculty– Microsoft days in FMI– MTel days in FMI

• Seminars (promoting soft skills)

• Organizing the traditional FMI Career Days (Job Fairs) with the partnership of JobTiger - a leading HR company in Bulgaria.

Other Activities of the CC

Career Days in FMICareer Days in the garden of FMI

Organization of the Internships

• Elective course in the curriculum of the BSc and MSc programs– One semester (~ 240 working / academic hours) in (predominantly software) companies.– 4 ECTS credits

• Regular presentations of the interested companies.

• Monitoring the results.

o -1.o -

•Organization:

Regular presentation of Software Companies seeking interns

Project sponsored by the EU Structural Funds

“Creating a system for practical internships for students from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics and Faculty of Philosophy, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski“

Target

75 students were involved in the project with the partnership of 11 companies as Musala Soft,Interconsult Bulgaria, Smartcom-Bulgaria,Nemetschek, Lirex BG, Technologic, Hemimond, etc.

Results:•Development of a complete procedure for the implementation of internships in companies•Over 60 students were hired by the companies immediately after the intership

The IT Leaders Academy

• Started three years ago with the support of Musala Soft.

• Up to now 29 lectures have been delivered by leading

specialists presenting recent developments of major companies as Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, etc.

• Considerable interest and popularity among students.

• Most popular lecture “Cyber Crime and Cyber Security” by George T. Krest (FBI)

R&D Projects sponsored by:

• The Research Fund of Sofia University, including several interdisciplinary projects with colleagues from the humanities

• Scientific Research Fund of Ministry of Education, independently and in collaboration with the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, BAS, Technical University, Bulgarian Innovation Fund

• The EU Structural Funds - Programs for human resource development - helping PhD students and student’s internships

• International projects - Tempus - Development Cooperation and the establishment of academic networks

• International projects under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union.

• In most of the projects we cooperate closely with the business.

Meetings with the Business

Objectives:

• Feedback about the FMI graduates.

• Specific demands for new bachelor and master ‘s programs.

• Establishing connections and advertizing the Faculty.

• Discussing joint projects.

Last Meeting – December 12, 2011

The meeting was initiated by the Faculty and attended by more than 20 representatives of software companies and HR agencies.

The Business representatives demanded:

• To increase dramatically the number of the graduates of FMI.

• To focus the education on mental and thinking rather than on practical skills.

• To introduce more courses on “soft skills” like Business Communication, Management, etc

Concluding Remarks

• Relationships with the Business ought to be based on mutual interests.

• The demands of the Business are in compliance with its current needs and do not always reflect the interests of the students.

• One has to take into account all demands but make decisions according to the long term goals of the education.

Thank you!