Twelve beautiful young minds of Bulgaria were honoured by President Rumen Radev at a special ceremony, in which the annual John Atanasoff Awards were presented. The event took place two days after the birthday of the prominent inventor of Bulgarian origin John Atanasoff (October 4), creator of the first electronic computer with regenerative memory.

"Youth in informatics" was the motto of the 23rd ceremony and this is no coincidence - this summer the Bulgarian national informatics team achieved its best ranking in the history of Bulgarian participation in the International Olympiad in Informatics. This year, a Bulgarian team also won prestigious places at the second International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence, and the big news from the last week is the Bulgarian performance at the Balkan Olympiad in Informatics.

Andrey Stefanov returned with a gold medal from the 31st Balkan Olympiad in Informatics a few days ago and yesterday he received his certificate from the head of state. Andrey is in the 11th grade at the First Private Mathematical High School in Sofia and is also the winner of a silver medal from the International Olympiad in Informatics-2025, as well as a silver medal from the International Advanced Tournament in Informatics.

"The main thing is solving problems and learning theory, but it is very difficult to achieve success without doing this with desire,” he said minutes after the ceremony at the presidency. “I plan to leave to continue my education abroad, but when I graduate, I want to return to Bulgaria to help science move forward."

The head of the national team in informatics is Iliyan Yordanov. For the team's success achieved in 2025, he also highlights the merit of teacher in informatics and information technologies Yulia Dimitrova of the "Dr. Petar Beron" Mathematics High School. She was also among those awarded by the President of Bulgaria.

Iliyan Yordanov himself is a graduate of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" and currently works at the Institute of Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

"We are a team of young people, as some are still students, while others have just graduated. We are former competitors, but we have remained in the guild of computer scientists and now we help future talents develop,” he says in an interview with Radio Bulgaria. “The preparation that the students have received since the early grades from their teachers is fundamental. We are very proud of the national computer science team. It is important for us that more people know about these successes. These competitions can help a lot for the future development of a person. I decided to realize myself professionally in Bulgaria."

According to Iliyan Yordanov, we owe many of the successes of young computer scientists to school education, as there is still a very well-established network of schools and teachers who are able to teach such science. One of the problems, however, is that the mass school lacks theoretical and serious programming, which is the basis of more in-depth and lasting knowledge in the field of informatics.

Mario Petrov is one those honoured at the "John Atanasoff" ceremony in the field of information technology. He is a student in the 12th grade of the Prof. Asen Zlatarov Vocational High School of Electronics and Chemical Technologies – Pleven.

"I have been interested in information technology and programming since I was a child and my interest arose from the fact that I played a lot of video games,” the young man told journalists. "Later, this turned into writing code, but certainly, if you want to become very good at it, you have to go beyond the school level and you have to put in a lot of effort. I plan to continue my education outside of Bulgaria, but the most important thing is perseverance because technologies change daily and you can easily fall behind and not be competitive with the others. The project that I developed is called MedCare and its goal was to facilitate access to healthcare services in Bulgaria. Through it, every Bulgarian citizen can view their medical information and their medical record."

Bulgaria's achievements in informatics, mathematics and future technologies will not remain in the past. Hope for progress is brought by the young scientists who triumphed yesterday on the red carpet in the Presidential Hall of Arms.

Author: Gergana Mancheva

Publication in English: Al. Markov

Photos: BTA, Facebook/ Bulgarian successes in competitive informatics, Facebook/ First Private Mathematical High School