Bulgaria could become a promising and competitive place for professional development of Bulgarian students studying in universities across the world. This is the ambitious goal of the project "internship@bg," initiated by local business through the UN Global Compact Network Bulgaria. This is an informal association of more than 120 companies and organizations, sticking to the principles of corporate and social responsibility. Each year some 5,000 young Bulgarians go abroad to accumulate knowledge in some of the most prestigious universities. Only 60 percent of them return home to start a career. Local companies realize that these are young people with high added value, thanks to their elite training, but there are no policies aimed to attract them. How will this change? The start of the project "internship@bg" will be a contest for innovations that will involve students studying in foreign universities. For this purpose, each company must present a real problem case, and young people try to offer a solution. The prize for the best will be a summer internship and the opportunity to participate in the implementation of innovative practices. How many and what are the companies involved?

"We have invited all companies and it is up to them to decide if they are going to participate", Marina Stefanova, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Network Bulgaria told Radio Bulgaria. " First we invited the members of the Bulgarian network, because we have contacts with them and know that they keep to the principles of the Global Compact; they are ethical and transparent employers with established brands. Secondly, these are companies that have been part of other projects and they are active in the banking sector, insurance, manufacturing, and others.”

 
"We are to attract them by offering them to work on the most interesting problems of the company that require true technological innovations. Gas supply is a relatively new business in Bulgaria and there is room for innovations. We have a lot of experience in transferring technology from foreign countries that have been exploiting gasification networks for 30-40 years. It is in this niche of developing innovative technologies where students will be working. We believe that they will be able to transfer foreign technologies and work on their implementation here." 
 
The project envisages the organization of a seminar to make students studying abroad acquainted with the activities of some of the major Bulgarian institutions such as the Ministry of Economy, the National Revenue Agency, the National Insurance Institute and others. The specific tasks which students will be working on will be announced in December. But how would they find out about the project?

"Under the Global Education project we have over 200 partner universities and they already have information about the project,” says Irina Hristova, coordinator of the Global Education project. “Universities show great interest, since their rating abroad is determined by the number of their students, who started work immediately after graduation. So we have full support from foreign universities to provide information to all Bulgarian students."

English: Alexander Markov