When Siyanna Lilova and Chris Tsanov met at Hive in 2024, neither of them was likely thinking, “This is where something big begins.”
The meetings that matter most rarely announce themselves in advance.
Two years later, Siyanna and Chris are part of the team behind Praven Intelekt, a Bulgarian AI assistant for legal professionals that helps lawyers search case law, conduct legal research, and draft documents. And just days before Hive 2026 came the news that the platform was joining Lexroom, one of Europe’s fast-growing legal-tech companies.
Praven Intelekt already has more than 20,000 registered users and over 900 clients. With the acquisition, Bulgaria becomes Lexroom’s first market in Central and Eastern Europe.
Quite a journey for an idea whose future creators simply happened to be in the same place two years ago.
And that may be exactly what makes Hive so valuable.
Not the promise that every conversation will turn into a new company. Or that the person you meet in the coffee line will become your future business partner. It is the chance to find yourself among people you might otherwise never meet.
On September 17 and 18 Hive, Bulgaria’s largest business event, will once again bring thousands of people together in Sofia. This year, the organizers are looking ten years ahead, to 2036. Not simply to guess what the future will bring, but to talk about the decisions we are making now.
What will work look like ten years from now? Which jobs will disappear, and which ones have yet to be invented? How does a Bulgarian company grow beyond a small domestic market? Will businesses be able to find the people they need, and what skills will those people need? And how can business and civic organizations work together long before the next crisis hits?
The answers will not come only from the stage.
This year, Hive is built around small-group discussions, hands-on workshops, and face-to-face meetings. If you have a specific business challenge, you can sit down with someone who has real experience in that area. If you are thinking about your next career move, there will be employers, career mentors, and workshops. And if you simply want to understand where different sectors are heading, the program digs into everything from food and manufacturing to technology and the labor market.
The future will not be just something people talk about.
In the Made in BG zone, you can already get your hands on part of it.
Never seen an EnduroSat satellite up close? Not sure what drone soccer is? You will find technologies already being developed in Bulgaria that may feel entirely ordinary ten years from now. DevHubOne, for example, will bring gaming consoles with an unusual condition: before the game starts, you have to recycle an empty can.
So far, that is what you can find at Hive. What can you bring?
In the Give Back zone, you will meet organizations working on problems that often make the news only once they have become emergencies. You may discover a cause you want to support. Or you may sit across from a young person for whom your ten years of experience could save a few wrong turns.
That same idea—putting your experience to work for others—is at the heart of Tuk-Tam, the organization behind Hive.
Its founders had studied and worked abroad and wanted to find ways to pass on some of what they had gained. Not necessarily through the grand gesture of “moving back for good,” but through something far more practical: a useful contact, a piece of advice, a job lead, a scholarship, an opportunity.
Today, Tuk-Tam continues to bring together people who want to connect their knowledge and experience with Bulgaria’s future, wherever they happen to live. The America for Bulgaria Foundation has been a longtime partner of Tuk-Tam and supports that mission.
And if the workday catches up with you in the middle of all this, the organizers have thought of that, too. There will be a quiet coworking area at Hive for the email that truly cannot wait or half an hour of focused work between meetings.
Because Hive is not a two-day escape from real life. Quite the opposite: you come with the questions and challenges already on your mind and meet people who may help you find answers.
Back in 2024, Siyanna and Chris had no way of knowing how far one chance meeting at Hive would take them.
That is the good part. You do not have to know in advance which conversation will matter.
But you do have to be there to have it.
