The depopulation of Bulgarian villages in the 1990s is only equaled by the exodus of people from Bulgarian cities and towns today. The northwestern city of Vratsa has been particularly hard hit by the demographic crisis. But the grim statistics are not what interests us at the America for Bulgaria Foundation; rather, we want to know if we can help bring about a reversal. Whom do we join forces with to achieve that? What like-minded individuals and initiatives are worth supporting? When we came across Emiliyan Kadiyski and Teodor Kostadinov’s Vratsa Software Community, we knew we had to look no further.
Four years ago, Vratsa natives Emiliyan and Teodor, both of whom have successful IT careers in Sofia, decided to do something for their hometown—to help young people stay and earn a living in Vratsa. That’s how Vratsa Software Community was born.
They started out by offering a free nine-month IT training program, open to unemployed individuals, working professionals, and students. For its efforts, the initiative became one of six European organizations to receive a grant from Google in 2016, and, in October 2017, the America for Bulgaria Foundation donated funds for its development in the following three years.
Today, Vratsa Software Community offers several programming courses and organizes an array of IT events in the city. Among them is the biggest programming event in Northwestern Bulgaria—CodeWeek Vratsa, a part of EU Code Week. There are no age restrictions for CodeWeek participants: from elementary school students to older individuals, citizens of Vratsa and the region are introduced to programming topics and the wealth of opportunities offered by the IT sector. This year’s CodeWeek attracted more than 220 participants from across the region, who enriched their knowledge of robotics, neural networks, digital marketing, and programming and even tried to combine technology with magic.
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