Инициативата RE:TURN продължава на източния бряг в САЩ

RE:TURN Log on to Bulgaria – we continue the initiative on the US East Coast

After a great turnout on the US West Coast in March 2019, BVCA and partners continued its tour in Washington DC, New York and Boston in November, to meet the Bulgarian diaspora and foreign professionals interested in Bulgaria and the region of Southeast Europe.

BVCA team, members and partners met 450+ professionals with clear interests in entrepreneurship, investment and philanthropy. While previous events in Europe and West Coast surprised its audiences with statistics and information about the Bulgarian ecosystem, the East Coast crowd seemed more in tune with the country’s recent developments overall, and stepped ahead with the next question – how to engage.

It was extremely constructive to observe so many attendees wishing to engage with the positive developments in the country, which was expressed in the Q&A sessions in all three locations, as well as during the networking sessions with our speakers and organisers. The participants engaged in direct business conversations with our speakers, including a partnership between Trimona Foods’ CEO, Pavel Kolarov and ProViotic’s CEO and Founder, Kiril Petkov, which was announced during the panel discussion in New York City.

The Boston audience was impressed not only by the content of the event, but also – the crowd itself. During the programme, they expressed the lack of such organised business community and showcased a desire to continue meeting in such setting. Not only that, they advanced the issue by volunteering to create such a platform via RE:TURN to continue the conversation and such meetings with the present community.

“We have had great a response to the RE:TURN events in all three areas for impact: Invest; Give; Work. We ourselves have been surprised by the level of engagement of the Bulgarian diaspora and their eagerness to learn about all the great things that are happening in the country. Many of them left Bulgaria years ago and are unaware of the many success stories… Most of the people we met are keen to reconnect and the question is not IF and WHY…, but HOW?”, comments Evgeny Angelov, Chairman of BVCA.”

See some of the questions from the audience gathered by our media partner TrendingTopics, here.

Among the speakers of RE:TURN East Coast were: Rosen Plevneliev, President of Bulgaria (2012-2017); Nancy Schiller, CEO and President of America for Bulgaria Foundation; Evgeny Angelov, Chairman of Bulgarian Venture Capital Association; Elvin Guri, CEO of Empower Capital; Kiril Petkov, CEO of ProViotic; Veneta Andonova, Author of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Unexpected Places; Andreas Beikos, Head of Sofa Office at European Investment Bank Group; Georgi Mitov, Partner at BrightCap Ventures; Stephane Gantchev, Partner at LAUNCHub Ventures; Hristo Boyadzhiev, Founder of Tuk-Tam; Lora Tchekoratova, Artistic Director at Salon de Virtuosi; Pavel Kolarov, CEO of Trimona Foods; Vess Bakalov, Pliant.io; Momchil Barros-Mitov, Director Data Services at Dynamo Software.

RE:TURN is organised by BVCA – Bulgarian Venture Capital Association, in partnership with America for Bulgaria Foundation and with the support of Solutions for the Future Foundation and European Investment Bank. See all our partners here: https://return.bg/about/