Vratsa is a town located in the poorest region of the EU – Northwestern Bulgaria but it is on on its way to becoming a place young people are eager to work and live in. At least this is the dream of two ambitious IT professionals who view the creation of an IT and community center in their hometown as their mission in order to bring about positive change. They are Emilian Kadiiski and Theodor Kostadinov. Both are graduates of the St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia. Emil has a degree in computer science while Theodor currently studies software engineering. They have also started successful careers in renowned software companies. Emil also teaches at the Sofia "John Atanasoff" Vocational High School of Electronics. The two young men recently won the "Change" social initiative of the Reach for Change Foundation, which aims to improve children's lives by helping social entrepreneurs put their ideas into practice. Over the past two years they have been dreaming of reviving Vratsa and providing career opportunities to young people.

"I met Emil quite by accident. Two years ago I had the idea to organize a free course on programming in one of the schools in Vratsa. I went and talked to the teachers and the principal. They told me that another person had recently come to them with the same idea and I contacted him. That is how I met Emo. We decided to join forces and organize free IT courses in the city for anyone willing to learn more."

In these past two years interest has incessantly run high. The students have five courses, one of which is for adults and the rest are for students from 5th to 11th grade. Several dozen have already passed the training and the top students have become lecturers. Currently, the courses are being  held at some of the Vratsa schools, but Emo and Theo plan creating an IT center.

"There are no opportunities for young people in Vratsa at the moment", Theo further said. "Anyone with motivation to develop needs to leave town or even worse, to leave the country. This is because they cannot find a challenging job and at same time maintain a good standard of living. That is what we want to give them.”

The two young entrepreneurs travel from Sofia to their hometown to conduct the courses every weekend. Their ambition, however, is to go back to Vratsa and open a small software company to provide opportunities for local IT professionals. Theo says that a great number of locals support them.

"The municipality also supports us,” he adds. “In October we organized an IT event in Vratsa, which was attended by about 2,000 people. The municipality was one of our chief sponsors. Thanks to it we were able to promote the event. They gave us space in the town’s center, where we had a stand and managed to attract a number of young people.”

English: Alexander Markov