John Atanasoff award has been granted by Bulgaria's President to young Bulgarian inventors since 2003. The award is bestowed to people with personal achievements in the information and the IT field. It was named after John Atanasoff, a US physicist, mathematician and electrical engineer of Bulgarian origin who invented the first computer.

Unlike in other years, when the award was bestowed to software experts, this year the first prize went to Bulgarian hardware expert Tseno Galchev who has a Ph.D. in Micro Electromechanical Systems from Michigan University in the USA.

Tseno was only six years old when his parents migrated to the USA and settled in the city of Michigan. When he graduated from Michigan University Tseno Galchev specialized for four years at the University of Freiburg, Germany, thanks to two scholarships.

We asked Doctor Galchev how long is the road to this prestigious award.

“Yes, you have to walk a long road, in order to receive such recognition, but what is more important, you have to walk step by step and show great perseverance. When one has a big dream, he should do anything necessary to fulfill this dream, regardless of all difficulties and obstacles one may face. With regard to the Microsystems, they are merely an addition to the integral schemes and the microchips we see when we open a given electrical device. The Microsystems use the same technologies in the manufacturing process and build in electrical and mechanic elements together with the electronics. In other words, the micro system is a kind of independent computer which is able to receive signals from the real environment, to process them and influence that environment. I believe that most people are not aware of these micro electromechanical systems, but they are all around us and we even do not know about their existence. They are used for instance in all telephones, smartphones, tablets, computers, fitness bracelets, smart watches, automobiles, etc. There are a series of acceleration sensors, gyroscopes, temperature sensors and humidity sensors in those devices and all of them were based on the Microsystems. They are widely used in medicine, in various Internet-related applications, in all wireless devices, or as some representatives of Hewlett-Packard say “They form our planet's central nerve system”, Tseno Galchev pointed out.

Doctor Galchev contends that the IT sector in Bulgaria has a very good potential, if the business invests in its experts and the existing infrastructure, because many aspects of our lives are connected with electronics, communications and Internet, which accumulated a huge quantity of information that has to be processed in the so-called Cloud, or Internet. Doctor Galchev believes that the Bulgarian companies have good potential for economic growth in this sector, because the information technologies are of very high added value and require minimum investments in infrastructure, as compared to the manufacture of hardware. This is the hidden potential of the information technologies which could help Bulgaria register economic growth in the future.

We also asked the young Bulgarian expert whether he would work in Bulgaria. Here is what he told Radio Bulgaria:

“It would be great pleasure for me to work in Bulgaria, but the problem is that we have lost our infrastructure and the position we had in hardware manufacturing and I mainly work with hardware. The existing environment in Bulgaria is not good enough and we can not develop our ideas the way we want. It is interesting to note that the companies which occupy the old industrial buildings in the town of Botevgrad, which once hosted Bulgaria's hardware industry, are companies that deal with sensors. According to the estimates, the number of the sensors produced worldwide will reach 1 trillion by 2020. This trend is expected to grow with 20%-30% on an annual basis in Bulgaria and abroad, because this industry has a huge economic potential”, this year's winner of the prestigious John Atanasoff award Tseno Galchev said in conclusion.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov