International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

The paper presents the research design of an international project focused on academic entrepreneurship culture and entrepreneurial education. The entrepreneurship is a key feature of the market economy and the democratic development of the countries, leading to better living standard. However, the entrepreneurial culture, knowledge and skills need to be upgraded in countries, who used to apply a planned economy approach. Thus, an examination of the current state of entrepreneurial culture is required and an approach for its development needs to be provided. The academic environment is the best place, where such an examination can be performed, and proposal can be elaborated. The current paper presents an international project, aiming to explore unrevealed strengths of academic entrepreneurship in detail and in various aspects oriented to students, academic staff, and businesspeople. The paper aims to present the scientific context in which the project is positioned and the research design of the project.

The paper presents a conceptual model for overcoming the consequences of the pandemic based on summarized results from research focused on societal challenges in Bulgaria caused by COVID-19. The study aims to submit a unified methodological framework for application by experts in researching, analyzing, and bench-marking the entrepreneurs’ activity and suggestions for applicable and reasonable measures in the field of business development during the pandemic situation caused by COVID-19. The findings of this research can assist managers in national institutions and business organizations to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of different measures which influence creativity and innovation and focus on proactive suggestions to overcome the negative consequences of the pandemic.

Digital platforms for education are one of the newest and most effective online tools for collaboration and knowledge accumulation. The construction industry could benefit from such a platform to prepare a new generation of building entrepreneurs. The webbased platform has many advantages like creating new ecosystems of data, information, knowledge, people, processes and things. Therefore, the article entitled Digital Platform for Building Entrepreneurial Skills and Competitiveness in The Construction Sector presents a modern way of obtaining business skills. It models an affordable, user-friendly digital system for learning and teaching the best practices in the construction industry.

Every business organization faces a crisis at a certain point in its development. Crisis phenomena for overcoming preventive measures can lead to serious economic and social problems for the organization or its bankruptcy. The crisis is a widely held view and its indications affect different aspects of the financial, social, spirit life of the nation. It’s important to accent not only to the consequences of its manifestation but also to the opportunities for overcoming. This study focuses to analyze the factors for creating conditions for business entrepreneurship in order to draw attention to the opportunities for achieving lasting success for the Bulgarian society. This report aims to systematize key factors for the emergence of crises and their impact on innovation and entrepreneurial mindset. A questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 215 entreprises which were selected through stratified random sampling method. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study revealed that innovativeness, creativity, business alertness and risk taking were significant for successful implementation of innovations and affecting performance of Bulgarian enterprises. The results show that crises are somewhat the driving force behind the creation of innovation and are a prerequisite for the emergence of modern forms of entrepreneurship so necessary to stabilize the economic system.

This article represents a review of good practices in crowdfunding. The subject is the opportunities which create conditions for using the crowdfunding process by entrepreneurs and perspectives for implementation of this good practice in Bulgaria. The concept of crowdfunding in Bulgaria is mentioned a lot but barely in the last few years can be observed the standing out of pronounces examples and good practices. The appearance of financial instruments for starting technological companies promises to become an accelerator for the entrepreneur ecosystem in Bulgaria. This paper examines how different platforms in crowdfunding campaigns influence the entrepreneur’s choice of targeted crowdfunding goal.

The process of creating innovative entrepreneurship is conditioned largely by endogenous factors of organizations and their ability to implement innovative solutions into business practice. This paper presents innovative interactive ICT-solutions offered by technology companies belonging to the SMEs sector. Considerations have been focused on the innovative devices (holographic pyramids, multimedia tables, and fog screens) and services dedicated to the needs of individual customers in the B2B area.

Introduction of training in entrepreneurship, innovation and project management is one of the most discussed topics in the field of education as a whole. Particular attention is paid to this education in the field of higher education and is one of the priority objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy.

According to the European Commission study, carried out in the Member States of the EU and 15 other countries in the period 2015-2015 students received training in entrepreneurship and innovation be implemented most successfully. They are the best paid in the labor market, employment is almost maximum, the more likely they are to start their own business and their companies are the most innovative and creative.

This article presents the experience in entrepreneurship education, innovation and project management of the students from the UMG "St. Ivan Rilski”, Sofia.

An essential point in this education is the acquisition of knowledge and skills that link higher education with the requirements of the business and the labor market.

All European countries including Bulgaria need to promote the entrepreneur spirit through young people, to encourage the creation of new business and to stabilize the institutional and culture environment for innovations. The encouragement and advancement of present and future entrepreneurs (mostly young people) is a basic mechanism to revive the Bulgarian economy and ground the post crisis development. Using a survey is made an investigation through young people with bachelor degree in economics and their readiness for entrepreneurship. Findings from this study indicate that there are many challenges and problems that are an obstacle to start business in Bulgaria but many young people have motivation for entrepreneurship.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the role of the engineer in the evolution of the market economy. This identification made it possible to present the engineer’s new roles in the creativity-based economy emerging in the first decade of the 21st century. These roles require changes in the widely understood engineering education process. We believe that one of the fundamental tools in this education should be a creative workshop, being the space for shaping innovative, enterprising and social competences, attitudes and behavior. The evolution of the engineer’s role is the natural consequence of changes taking place in the economy. More and more significance in various domains of the economy is played by information techniques, the transfer of technology, integrated management systems, the need to increase quality and productivity as well as the workplace culture. This evolution forces the need for a comprehensive education for engineers who will have a substantial impact on the level of innovativeness and competitiveness of the Polish economy.