The online platform - Sofia Smart City Marketplace is already opend for testing and using. It is a component of the Project BG16RFOP002-2.009-0018-C01 - Creating Organizational Capacity and Development Strategy for Cluster Sofia Knowledge City.

The platform is an environment for publishing, storing and facilitating access to verified data for product and technology solutions and innovations that can be used in the process of transforming the city into a smart city. It will provide open access to all parties interested in the creation of this market to information on the latest technology solutions, products and services, and will support their dissemination and deployment. The mission of Sofia Smart City Marketplace is to simplify the process of finding, validating and introducing new city-level technologies so that local authorities and related organizations and institutions can find the most appropriate intelligent solutions to improve the lives of local communities.

By 2020, it is believed that the number of connected devices (usually called the Internet of Things) will exceed 50 billion. In the urban environment, these new technologies transform urban life and help create more sustainable development. New technologies that can be successfully used in the public sector are constantly emerging. The speed of emergence is fast enough and creates a serious challenge to how the latest achievements can quickly get to the city’s officers who care for the creation of smart cities.

The platform's operating principle will be as follows: the input data from technologies’ vendors will be verified, filtered and registered in a database and access to them will be open and will allow problem-oriented search by stakeholders. Announced through the support of the Operational Programme Innovation and Competitiveness and in cooperation with Sofia Municipality, the platform could become an intelligent tool that could, if not replace, to improve public procurements, thus allowing faster and more efficient deployment of new technologies to improve urban processes. The platform itself can also become a tool for new business models in the process of creating a smart city.

In the future, new functionalities could be added to the platform, as well as expanding its geographic application by attracting other cities in the country and abroad.