National Cluster for Intelligent Transport and Energy Systems for the second year will participate in the Smart Cities exhibition.
NCITES covers mainly companies in telecommunications, information technology, transport and energy technical infrastructure. NCITES cooperates closely with research, training and engineering organizations, as well as with organizations representing business; it develops and implement innovative solutions that domineer in European infrastructure.
Interview with Mr. Popov, Chairman of the Management Board of ICT.
Mr. Popov, how did the idea of clustering arise ?
"National Cluster for Intelligent Transport and Energy Systems" or in brief NCITES is a non-profit organization working for private benefit. At present, the members of the cluster are 12 Bulgarian companies and 3 persons.
We, the cluster makers, have been looking for a platform to unite our efforts to achieve greater efficiency in the financial and human resources of each company.
The theme that united us was the construction of intelligent systems in the fields of transport, energy and administrative management.
The members of the cluster, with the financial and human capabilities they already have, are able to design, build and implement mega systems for the needs of large enterprises and government e-government.
The consortia we can build in the cluster provide more convenient conditions for our members to participate in bidding procedures for private and public bodies.
A reference model in this direction is our participation in an international consortium building the model of an early forest fire prevention system funded by the European Commission and the consortium.
It is more effective to use the financial means of advertising and marketing without which it is impossible to promote the activity of our members.
It also created the possibility of building common platforms for the provision of online services to legal and natural persons.
Our organization has already been recognized by the Ministry of Economy, the SME Agency in the cluster development class, which is a formal assessment of the established organization.
There are many things that need to happen, but all of us who are members of the cluster know that we are on the right track.
You have 4 initiative boards- Intelligent Transport Systems, Intelligent Energy Systems, System Engineering and Project Management. What are the goals of each of them?
Initiative boards are an element of the platform we built when creating the organization.
The idea behind their creation is: The professionals working in the companies that are members of our cluster, to sit down on a table and to think about how to work together.
Today we know the strengths of each participant in our cluster. This provides the opportunity to build highly efficient consortia in solving specific tasks.
Briefly describe the project you are currently working on?
In May 2017 we joined an international consortium with a contract with the European Commission to build an early warning system for forest fires as a platform that is not geographically limited and working in real time. The project is codenamed ASPires.
The system integrates all modern technical means available on the European market that can be used for direct or indirect fire detection.
Our cluster participates in this project with the problems of detecting forest fires based on specialized cameras.
The project is run by the University of Applied Sciences in Fulda, Germany. Participants in the project are the Military Academy of Macedonia, the Bulgarian companies ICB and Comicon.
The project ends in April 2019.
There is a project webpage: https://www.aspires.eu, where detailed project information and current status are published.
The last presentation of the project was organized by "Career 2018", organized by the Technical University of Sofia. The technologies presented provoked the interest of university professors and their students became clear what they needed to know in order to succeed in the future.
What visitors do you want to meet at your booth in 2019?
We are expecting different visitors at the Smart Cities:
+ Bulgarian and European companies ready to enter in the cluster and to be able to share new advanced technologies in the areas where the cluster is working. + Interested companies, state and municipal structures that have problems and are looking for new innovative technologies to solve them.
Companies that are members of our cluster
Members of our cluster are represented on our WEB portal: https://www.cluster-ites.org. There is a brief annotation of their activity and links to their main sites.
Without following a specific order, I could say one sentence for each of the cluster companies:
- CANTEK is a longtime Canon partner company. The company implements hightech solutions in printing systems, scanning systems and specialized document processing systems.
- TEKO is a company that is one of Siemens' main partners and deals with communications infrastructure, telephone exchanges, specialized cameras, sensors and related management systems.
- PIM Prima SA is a holding company, comprising a number of IT companies and partners of world-famous manufacturers of hardware and software management systems.
- CSDC. The company is a partner of SAP and consultants who have implemented SAP solutions across Europe.
- INTEPRO Solutions. The company integrates and implements high-tech solutions in the areas of WEB Portals, IT Infrastructure, Trainings from certified instructors, designing, building and supporting systems
- DEMAX is a company specializing in the production and printing of copy-protected documents and, of course, specialized security systems.
- Technical University- Sofia, is a leading company in the field of development and implementation of advanced technologies in a wide range of industries.
- Smart Brokers is a company that develops and invests in intelligent construction technologies and smart buildings.
- MUSAT. The company has years of experience in building and maintaining intelligent transport management systems.
- SCORTEL works in the field of intelligent systems in the field of shipbuilding and road transport.
- ROCON is engaged in the design and construction of intelligent systems in the energy sector.
- SOFTWARE GROUP BG is known for its hi-tech solutions in financial and banking management. The company is one of the leading software companies in Bulgaria.
