Students from the Vocational High School of Computer Programming and Innovation in Burgas were among 137 participants at a seminar called "The Patent and You: Invent Tomorrow's World" on Tuesday, 27 October, the Patent Office said. The programme also included the office's second hackathon.

A team from the Paisii Hilendarski Mathematics High School in Sofia won the top prize.

The seminar took place at the Central Patent Library. The Patent Office of Bulgaria organised it, with the European Patent Office as partner. Seven schools with a focus on science, technology, engineering and maths were invited. Besides the Burgas school and the Sofia Mathematics High School, the others were the Acad. Kiril Popov Mathematics High School from Plovdiv, the Nikola Yonkov Vaptsarov Technical Vocational High School from Radomir, the Electronic Systems Technology School at the Technical University of Sofia, the Acad. Ivan Gyuzelev Natural Science and Mathematics High School from Gabrovo, and the First English Language High School in Sofia.

Patent Office chair Eng. Olya Dimitrova opened the event. She urged the students to develop their ideas boldly and to use the ways available to protect them and put them into practice.

The talks and discussions covered patents, utility models and industrial designs. Experts from the office explained how a new idea becomes protected industrial property, and what role intellectual property plays in technology and business.

Emilia Stoyanova, head of legal affairs and compliance at the Bulgarian company EnduroSat, presented the firm and spoke about intellectual property in space technology and in competitive business. Boryana Peycheva of the IT Association Stara Zagora presented the project "Summer STEM Holiday – When an Idea Becomes a Factor in Out-of-School Education", which is funded by a grant from the European Patent Office. Peycheva also spoke about what the European Inventor Network offers for education projects.

The practical part began with a quiz on patents. Next came the hackathon "Innovations for Sustainable Development", where teams looked for solutions to global challenges under the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Acting as young inventors, the students presented their ideas with sketches and visuals.

Each team had to propose an innovative solution, choose a suitable form of legal protection, and show how the idea could be used in practice and sold on the market. The Patent Office said this part drew the most interest from the students.

The Vocational High School of Computer Programming and Innovation in Burgas has won a new project for its Centre of Excellence in Computer Science, we reported in October. It includes training for 255 students and 96 teachers, and the centre's facilities will also be open to students from other vocational high schools in Burgas.

The top four teams received plaques, certificates and prizes. The winners from the Sofia Mathematics High School will visit the office of Robotoplus, where they will see modern robotic solutions and how they are used.