In July 2012, Bulgarian software company Sirma Solutions, which is part of Sirma Group Holding, is going to be the general sponsor of the final stage of a development contest organized by PC Magazine Bulgaria. The event, which kicked off in November 2011, is to end on July 13, 2012, in the press center of the Bulgarian News Agency, where the winners are going to be announced. Sirma Solutions, which made up the final task for the participants, will give the winners a cash prize.

“We want to challenge the young programmers in this competition to look for unusual and new approaches. We ourselves have tried during the years to approach different problems in innovative ways and as a result Sirma has been proving itself for 20 years now as a company which creates products in some of the newest segments in the software sector. Our aim is to show Bulgarian students that they can progress in Bulgarian as the opposite of dreaming of the Silicon Valley. The firms in Sirma’s group offer a combination of interesting work, development in innovative technology spheres, good remuneration packages and a chance for every employee to progress even to the level of a partner in some of the companies in the group. It is indicative that some of the first employees in Sirma’s firms are today partners in these entities,” said Tsvetan Alexiev, CEO at Sirma Group Holding. He added that programming initiatives like this contest of PC Magazine Bulgaria are extremely important for the development of the Bulgarian IT sector and the industry must support them.

PC Magazine Bulgaria’s programming competition dates back to 1994, and in the past years it has proven to be one of the leading development contests in the country. It includes two stages. The first one, which does not require the participants to be present at a particular place, has six levels, and the other one does require the 12 finalists to attend a test. The tasks include popular programming languages, such as C++, Java, Pascal, etc.

“Sirma has always been and will be what its employees are. For us the most valuable capital are people and because of this we strive for attracting and retaining the most talented ones. We in Sirma always try to invest in our employees and to build up their strong qualities, thus we turn the company into a preferable place to work. Examples of this are the different trainings, the certification programs, and the mentoring that we offer. Here in Sirma every young person on the threshold of their carrier can get the knowledge and support they need in order to realize their potential and to develop and create new world-level products,” noted Yavor Djonev, co-founder of Sirma and CEO of Sirma ITT.