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Dimitar Ganev is has been Chairman of the BOD of the Bulgarian Web Association (BWA) since the end of 2007. He graduated Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Faculty of Law, Major Law. He is the founder and Manager of E-CARD, Company established in the year 2000 for development of mobile and web based services. Ganev is the leader of the project for Universal prepaid billing card E-CARD - released in 2000 year on the Bulgarian market and in this first year of its creation winner of the Bite Expo Award. He develops interactive web sites, games and SMS applications for the most successful TV shows in Bulgaria - Big Brother, Vip Brother, Star Academy, Music Idol, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire (Stani Bogat), Sdelka ili Ne. He is also the author and manager of the National IQ test (Test the Nation) – web site and real-time internet test. Another extremely successful project of his is the Football League - Online football manager game. At the beginning of last month, June 2008, Mediamix 2008 – Media Festival was held in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Albena and part of this festival was the 2008 Albena International Web Festival. The BWA was a co-organizer of this event. We spoke with Mr Dimitar Ganev about common impressions from the Festival, about the new projects before the members of the BWA, about the positions of the Bulgarian WEB branch within the common European frame.

Mr Ganev, what is your personal opinion as for the participation of the BWA at the 2008 Mediamix Festival?

Dimitar Ganev:

My opinion is rather high and positive because of the fact we managed for the first time to make as possibly as we could a most transparent competition. What do I mean by transparent? It was for the first time in Bulgaria, in a Website Competition, that we had a Jury voting publically under a different set of criteria and the assessment under each criterion was publically known, so each participant knew who and how had assessed them.

At the 2008 Albena Web Festival there were also website presentations where each participant had the chance to defend their project. Everybody knows that in a competition with about 300 websites the Jury cannot find the time to go into the details and essence of each project. The thing with the presentations was a greatly successful experiment because I personally noticed the change in the attitude of the Jury towards certain websites, on the basis of their defense. At least two of the categories were won by the companies that best defended their projects. Sometimes the assessments of the Jury were the same as those of the audience. And another important thing – all presentations were uploaded on the 2008 Albena Web Festival website, so everyone could see them. We promise the quality of sound will be better next year.

I would also like to say a few words about the comments regarding the SMS voting and the price of the SMS of 1 BGN. Until this moment we are not aware of a system which cannot be manipulated in case of free voting on the Internet. If someone offered us a voting system that would allow us guarantee that each person would vote only once within the given period I personally promise we will implement this system for the next competition. Everyone who can ensure a secure system, which cannot be manipulated, allowing real voting is free to give us a call.

For me transparency, presentations and SMS voting are a huge progress in the organization of competitions as a whole. We have the common standpoint of the BOD of the BWA that from now on we will require that the competitions we support have clear rules and obligations, including transparency of assessment.

Who elected the members of the Jury for the WEB Competition in Albena?

Dimitar Ganev:

The Jury was elected by the BOD of the BWA and this time we decided this was done on a quota principle. The quotas were: professional in the filed of design, professional in user, professional in business with an understanding of websites and their application, representative of the media reflecting the WEB branch and representative of the internet advertising filed. The members of the Jury didn’t have the right to vote in case any of them was in connection to any of the websites presented.

Is the International Web Festival the face of the Bulgarian Web Branch?

Dimitar Ganev:

My answer would be ambiguous. I don’t think the Albena Festival should be the face of the Web Branch but having in mind that during the past year or so there wasn’t such competition I think the best projects created during this time actually participated at the event.

The course we have taken and we have discussed at the BOD of the BWA is that we are not going to confine ourselves in one, even two or three competitions. Our policy is that we are open to everyone who would like to organize such events.

Does that include a BG website?

Dimitar Ganev:

Yes, that is including a BG website! There have been talks between representatives of the BWA and representatives of the organizers of BG website – they are our members, too and we stand very well with them. There are a few requirements, though, which I believe they won’t have a problem to meet. The main lines in our requirements will be…transparency and again transparency!

Why didn’t the BWA participate at the Albena Festival last year?

Dimitar Ganev:

Well, It is hard for me to answer this one because I wasn’t a member of the BOD of the BWA last year.

Still, what do you think?

Dimitar Ganev:

Why the BWA wasn’t at Albena 2007? Most probably there wasn’t consent with regards to the requirements of the Web Association to the organizers of the competition. My opinion as a regular member of the BWA, before I was elected its Chairman, was that for example the participation of web companies was underestimated. There was a little bit more different attitude towards the organizers. What is important now is that we do not let this happen again.

I think our participation at the Festival attaches a higher importance to the competition from point of view of the fact we had very little time to organize it and still the potential of the participating websites was much larger.

What about the coming 2009 Albena Web Festival?

Dimitar Ganev:

To organize a festival with international participation, it should first gain serious authority and acknowledgment. We do not need to invite all kinds of websites, we need high-level websites only, we need to see how the land lies and compare our achievements with good websites and not just any websites because they are international.

I don’t think the level of our branch is lower than the common European one! I even think it is a little bit higher, having in mind that it is here in Bulgaria can afford to create better websites for our clients because of one simple reason – a website in BG costs something about 10 and 15 thousand Euros, while a website in another Western European country would cost like three or four times more. I think this year at the 2008 Albena Web we saw some great websites. There were a lot of very good project which can freely be part of international competitions and festivals.

The congress programme of 2008 Albena Web Festival?

Dimitar Ganev:

We had very few representatives at the Congress programme. This was because of the “time” factor. We had very little time to prepare for the competition. This is going to change for sure. Our next step would be to ask everyone from the BWA so as to what exactly they are interested in about the congress programme because we are not preparing this programme for ourselves, the members of the BOD, but for the members of the BWA. And it is these members who should choose the topics for discussion, the questions and the lecturers.

What is lying ahead of you - any new projects, new ways of communication with the members, EU, European funds for the Web branch…?

Dimitar Ganev:

Part of the new things we are preparing for our members have already begun to be implemented. One of the directions we will take is that we, being part of an association including a lot of companies, will start negotiations with software and hardware distributors – things we need. We are going to lead the negotiations, since we, the members of the BWA can afford to buy large quantities of the respective product, which puts us in a position to negotiate with producers and/or distributors for more serious discounts. The other direction we will be working in includes our contacts with other institutions – similar professional organizations like BASCOM, BAIT, DAITS (State Agency for Information Technology and Information)… We will also work with representatives of the Council of Ministers…We have allocated our responsibilities and tasks, as members of the BOD and you can see these on our website.

Do you recognize any weaknesses in your activities?

Dimitar Ganev:

Well, there is a certain weakness stemming from the fact we have not yet worked a lot with respect to European Programmes but we will get over it since we now have a person responsible for these matters. I believe we will be successful in this…

What is your opinion as for the activities of the BOD of the Bulgarian Web Association?

Dimitar Ganev:

The most important thing for us is to check what our members think about our initiatives. That’s because it is important what they want us to do and not the other way round. Some say we act a bit slowly. This time, our goal is to know what they think before we rush into a project.

What would you like to happen from now on?

Dimitar Ganev:

Well, we would like to have more and more new members so that we could expand our organization and make it more influential. We would also like to implement what most of the members of the BOD of the BWA wish for – a professional management for our association by people who have been hired to do that. That is because each one of us has been in the BOD voluntarily and is not able to be a 100% bound up in the matters of the organization. At this stage, unfortunately, the association cannot possibly afford a completely professional management. I believe that if we managed to achieve that, it would be a job well done.