NCUE made a breakthrough in the academic exchange with Eastern Europe! Dr. Dimiter Velev, Professor of the Department Information Technologies and Communication at the University of National and World Economy (UNWE), Bulgaria, visited NCUE with his wife in the hope of establishing a cooperative mechanism between two universities. UNWE is an elite university whose graduates have been prominent scientists, state figures, and four Prime Ministers. It is expected that his visit would facilitate the development of the relationships between NCUE and the countries of Eastern Europe.

Located in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, UNWE founded in 1920 is the oldest, the most prestigious and the largest economic university in Southeastern Europe. Nurturing four Prime Ministers, Vice-Prime Ministers, ministers, and the first Bulgarian European Commissioner, UNWE has played a pivotal role in Bulgaria’s politics and economy since its establishment. UNWE has eight colleges offering 40 bachelor's degrees and more than 70 master's degrees, some fields of which are prestigious such as computer and information, economics, management, law, politics and tourism. Currently it has about 22,000 students.

Dr. Velev specializes in cloud computing, big data, information technology for disaster reduction and Internet business applications, etc. He is the representative of the International Federation of Information Processing Societies (IFIP), as well as the vice chairperson of the Cloud Computing Network Committee (DCCC) of IFIP. With his wife Dr. Plamena Zlateva, the Associate Professor of the Institute of Systems Engineering and Robotics in Bulgarian, Dr. Velev stopped by NCUE during his visit to Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction.

At the exchange meeting hosted by NCUE Vice-president Ming-Fei Chen, Dr. Velev highly praised Taiwan for its competitive technology advantage, especially in the development of information technology. According to Dr. Velev, the brand names of major Taiwanese computer and cellphone makers are quite well-known in Bulgaria. Bulgaria, in which several internationally notable companies, such as SAP of Germany, establish research and development centers, has been the leader of information technology among Eastern European countries since the Soviet era. The graduates with information technology background from UNWE are the talents that various companies are eager to recruit. Dr. Velev has high expectations of further exchange with NCUE based on the remarkable development of the College of Engineering at NCUE and NCUE’s solid foundation of industry-university cooperation.

NCUE faculty and Dr. Velev compared notes on possible areas of collaboration at the meeting, such as cloud computing, big data application, virtual reality, and optoelectronics technology. It is expected that both sides work together on faculty and student exchanges, joint international conferences and cooperative research projects, etc., and that the fields engaged in can extend from science and engineering to the others.

After the meeting Chair Yung-Ling Lai of Department of Mechatronics Engineering and Chair Po-Yueh Chen of Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering led the visitors to the College of Engineering located on Bao-Shan campus. They visited Dean Liang-Jui Chen of the College and the laboratories there, receiving the briefings that share the latest project accomplishments.

Dr. Velev stated that his visit establishes a profound base for future communication between NCUE and UNWE. He expects for further discussion on the issues of collaboration. On the other hand, NCUE looks forward to the collaboration being a milestone that stretches out its academic exchange out to Eastern Europe.