History
In 1974, following the establishment of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Electrification of Agriculture, the Department of Computing was created at The Higher Institute for Mechanisation and Electrification of Agriculture (VIMMESS), Rousse, with a Decree of the Academic Board. Associate Professor PhD Vassil Philipov, a lecturer with long teaching and organisational experience, was elected as Head of Department. A number of engineers, who had just graduated in the same field of studies from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, were appointed at the Department as trainee Assistant Professors. The Department started its rapid development. A similar department at The Higher Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (VMEI), Sofia, played a vital role at this stage.
The Founders of the Department
(left to right, top to bottom)
Lyubomir Zhelyazkov, Angel Smrikarov, Lyubomir Dimov, Bozhidar Osikovski, Volodya Tsonev,
Yordan Chitalov, Ognyan Penchev, Georgi Georgiev, Emil Pavlikyanov,
Svilena Nedeva, Vasil Filipov, Stoyanka Smrikarova
The Department leadership was consecutively granted to Associate Professor PhD Emil Ratz, Associate Professor PhD Irina Zhelyazkova, Associate Professor PhD Gitko Angelov, Principal Assistant Sima Navasardian, and Principal Assistant Stoyanka Smrikarova. Each of them has given his or her contribution to the development of the Department and left a trace in its history. One can definitely say that the Department management has always been guided by the understanding that one of the main prerequisites for maintaining and improving the quality of teaching and research are the material and technical resources. The complete refurbishing of the training laboratories with new equipment was possible thanks to the active participation of the Department in the TEMPUS Programme. At present there are 4 or 5 work places in each laboratory equipped with Pentium personal computers. PCs of this type are installed in the offices of all lecturers. The computers are linked into a network and Internet access is also provided. The available resources at the moment enable the study of the most up-to-date single-chip microprocessors, microcomputers and transputers, as well as DSP and FPGA. Now the Department also possesses two very well equipped multimedia computer laboratories - one used for training and one for research work. The problem of the students' free access to the Department's resources has been solved, too.
In 1997/1998 new curricula for the preparation of students from the Bachelor's and Master's degree courses were developed by the Department. The curricula comply with the Decree of the Government for the unified state requirements for awarding higher education diplomas in 'Computer Systems and Technologies' and were harmonised with those of analogous degree courses in the EU countries. Lecture notes and practical exercise manuals for the majority of subjects have been published. Almost 90 multimedia products have been developed for the needs of the educational process.
Today the Department is working in the following main scientific areas:
  • artificial intelligence systems;
  • intelligent tutoring systems;
  • systems for telephone services automation;
  • systems for automation of the engineering and research work.
For the last 4 or 5 years the Department has held the first place in the University in terms of the amount of work involved in the contracts signed through the Research Council for conducting research and development activities. The results of the research carried out by the Department's lecturers and students have been implemented in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, Lithuania, Belarus and throughout Bulgaria. For many years the Department has been among the first with respect to the number of acknowledged and implemented innovations. Many of the novelties have been applied in the teaching.
The Department initiated and is the Coordinator of the TEMPUS S_JEP-11392 project 'Restructuring Degree Courses in Computing', which integrates into a consortium analogous departments from the Technical Universities in Sofia, Varna and Gabrovo and the Universities of Plymouth, Liverpool, Berlin, Pavia and Ioanina. Thanks to this Project, the infrastructure of a future academic community is being established which is going to play an important role in the development of the IT society in Bulgaria.
In conclusion, it can be said that for the period of its existence the Department of Computing has revealed its ability to respond adequately to the challenges of the time we live in. The Department will step into the twenty first century ready to integrate with the educational institutions of united Europe.