In the last month Career Daily News published some of its largest projects dedicated to artificial intelligence and its impact on professions such as PR, HR and Marketing. What do leading employers think? What does the future hold for medicine?

Over 150 experts shared their views in a series of materials totaling over 120 pages.

How will education change in the next 2–3 years in the age of AI?

As a continuation of our topic, we seek the perspective of academic leaders and leading professors from Bulgarian universities on how AI will change the way we learn, teach, and prepare future professionals.

We start with UNWE.

Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov – Rector of the University of National and World Economy (UNWE)

 

Artificial intelligence is already fundamentally changing the economy, business, and the labor market, and in the next 2–3 years its influence on education will be even more pronounced. It will not just be about using new digital tools or another step in digitalization. We are undergoing a deep transformation that will change the very model of education – from the way we teach and learn to the creation, sharing, and application of new knowledge.

AI has the potential to address some of the biggest challenges facing modern education. It allows learning to be more personalized, interactive, and flexible, tailored to different needs, interests, and paces of learning. In a world where access to information is a matter of seconds, higher education will increasingly focus its efforts on developing the skills that make humans irreplaceable – critical thinking, the ability to analyze and evaluate information, to find solutions in complex situations, and to think creatively.

AI should not scare either teachers or students. On the contrary – it can be a catalyst for a new stage in the development of education and science. To fully utilize this opportunity, we all need to learn to work with artificial intelligence adequately, wisely, critically, and responsibly. In the future, the advantage will not simply belong to those who use AI, but to those who know when, how, and for what purpose to use it and to direct its potential.

At UNWE, we are already building this vision. We have created an Institute for Artificial Intelligence in economics because we believe that the university should not just observe the technological transformation but be among the places that conceptualize, research, and shape it. The Institute is becoming a meeting space between scientific research, modern education, and the real needs of business and society. We are developing specialties and programs in which students acquire not only theoretical knowledge but also practical skills for applying modern technologies in finance, marketing, logistics, accounting, management, and big data analysis.

The future of work will be increasingly intertwined with technology – it will be a natural part of how we work, make decisions, and create value in every sector. Therefore, the university of the future must prepare not just specialists for today’s jobs, but people with flexible thinking, capable of adapting to the unknown, creating new solutions, new business models, and new opportunities for society.

In this process, the human factor does not lose significance – on the contrary, it becomes even more important. We should not fear technology, but learn to use it wisely, ethically, and responsibly. Ultimately, the future will belong to those who can combine the capabilities of technology with human intelligence, knowledge, creativity, values, and the ability to take responsibility. They will not simply adapt to changes – they will be the ones who will create the future.

 

Implementing AI without a strategy is like buying a plane without a pilot

Prof. Dr. Tsvetana Stoyanova

Vice-Rector for Institutional and Business Cooperation

“Education must stop teaching people to accumulate knowledge. In the AI era, knowledge is no longer the ultimate goal – it is the raw material from which a person must be able to create something that does not yet exist. This distinction may seem small, but it actually implies a radical rethinking of almost everything we today call education. For centuries, knowledge has been an asset. We accumulate it, store it, demonstrate ownership through exams and diplomas, and subsequently turn it into a professional advantage. The entire architecture of education – subjects, programs, lectures, textbooks, exams - is built around this logic. AI renders it meaningless and fundamentally changes it.

Knowledge gradually ceases to be an asset that we must possess and becomes a resource that we must know how to use. This means that the educational system does not need yet another update of curricula. It needs a change in the very principle by which they are created. The future belongs not necessarily to the person who knows or even understands the most, but to the one who can do the most with the available knowledge – to discover it, combine it, question it, transform it, and turn it into a solution, product, action, or new question.

Therefore, a large part of fundamental knowledge must cease to be the goal of education. It should become the infrastructure of education – a constantly accessible resource that a person works with.

This implies a radical change even in schools. Instead of history classes measuring how many facts and dates a student can reproduce, it could require them to work with different sources, discover contradictions, check AI-generated theses, and build their own reasoned interpretation. In mathematics, the focus should gradually shift from mechanically performing operations to modeling real problems, choosing an approach, and critically evaluating the obtained result. The curriculum should shift from "What should the student know?" to "What should the student be able to achieve when all necessary knowledge is available?". And if part of the traditional content must give way, other areas must become fundamental. Digital literacy and innovation should be foundational subjects even in schools. I am not talking about training on how to use specific software or a few hours dedicated to entrepreneurship. Digital literacy now means the ability to understand the world in which algorithms, data, and AI mediate between humans and information, decisions, and reality. And innovation should teach young people how to recognize a problem, how to create an idea, how to experiment, how to work with uncertainty, and how an idea becomes a real solution. These are skills that no longer belong to a single profession.

Therefore, in university education, digital literacy and innovation must be a mandatory part of the preparation regardless of the specialty. The future doctor must study them. The engineer – as well. The architect, economist, lawyer, teacher – as well. Not because everyone should become technology specialists or entrepreneurs, but because there will almost be no professional field in which a person can create value without understanding the technological environment and without being able to change the existing. This is a completely different educational philosophy. It inevitably breaks down the boundaries between subjects. Real problems do not have disciplines. Climate crisis, business creation, urban environment, demographic problem, new medical product, or ethical dilemma around AI cannot be solved within a single subject. Therefore, multidisciplinarity will not be an addition to education. It will be its natural format.

The same rethinking must happen in universities. The university of the future will likely not be an institution that a person "graduates" from. I envision a model in which we enter a university, but graduation ceases to be a one-time moment after three, four, or five years. It becomes a much longer process – five, ten, or more years, during which a person simultaneously works, changes roles, participates in real projects, and periodically returns to an academic environment. Not to listen to another 30 hours of lectures. But to solve problems for which there is still no ready answer. To work with people from other professions. To use new technologies. To participate in simulations and experiments. To update the way they think at the moment when the world around them has changed.

Thus, education ceases to be preparation before life and becomes a permanent part of life. And this will change the very role of the university. Its most valuable capital will no longer be the content it possesses. Content will be everywhere. Its value will be in the intellectual environment, the people, the problems, experiments, the connections between different fields, and the ability to continuously place a person in situations that compel them to develop their next level of abilities. Here emerges one of the great paradoxes of the AI era. The more accessible intelligence becomes, the more important the qualities that education has struggled to measure become. Curiosity. Imagination. Judgment. Adaptability. Initiative. The ability to formulate a problem before seeking a solution. The ability to work with other people and with intelligent machines. The courage to question the given answer. And the ability to act when there is no single correct answer.

Therefore, in my opinion, the conversation about whether students should use AI is almost overdue. The real question is: Why do we continue to build education around the accumulation of knowledge when the world is already beginning to reward the ability to use it?

The next great educational reform will not be the digitalization of existing education. It will not be more technology in the classroom. It will not be adding "AI skills" to existing programs. It will be a rejection of the idea that education is a process of accumulation. In a world where knowledge is practically an unlimited resource, the real deficit will be the ability of a person to turn this resource into something that did not exist before. And this is what we must start teaching.“

The Power of History: When HR, PR, Marketing, and Employer Branding Speak Together

Prof. Dr. Lyuben Boyanov – UNWE, expert in information technology, digitalization, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity

“In my opinion, artificial intelligence (AI) is already changing and will continue to change education much more in the next two or three years than the familiar digital technologies have done in the past two decades. The most important change will be in the way students learn, teachers teach, and universities assess knowledge and skills.

First, AI will become the first assistant in learning (for students). Instead of using it only for generating text or answering questions, students will increasingly use it as a personal tutor/assistant. AI systems can explain complex concepts at different levels, provide examples, offer instant feedback, translate materials, and help students discover their weaknesses. This makes learning more personalized and accessible. A student who does not understand a given concept after a traditional lecture can ask the AI bot to explain it more simply, provide a practical example, or generate exercises for additional practice.

Second, the role of teachers will change significantly. I do not believe that artificial intelligence will simply replace teachers. Rather, teachers will spend less time on routine activities such as preparing basic materials, creating simple tests, summarizing information, and answering repetitive questions. This will allow them to spend more time on discussions, creativity, project work, and developing students’ critical thinking.

Assessment will likely undergo one of the biggest changes. Traditional tasks, where students submit an essay written at home, will become increasingly difficult to use as evidence of individual knowledge and effort, as AI can create all kinds of complex texts and solve tasks. Therefore, universities will need more assessments based on presentations, projects, practical tasks, oral exams, problem-solving, and real-time activities (rather than generating somewhere/sometime) and also – discussing and debating presented projects/presentations/tasks. The important change will be from "Can the student provide an answer?" to "Does the student understand the answer and know how to apply it?"

Serious risks are many. Easy access to AI is already diminishing students’ desire to put in effort, to grapple with difficult problems, to search and analyze independently, or to develop their own ideas. If students use AI as a substitute for thinking rather than as an assistant in learning, education will become less effective, and it may even lose its meaning (what is the point of copy-paste?). There are also many concerns about inaccurate/wrong information, plagiarism, privacy, dependence on technology, and inequalities between students who have access to better AI tools (e.g., paid) and those who do not.

It is clear that literacy in AI will become just as important as traditional digital literacy. Learners will need to learn how to formulate questions more effectively, verify AI-generated information, recognize errors and biases, protect their personal data, and use AI in an ethical manner. Teachers will need similar skills (but from the other perspective), as well as new methods for developing training and assessment, supported by AI.

In the next two to three years, I expect education to move towards a hybrid model, combining the human factor and AI. Artificial intelligence will provide personalization, instant feedback, automation, and access to information, while teachers will continue to be essential for motivation, human interaction, ethical guidance, creativity, and the development of social and professional skills.

The biggest challenge will not be to decide whether education should use AI – that process has already begun and cannot be stopped. The enormous challenge is and will be how to learn to use AI without losing the human, curiosity, critical thinking, and interaction that give meaning to education. In my opinion, the institutions (including schools and universities, but this applies to all) that will succeed will not be those that use AI the most, but those that find the most effective balance between artificial intelligence and human intelligence, those who manage to adapt to the dynamics of this relationship and maintain that balance.“

 

Prof. Dr. Valentin Stefanov Kisimov
UNWE, Department of "Information Technologies and Communications"
Faculty of "Applied Informatics and Statistics" “Higher education, and especially that at UNWE, is one of the areas that has been and will be significantly affected by the advent of Artificial Intelligence - AI (regardless of the abbreviation AI or SI). Here, it is not about the digitalization of higher education, because UNWE is perhaps the most digital university in Bulgaria with a history and significant results from more than 15 years.

Perhaps UNWE is the only university in Bulgaria where a Strategy for using AI in the university was created about 5 years ago. Based on this, numerous activities were directed at UNWE, which led to certain concrete results that I will present below.

At UNWE, an Institute for Artificial Intelligence in economics was created, which is aimed not only at the activities that the university performs but also at providing assistance to the business in Bulgaria for the application of AI.

Under the leadership of UNWE, a Center for Competence in the field of big data was also created and is being worked on for the practical use in business, where the application of AI is a natural approach, and several Prototype applications have been created, whose published results have high international value – published in the Q1 category.

If we consider that the activity of a university is in 3 areas: education, scientific research, and management of university processes, then UNWE has directed the application of AI in all three areas. With the help of IBM Bulgaria and its business partner, a special Agent is currently being developed to assist prospective students in orienting towards the numerous bachelor's and master's programs at UNWE. After the first results from the work of this agent, we plan to develop automation through AI for serving students in other administrative processes. With the assistance of Microsoft Bulgaria, we have directed our efforts towards creating CoPilot Agents to assist teachers and students in the learning process, called “Agents for teachers and students in the respective specialty.” We are still exploring how AI will help the teacher in conducting lectures, considering that certain results can already be applied, but they apply to small student groups (up to 30-50 people), while at UNWE we have a main group of streams that have 200 or more students. This requires a totally different approach, which we are yet to create as a methodology and as practical use of AI. For conducting scientific research, UNWE has created an approach with already obtained certain results, for applying over 15 different AI tools that support the conduct and results of specific scientific research.

These are our current results from the application of AI at UNWE, which will definitely change the work of UNWE as a university. Regarding the use of AI in the next 2-3 years at UNWE, we anticipate that the application of AI will not lead to a reduction in the number of teachers, AI will not replace the work of teachers, but will only assist their activities, creating conditions for better scientific results and the application of new approaches in presenting and acquiring new knowledge and skills, and will also help for more intelligent service to students.“

 

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nikolay Shterev,

Department "Industrial Business", Business Faculty of UNWE-Sofia

Chairman of the Association of Teachers in Economics and Management in Industry /APIUI/

Chairman of the Council "Circular Economy - Green Alternative for Bulgaria", BTPP

“Artificial intelligence can already be defined as the generative economic and social reality. Why? All economic and social processes have gradually been moved from the real to the virtual world with the mass entry of social media and social business media into people's daily lives and their businesses. It is precisely for this reason that modern people spend more time in this generative reality than in the physical one.

This changes not only societal attitudes and expectations, the relationship and perception of "new" things in economic and social life, but also changes the way these processes are managed and most importantly – the way students are taught at UNWE. In this regard, working with different AI tools can enter the teaching process in several ways:

1.    In preparing educational materials that have good visual content, on which the teacher leads the lectures, including developing video educational materials, through which the practical application of economic science is taught. For the teacher, it remains to teach the "philosophy" of business, which will allow students to understand the basic mechanisms of economic and social theory;

2.    In preparing for exams and specifically in the part of developing specific course works using the capabilities of digital twins to perform economic and social simulations, and for students to analyze the results of these digital simulations. This will enable them in the future to be not only passive users of these AI tools but to be active "programmers" of the development of AI tools.

3.    In preparing for the actual exams, according to the instructions of the teachers, AI tools can simulate questions, tests, and developments and assess the "white" spots in the knowledge of each student.

All of this places us teachers in a new light: we must outpace the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence by building this business philosophy that does not deny AI but uses it to enhance the mental and moral capacity of both ourselves and our students. I believe that achieving this symbiosis between the philosophy of business and the automation of economic and social processes through AI is the key to the success of future economists.”

 

Prof. Dr. Dimitar Georgiev Velev, Department of "Informatics", UNWE

 

In the next 2–3 years, we will witness a transition from mass, standardized education to a personalized and immersive experience.

·       The first major change is the mass introduction of multimodal AI mentors. Every student should have a personalized digital teacher who not only adapts the speed of material acquisition but recognizes emotional states and levels of cognitive load in real time. Curricula will be generated dynamically.

·       The second transformation affects the role of the teacher. Freed from the routine of checking knowledge and the monotonous dictation of facts, teachers will become "architects of learning" and emotional mentors. Their main task will be to develop critical thinking, empathy, ethics, and conflict resolution skills - competencies that AI cannot authentically replicate.

·       The third and inevitable change is the end of traditional assessment. Due to the fact that generative AI has made standard essays and tests obsolete, systems will shift to continuous assessment based on practical projects and digital portfolios. AI will allow for instant creation of virtual (VR) simulations, in which students will interact with real-time generated 3D environments.

Education will transform from a "factory for knowledge" into a flexible ecology, where technology bears the burden of adaptation, while humans retain their role as inspirers.“

 

Prof. Dr. Plamena Venceslavova Zlateva, Department of "Informatics", UNWE

Three key predictions for the transformation of education in the next 2–3 years:

1.    Collapse of language barriers and hyperlocalization of knowledge: Within 2–3 years, AI will provide perfect, contextual translation and adaptation of educational materials in real time. Students will have access to the same interactive courses from top universities around the world, but generated and taught in their native language, with local cultural examples and tailored to the local curriculum.

2.    Further development ofstandard curricula and rise of “just-in-time learning”: Traditional bachelor’s and master’s programs will be actively further developed using AI. AI will analyze the labor market in real time and identify the exact skills that a given student lacks. Instead of long academic cycles, universities will offer dynamic, AI-generated “micro-modules”. Acquired knowledge and skills will be complemented by a continuously updated digital portfolio of competencies, which AI helps to keep current throughout the professional's lifetime.

3.    The new literacy: Learning will focus not only on how to use AI, but on how to think together with it. A new fundamental discipline will emerge, focused on the synergy between human intuition and machine computational power. Students will be trained to recognize AI hallucinations, verify sources, and understand how algorithms arrive at a given answer. The goal is to turn them from passive consumers of technology into active managers of algorithmic processes, capable of delegating routine but maintaining control over ethics and ultimate truth.“

 

 

Dr. Zornitsa Yordanova, Associate Professor, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Industrial Business Department, Business Faculty (Innovation Management & Business Information Systems)

“The university of the future will not be an institution that a person "graduates" from. Education will cease to be preparation for life and will become a permanent part of it.”

“Education must stop teaching people to accumulate knowledge. In the AI era, knowledge is no longer the ultimate goal – it is the raw material from which a person must be able to create something that does not yet exist. This distinction seems small, but it actually implies a radical rethinking of almost everything we today call education. For centuries, knowledge has been an asset. We accumulate it, store it, demonstrate ownership through exams and diplomas, and subsequently turn it into a professional advantage. The entire architecture of education – subjects, programs, lectures, textbooks, exams - is built around this logic. AI renders it meaningless and fundamentally changes it.

Knowledge gradually ceases to be an asset that we must possess and becomes a resource that we must know how to use. This means that the educational system does not need yet another update of curricula. It needs a change in the very principle by which they are created. The future belongs not necessarily to the person who knows or even understands the most, but to the one who can do the most with the available knowledge – to discover it, combine it, question it, transform it, and turn it into a solution, product, action, or new question.

Therefore, a large part of fundamental knowledge must cease to be the goal of education. It should become the infrastructure of education – a constantly accessible resource that a person works with.

This implies a radical change even in schools. Instead of history classes measuring how many facts and dates a student can reproduce, it could require them to work with different sources, discover contradictions, check AI-generated theses, and build their own reasoned interpretation. In mathematics, the focus should gradually shift from mechanically performing operations to modeling real problems, choosing an approach, and critically evaluating the obtained result. The curriculum should shift from "What should the student know?" to "What should the student be able to achieve when all necessary knowledge is available?". And if part of the traditional content must give way, other areas must become fundamental. Digital literacy and innovation should be foundational subjects even in schools. I am not talking about training on how to use specific software or a few hours dedicated to entrepreneurship. Digital literacy now means the ability to understand the world in which algorithms, data, and AI mediate between humans and information, decisions, and reality. And innovation should teach young people how to recognize a problem, how to create an idea, how to experiment, how to work with uncertainty, and how an idea becomes a real solution. These are skills that no longer belong to a single profession.

Therefore, in university education, digital literacy and innovation must be a mandatory part of the preparation regardless of the specialty. The future doctor must study them. The engineer – as well. The architect, economist, lawyer, teacher – as well. Not because everyone should become technology specialists or entrepreneurs, but because there will almost be no professional field in which a person can create value without understanding the technological environment and without being able to change the existing. This is a completely different educational philosophy. It inevitably breaks down the boundaries between subjects. Real problems do not have disciplines. Climate crisis, business creation, urban environment, demographic problem, new medical product, or ethical dilemma around AI cannot be solved within a single subject. Therefore, multidisciplinarity will not be an addition to education. It will be its natural format.

The same rethinking must happen in universities. The university of the future will likely not be an institution that a person "graduates" from. I envision a model in which we enter a university, but graduation ceases to be a one-time moment after three, four, or five years. It becomes a much longer process – five, ten, or more years, during which a person simultaneously works, changes roles, participates in real projects, and periodically returns to an academic environment. Not to listen to another 30 hours of lectures. But to solve problems for which there is still no ready answer. To work with people from other professions. To use new technologies. To participate in simulations and experiments. To update the way they think at the moment when the world around them has changed.

Thus, education ceases to be preparation before life and becomes a permanent part of life. And this will change the very role of the university. Its most valuable capital will no longer be the content it possesses. Content will be everywhere. Its value will be in the intellectual environment, the people, the problems, experiments, the connections between different fields, and the ability to continuously place a person in situations that compel them to develop their next level of abilities. Here emerges one of the great paradoxes of the AI era. The more accessible intelligence becomes, the more important the qualities that education has struggled to measure become. Curiosity. Imagination. Judgment. Adaptability. Initiative. The ability to formulate a problem before seeking a solution. The ability to work with other people and with intelligent machines. The courage to question the given answer. And the ability to act when there is no single correct answer.

Therefore, in my opinion, the conversation about whether students should use AI is almost overdue. The real question is: Why do we continue to build education around the accumulation of knowledge when the world is already beginning to reward the ability to use it?

The next great educational reform will not be the digitalization of existing education. It will not be more technology in the classroom. It will not be adding "AI skills" to existing programs. It will be a rejection of the idea that education is a process of accumulation. In a world where knowledge is practically an unlimited resource, the real deficit will be the ability of a person to turn this resource into something that did not exist before. And this is what we must start teaching.“

 

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandrina Murdjeva – Dean of the Faculty of "Applied Informatics and Statistics" and Head of the Department of "Information Technologies and Communications" at UNWE, Deputy Director for Research Activities at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Economics.

“Education is a system that struggles to accept promises of future benefits and slowly adapts to new ideas.

But it is increasingly challenged by the need to promise educated future generations, to preserve and pass on the increasing human knowledge.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the futuristic narrative from the future that education, as a well-prepared student, must retell today with a serious dose of reflection. And this retelling will need to include answers to several questions:

1. Why must education adapt? It is not relevant to ask whether AI should be used in education. The real question is not why, but when and how. AI in education is a matter of adapting a conservative system to the present day. Every adaptation is a process in which balance is extremely important. The balance for AI in education lies in defining reasonable boundaries and forms for its use, in which the thinking and creative person remains at the center of the educational universe.
2. What are the new dimensions of the knowledgeable and educated person? The knowledgeable and educated person is the thinking and creative person. Fortunately, we are witnessing a rapid development in all fields of science, new knowledge is being created - in traditional and new areas, at a speed we have not even thought of. The facts that prove this knowledge may not be the most valuable capital of the knowledgeable and educated person, but the meaning they hide and the logic for their discovery. Education will be challenged to change its perspective, to orient itself towards meaning and logic, because the natural course of time will place people in the impossible situation of grasping, remembering, and reproducing an unmanageable amount of facts. Let us define this transition from "How to" to "Why".
3. And in this regard: what are the new skills (or perhaps well-forgotten old ones) that education should emphasize? Analytical and critical thinking, asking the right questions, distinguishing fact from opinion, assessing credibility, technological and AI knowledge, and adaptability. Or in other words - by asking the right questions that we have formulated with our analytical and critical thinking, we will be able to navigate the ocean of facts (knowledge) with the help of our technological and AI knowledge, adapting to the challenges of the day.
4. But how then will knowledge be shared and transmitted? How will it be taught and learned? Today we are all on the shore of a huge ocean of facts. We all have access to it. But to the horizon reaches the one who manages to build a ship. We will share the facts with the help of technologies, and AI will help make the horizon look closer and more achievable, and we will turn facts into knowledge by provoking thought.
5. And how will knowledge be assessed? To assess, we must understand the new essence of knowledge. The value of encyclopedic personalities, capable of reproducing an incredible amount of facts, is indisputable. But in the coming years, the value of thinking and creative personalities will increase, because they will be able to cope/navigate with the ever-increasing volume of factual information. Assessing knowledge in this direction will require educators to apply the same new skills, asking the right questions that we have formulated with our analytical and critical thinking. We will be able to provoke logical and creative thinking with the help of our technological and AI knowledge, but always preserving human communication as the most reliable way of assessment.

Will AI change education in the next two to three years? The answer will likely be more modest than the promises and deeper than the fears. We will not see classrooms and teachers disappearing, replaced by algorithms. We will see something more difficult and more important: education that gradually shifts its question from "What do you know?" to "How do you think?".

If we return to the image of the good student who today must retell the narrative of the future, the most valuable part of this retelling will not be the literal repetition. What will be valuable is the understanding, that "Why" that turns facts into knowledge. AI can provide us with faster canvases and more accurate maps. But the direction of the ship, the courage to set sail, and the skill to recognize the shore remain human.

Therefore, the real change will not be in technology, but in us: in the readiness of education to set reasonable boundaries without raising walls, to use new tools without ceding thinking to them, and to assess without losing the human conversation. If we manage to keep the thinking and creative person at the center of the educational universe, artificial intelligence will not be a threat to education. It will be yet another challenge that makes it better.“

 

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Silvia Georgieva

Department "Entrepreneurship" 

Deputy Director for Research at the Institute of Entrepreneurship, UNWE

“The transformation in methods and approaches in education, in the intensity of knowledge transfer, in the level of accessibility, but not in values, can be expected as a result of the development of technologies and especially of artificial intelligence. "The spirit makes the strength" is the motto of UNWE – a university with a 106-year history that is and will continue to be relevant, even amidst turbulent technological progress. The process of constant change and the capacity for adaptation will likely be major challenges in the coming years.  Undoubtedly, artificial intelligence is a powerful  tool. The effects – positive or negative – of its use are determined today, as well as in the future, by the level of preparedness, the degree of personal and social responsibility. In this regard, education has and will continue to play a leading role and, of course, must meet these expectations. Promoting humanity and curiosity, forming systematic approaches to acquiring interdisciplinary knowledge, building skills for analysis and critical assessment, creativity, and the desire for achievement are likely among the key tasks facing the educational system. In fact, the added value of technology in every field will be greater if it is used by people prepared with the necessary competencies and completed in the personal plan, whose professional and personal goals are based on high moral and ethical standards. Besides the family, education is called to shape these standards, as it is much more than providing knowledge and building skills. However, we must acknowledge that the charm of the time we live in is largely due to the impossibility of giving a more categorical forecast for the future, even in shorter time horizons. The transformations that are constant companions in our daily lives often provoke concerns among the unprepared, but for the prepared, they are an opportunity. It is education that can change the ratio between the feeling of fear of the future and the joy of the new opportunities received.“

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Shteryo Nozharov

Chief Secretary for Budget and Finance at UNWE

Vice-Chairman of SDSN Bulgaria

 

"Digital meritocracy: Delegating academic growth to AI as a guarantee of objectivity

In the next 2–3 years, artificial intelligence (AI) will change higher education in a way that goes beyond the digitalization of the educational process. The most significant and urgent transformation that AI must bring is the infusion of absolute objectivity and transparency into academic growth and management. As a teacher and chief secretary for budget and finance at UNWE, I see in technology the only tool for imposing true meritocracy.

In the academic world, artificial intelligence has the potential to finally eliminate the subjective factor that has historically fueled internal intrigues and career growth based on personal connections and contacts. It is extremely harmful to the academic community when key leadership positions – such as department head or dean – are filled based on lobbying and circumstantial dependencies. Such figures do not possess real authority and cannot establish one among colleagues and students, simply because they lack the necessary scientific qualities. This blocks the development of the entire university because the main asset of a university - is its researchers and teachers. When they are competent - they attract funding for scientific projects from businesses, attract the interest of international organizations to the university, and attract prospective students from around the world for education. When they are incompetent, they repel all these groups.

My categorical view is that conducting academic competitions, assessing scientific growth, as well as deep checks for plagiarism in scientific publications should be entirely delegated to AI algorithms. Artificial intelligence can analyze scientific contributions and publications without emotions, without lobbying, and without predefined dependencies. When the assessment of scientific work and intellectual property passes into the hands of an impartial digital system, subjective appointments will become impossible.

Instead of a threat, AI is the best opportunity for institutional cleansing of the system. The future of higher education belongs to universities that have the courage to be the first to implement these radical digital standards to ensure that titles, positions, and management posts are the result solely and exclusively of real scientific results, expertise, and high morals."

 

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Daniel Stoyanov Yordanov, lecturer in the Department of "Transport and Energy Economics", UNWE

“As at present, so in the next two to three years, artificial intelligence (AI) will actively change the way we learn and teach. Teaching has already started to feel its role; AI can provide explanations of difficult concepts in a much shorter time, generate a project response to a complex mathematical model, and provide a project response to a given task, where under normal conditions more time is required. From the perspective of learning, the greatest opportunity is for education to become more personalized. AI can offer exercises according to progress and provide feedback. Thus, the student will be able to receive instructions tailored to their level of preparation.

The role of the teacher will not stop, but rather will need to develop. AI will assist in part of the preparation of materials and checking routine tasks. This would free up time for discussions, creative projects, and individual work. We as teachers need to start changing the philosophy of teaching; we will need to remain the necessary  mentor, who develops thinking and responsibility.

However, change brings risks. Ready-made answers can weaken independent thinking, and a convincingly written text is not always correct. Therefore, a challenge for education in the emerging era of AI is how   to verify information, to protect personal data, and to use AI honorably. In assessment, emphasis will need to be placed on the argumentation and process of achieving the result in the given work..

AI can make knowledge more accessible if it supports human curiosity and efforts to understand the world. But success will not depend on technologies, but on their reasonable application.”

 

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nikolay Dragomirov, Head of the Department "Logistics and Supply Chains", UNWE

In logistics, AI specialists must have an interdisciplinary profile

Artificial intelligence is increasingly entering logistics and supply chain management. Today, systems of several AI agents can be built and prepared for operation literally in minutes. The real challenge, however, is not the creation of technology, but its training, integration, and adaptation to specific business processes.

For example, in inventory management, an AI system can analyze huge volumes of data, forecast demand, suggest optimal inventory levels, and argue its decisions through numerous graphs, indicators, and scenarios. But does the proposed solution actually fit the specific company? Does it take into account market peculiarities, customer behavior, supply constraints, and the strategic goals of the organization?

Here lies the role of the specialist. The future belongs to professionals with interdisciplinary profiles who combine knowledge of artificial intelligence, data analysis, and information technology with a deep understanding of logistics processes and the business environment. Their task will not be simply to use AI, but to evaluate, interpret, and direct the decisions it offers.

In logistics, the competitive advantage will increasingly depend not only on the technologies implemented, but on the people who can turn data and information into correct management decisions. It is precisely for this reason that logistics graduates are increasingly sought after in the labor market. They possess a solid foundation in managing logistics systems, transportation, warehousing, procurement, distribution, customer service, recycling, operations, and supply chains. On this basis, they can relatively easily build new competencies related to artificial intelligence, data analysis, and automation.

Technologies are developing at an extraordinary pace, but understanding logistics processes, business logic, and the real challenges facing organizations remains key. It is this combination of logistics knowledge and skills for working with AI that will distinguish successful specialists in the coming years.