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Zornitsa Mitkova, rising star 2025. Helping the Next Generation of Builders Begin

By French Tech Sofia, .

Awards have their own kind of symbolism. They freeze a moment, but they also point beyond it. When Zornitsa stepped into the spotlight at our flagship event, the recognition was not only about what she has already built. It was also about momentum. About a way of working that is already shaping the next generation of builders, founders, problem-solvers, and citizens. In a room filled with entrepreneurs, investors, operators, ecosystem partners, and community leaders, her distinction carried a special resonance. It reminded all of us that the future of tech isn’t only written in funding rounds or product launches. It’s also written much earlier, in the environments where confidence, initiative, and practical imagination are first allowed to grow.

As Managing Director of Teenovator, Zornitsa Mitkova stands at the intersection of education, entrepreneurship, and community building. Publicly, she has described her own path as one shaped by public relations, marketing, event organization, branding, and social causes, with a strong personal motivation around connecting people and building communities. That combination matters. Teenovator isn’t just a program that needs administration. It needs energy, empathy, structure, and the ability to translate ambition into something young people can actually access. Zornitsa brings exactly that blend to the role.

Teenovator itself is one of the most meaningful initiatives in Bulgaria for introducing teenagers to entrepreneurship through experience rather than theory. The program connects teams of students with mentors over an extended period, giving them time to work together, develop ideas, learn collaboration, and bring early-stage startup concepts to life. It was launched in 2018 as a pilot in four schools in Sofia and has since grown to reach participants across dozens of cities in Bulgaria. That scale is important, but even more important is the philosophy behind it. Teenovator is built around practice, experimentation, and challenge, outside the rigid logic of formal schooling. It creates a space where young people aren’t treated as passive recipients of knowledge, but as participants in their own development.

This is where Zornitsa’s contribution becomes especially powerful. She isn’t simply managing a successful educational format. She is helping build a bridge between worlds that too often remain disconnected. Teenovator has been described as a bridge between Bulgarian schools and Bulgarian business, and that description feels exactly right. In a region that speaks so often about talent, innovation, competitiveness, and retention, that bridge isn’t a metaphor we can afford to keep abstract. It has to exist in real programs, real relationships, and real opportunities. Under Zornitsa’s leadership, Teenovator is creating those links early, before talent drifts away or confidence fades.

What makes this especially relevant for Bulgaria and the wider CEE ecosystem is that Teenovator addresses a structural question, not just an educational one. How do we help young people see themselves as capable of creating value here? How do we cultivate initiative in places where the safest path is often assumed to be elsewhere? How do we show that innovation isn’t reserved for a narrow profile, a privileged network, or a capital-city mindset? Teenovator’s own publicly referenced results suggest that its impact reaches beyond inspiration. According to research cited about the program, more than 78% of respondents aged 19 or older remained in Bulgaria after participating, and more than half were either working or interning. That doesn’t mean one program solves every systemic issue. But it does show what happens when young people are given not just encouragement, but context, mentorship, and a sense of agency.

And that is why Zornitsa’s leadership deserves attention. Because it’s rooted in human development, not performance theater. In interviews, she speaks about relationships, communities, and the importance of connecting people. That comes through in the way Teenovator has evolved, through partnerships with schools, mentors, foundations, and companies that help broaden what students can imagine for themselves. Recent partnerships have also expanded the exposure of participants to sectors such as sustainability and energy, showing that entrepreneurship education can be connected to real economic transformations taking place across the region.

There is also something quietly important in the kind of example she represents. The term "rising star" can sometimes sound like a label reserved for visibility, speed, or hype. But in Zornitsa’s case, it means something more grounded. It speaks to a leader whose influence is growing because her work is useful, credible, and deeply aligned with what our ecosystem actually needs. Not noise. Not self-mythology. Substance. Continuity. Care. The kind of leadership that doesn’t stand apart from a community, but helps make one possible.

At French Tech Sofia, we believe ecosystems are built not only by headline founders and scale-up executives, but also by the people who expand the circle of who gets to participate. The people who invest in talent before it’s fully formed. The people who make innovation feel tangible, local, and shared. Zornitsa Mitkova is doing exactly that through Teenovator.

Honoring her at the French Tech Sofia Flagship Summit was therefore more than a celebration of personal achievement. It was a statement about the kind of future we want to help grow in Bulgaria and across Central and Eastern Europe. A future where ambition starts earlier. Where education and entrepreneurship speak to each other more often. Where young people are trusted with responsibility, ideas, and possibility. And where leaders like Zornitsa Mitkova keep showing, through daily work rather than slogans, that the next generation of innovators doesn’t appear by accident. It’s nurtured, encouraged, and invited in.

That is why she is our Rising Star. And that is why her work matters far beyond the moment of the award itself.

Last updated on January, 17th 2026 at 10:12 AM.