The winner of the second edition of Nova Broadcasting Group’s and the American University in Bulgaria’s special scholarship for social entrepreneurship – NOVA EMBA Scholarship, is clear. Jane Kerkova, one of the creators of a mobile app fighting food waste, will receive a full scholarship to study in the university’s Executive Master of Business Administration program.

The award is given to social entrepreneurs who offer a working business model for solving a significant social problem in Bulgaria. In this year’s competition for the scholarship, the competition and the quality of the projects were extremely high, so the jury awarded a second prize.Its winner is the creator of a platform for health and sex education for teenagers – Nikoleta Popkostadinova. She was awarded a full scholarship to the newly created Social Entrepreneurship program and will have access to a one-credit elective course from the EMBA program, in honor of AUB alumni and donor Svetoslav Georgiev (EMBA ’05). In 2015 Nikoleta also became a finalist in the first edition of Game Changers (PROMYANATA) with her project.

Social entrepreneurship has the power to help society through difficult challenges, confirmed the Vice President of American University Dr. J.D. Mininger and the Chief Producer of News and Current Affairs at Nova Broadcasting Group Marta Evtimova, who presented the awards.

About the NOVA EMBA Scholarship

For the second consecutive year, NOVA and the American University in Bulgaria are providing the NOVA EMBA Scholarship, which covers 100% of the tuition for the university’s Executive MBA program. It is awarded after a special competition in which future or current entrepreneurs propose a project that solves a significant social problem in Bulgaria. To qualify, the project must contain elements such as social or environmental mission, innovation, sustainability, stakeholder engagement, social impact measurement, financial and operational management, feasibility, and collaborative partnerships. The first fellowship for the university’s Executive MBA program was won by Boyan Nedyalkov in 2023 for his project on free screening that detects serious diseases early.