Internet Society - Bulgaria is a non-governmental organization (NGO), founded on December 4, 1995, in Sofia by a group of Bulgarian Internet professionals.

History

ISOC-Bulgaria was founded in 1995. It became known worldwide in 1999, when it sued the government of Ivan Kostov

Ivan Kostov

Ivan Yordanov Kostov was Prime Minister of Bulgaria from May 1997 to July 2001 and leader of the Union of Democratic Forces between December 1994 and July 2001....

 against the proposed licensing of the Internet Service Providers in Bulgaria.

In 2001, through ISOC-Bulgaria's influence, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) remained outside of the monopoly of the national telecom, which allowed a great variety of new Internet services to start in Bulgaria.

ISOC-Bulgaria is a non-governmental organization for public profit, and represents users.

Activities

ISOC-Bulgaria is currently involved in a number of projects, related to usage and promotion of free and open source software, among them:

• FOSS - the Free and Open Source Software Project for SEEurope,
• tOSSad - towards Open Source Software adoption and dissemination, or
• FLOSS world - Free/Libre/Open Source Software: Worldwide impact study.

In 2005–2006 ISOC-Bulgaria launched the Bulgarian version of Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...

.

ISOC Bulgaria was a key player during the WSIS

World Summit on the Information Society

The World Summit on the Information Society was a pair of United Nations-sponsored conferences about information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis...

 (2002–2005).

Before that, in 1999 and in 2001 through its influence, Bulgaria became the first country to legally accept full freedom of access to the Internet by changing its Telecommunications Law, which leaves the domain name system and the IP Address allocation outside of the control of the government.

ISOC Bulgaria has been actively involved in the Global Internet Policy Initiative  (GIPI

Gipi

Gianni Pacinotti, better known by the pseudonym of Gipi, is an Italian cartoonist, filmmaker, and author.-Biography:Born in Pisa in 1963, he began his career illustrating for the publishing and advertising industries....

), headed by George Sadowsky

George Sadowsky

George Sadowsky is an American computer scientist who has worked in a number of entities, related to promotion of the Internet worldwide....

, and has contributed to formation of governmental IT-policy in a number of countries, not only in Bulgaria.

Members

Among hundreds of its members are the current Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov

Georgi Parvanov

Georgi Sedefchov Parvanov is a President of Bulgaria, whose second and last mandate expires on January 22, 2012; he was elected after defeating his predecessor Petar Stoyanov in the second round of the presidential elections in November 2001 and he came into office on January 22, 2002...

, the former President Peter Stoyanov, former prime ministers Sergey Stanishev

Sergey Stanishev

Sergei Dmitrievich Stanishev is a Bulgarian politician who was Prime Minister of Bulgaria from 2005 to 2009; currently he is Chairman of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and Interim President of the Party of European Socialists...

 and Ivan Kostov

Ivan Kostov

Ivan Yordanov Kostov was Prime Minister of Bulgaria from May 1997 to July 2001 and leader of the Union of Democratic Forces between December 1994 and July 2001....

, many politiicans, IT-experts, journalists, and many others.

Board

ISOC-Bulgaria board consists of:

• Veni Markovski
  Veni Markovski
  Veni Markovski is a Bulgarian Internet pioneer , he is founder and CEO of bol.bg , one of the leading ISPs in Bulgaria.- Biography :Veni Markovski is a graduate of the Sofia University “St...
  
   - chairman and CEO
• Dimitar Ganchev - secretary
• Albena Arnaudova - member

More information

ISOC-Bulgaria is an official chapter of the international Internet Society

Internet Society

The Internet Society or ISOC is an international, nonprofit organization founded during 1992 to provide direction in Internet related standards, education, and policy...

, based in Reston, Virginia and Geneva, Switzerland.
More information can be found at ISOC-Bulgaria's web site isoc.bg.