Sci High STEM Fest 2026 awards the best green and social student projects
The "Hristo Botev" channel of BNR presents the two most striking projects from Sci High STEM Fest 2026 — "Azoto Knezha" and "Air Improvers" — in conversation with their authors and with a teacher who runs a Sci High club.
The “Hristo Botev” channel of Bulgarian National Radio devoted a feature to Sci High STEM Fest 2026 — the national festival of student research projects, held on 7 June at the Faculty of Biology of Sofia University. The conversation is by Veneta Gavrilova; in the “Everything about education” segment she introduces the authors of two of the strongest projects.
The grand prize for best project went to “Azoto Knezha” by Ivet Nakova and Yuliyan Beshkovski, students of plant protection and agrochemistry at the “Stefan Tsanov” vocational school of agriculture in Knezha. They isolate the bacterium Azotobacter chroococcum, cultivate it in a school bioreactor and apply it as a living biostimulant — with striking results on staple crops and no chemical contamination of the soil.
“Agriculture is not only practical work, it demands a great deal of knowledge — in biology, in agronomy and in every other discipline. Our school aims at exactly that: acquaintance with the practical side of farming as well as with the theoretical part that most students find boring.” — Ivet Nakova
The award for best engineering-design stand went to “Air Improvers. Cleaning the air in Sofia” by Alex Donkov and Miroslav Neychev of the SoftUni Buditel private vocational school of digital skills in Sofia — an electrostatic purifier mounted on the roofs of city buses, turning them into mobile filtering stations.
The conversation covers:
- how the school facilities in Knezha connect practice with theory in agriculture;
- why the “Air Improvers” prototype never needs replacing, only cleaning, and mounts with magnets;
- how the Sci High clubs work — through a purpose-built method that walks students through the scientific method;
- what teachers get — initial training, ready-made materials and resources for more inquiry-led lessons in regular class hours.
Tsvetelina Semerdzhieva, a teacher and head of the Sci High club at Miroslav and Alex’s school, calls the event genuinely inspiring — at least 13 teams and projects tied to real life.