The Institute for Bulgarian Language “Prof. Lyubomir Andreychin” at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences will take part in the Sofia Science Festival 2026.
From 14 to 17 May 2026, visitors to the Festival will be able to find the Institute’s stand in the Discovery Zone at Sofia Tech Park, where researchers from the Institute will welcome them with demonstrations on the theme “Artificial Intelligence vs. Young Linguist”.
Visitors will have the opportunity to discover whether large language models can outperform linguists and participants in language challenges in tasks involving the Bulgarian language. The demonstrations offer an engaging and accessible way to explore the connections between linguistics, technology and artificial intelligence.
As part of the Festival, the award ceremony for the winners of the Eighth Student Competition in Computational Linguistics will take place on 14 May 2026 at 11:00 a.m. in the Discovery Zone.
This year’s competition attracted record participation, bringing together 134 students from Bulgaria and abroad, representing 55 schools in 31 towns and cities. Participants tackled tasks involving language analysis, phraseology, modelling linguistic forms, and working with parallel texts.
The award ceremony is organised with the support of the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission, the LERAI Foundation, IBM Bulgaria, and the National Palace of Children.
The Sofia Science Festival brings together scientists, researchers, universities, STEM clubs and educational organisations that present contemporary science in an accessible and interactive way. This year, the exhibition stands are organised into three dedicated areas: the Discovery Zone, the Alpha Zone, and Professor Micron’s Workshop.