Three Bulgarians have won second place at the 23rd EU Contest for Young Scientists held in Helsinki from 23-28 September.

Georgi Atanasov, Georgi Georgiev and Kalina Petrova shared the second prize with teams from Germany and the United Kingdom, the European Commission Representation in Bulgaria said in a statement.

Third prizes went to teams from Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom.

The project of the young Bulgarians is called DriveFreeZ and is "an open-source driving simulator, recreating the traffic conditions every driver experiences on the road. "

Its main goal is to help learner drivers and complement driving courses.

Earlier this year, the simulator won the "Youth Talents" national contest organized by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education,Youth and Science, which provided a stepping stone for the European competition.

Young scientists from Ireland, Switzerland and Lithuania ranked first in this year's edition European contest.

Their prize winning science projects in computing, engineering and medicine were selected as the best from among the 87 projects from 37 countries which were presented at the 5-day event.

In the period 23-27 September, the students presented their projects to an International Jury chaired by Prof. Maria Ana Viana-Baptista.

The projects had already won first prize in their national contests, with topics covering a broad spectrum of scientific areas: biology, chemistry, computing, social sciences, environment, mathematics, materials, engineering and medicine.

The prize winners - all under the age of 21 years - were awarded a total of EUR 51 500 at the ceremony in the Celebration Hall of the Helsinki University, with the three Bulgarians getting EUR 5000.

"Young, talented researchers will help shape our future. We need to find answers to society's biggest challenges such as climate change, finding sustainable sources of energy, feeding the world or fighting disease. So I encourage young people to follow a career in science and keep Europe world-class in research and innovation" said European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, M?ire Geoghegan-Quinn.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!