site.btaSofia University Rector Highlights Critical Thinking at DisInfoHack 2026

At the opening of the final event of DisInfoHack 2026 at the Sofia University’s GATE Institute on Monday, the university's rector Prof. Georgi Valchev said that young people should develop critical thinking skills that will help them distinguish genuine information from misleading content. According to him, events such as DisInfoHack play a key role in narrowing the gap between facts and manipulation in today’s information environment.

Young people must be prepared for the challenges of the modern world and play an active role in building a sustainable information environment, Valchev said. He noted that even reliable information can sometimes be used as disinformation.

DisInfoHack is an initiative under the three-year project Countering Disinformation Environment (Ecosystem) in Bulgaria (CoDE), aimed at strengthening information resilience through a scientific approach.

The project is implemented by Sofia University through the GATE Institute, the European Studies Department of the Faculty of Philosophy, and the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, in partnership with the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the European Software Institute.