Albena Spasova, Chair and Co-Founder of EdTech Bulgaria, will participate as a speaker at 1EdTech Learning Impact Europe 2026, taking place from 15 to 17 September at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her contribution will focus on a practical question facing education systems across Europe: how can schools test, evaluate and improve educational technologies before adopting them at scale?
The 2026 conference will bring together educators, university leaders, policymakers and technology providers under the theme “European synergy and digital metamorphosis in education.” Its programme is organised around three interconnected areas: pedagogical impact, leadership and policy, and technical implementation. The choice of host is also significant: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki has built extensive experience in open standards, scalable learning platforms and data-driven systems and was the first university to sign the 1EdTech TrustEd Apps Pledge.
Education does not need more disconnected technology
Schools today rarely struggle because there are too few digital products. The more common problem is that the available products do not work together.
A school may use a student information system, a learning platform, several digital-content services, an assessment tool and, increasingly, one or more AI applications. Each may require different accounts, data formats, integrations and administrative processes. Teachers may need to enter the same information several times. Students move between multiple environments. Schools can find it difficult to retrieve their data or transfer content when they change provider.
A tool can also perform well during a demonstration but encounter very different conditions in a real school: limited infrastructure, insufficient teacher preparation, timetable restrictions, accessibility requirements or incompatibility with existing systems.
This is why the conversation about educational technology must move beyond the number of devices or applications purchased. It must address whether the entire digital environment is interoperable, trusted, accessible, evidence-informed and manageable for schools.
What is 1EdTech?
1EdTech is a global, non-profit, member-led consortium bringing together education institutions, public organisations, technology companies and service providers. Its role is not to promote one platform or supplier. The community develops and certifies open standards that allow educational technologies, learning content, assessments, credentials and data systems to work together more reliably.
1EdTech Europe adapts this global work to the European context, aligning it with European frameworks, public values and regulation. Its current European workstreams include student data, digital credentials and trusted applications, with attention to requirements arising from the GDPR, the EU AI Act and the European Accessibility Act.
Although the term “technical standard” may sound distant from everyday education, its practical effect can be very concrete.
Student and class information: OneRoster provides a standard way to exchange class lists, course information and grades securely between school systems and digital tools. This can reduce repeated manual data entry and simplify the beginning of the school year.
Access to learning tools: Learning Tools Interoperability, or LTI, allows an external educational application to connect securely with a school or university learning platform. Teachers and students can access the tool through their familiar environment, while assignments, roles and grades can be exchanged through a defined integration.
Portable assessments: Question and Test Interoperability, or QTI, makes it possible to transfer questions, tests and results between compatible authoring, delivery and analytics systems. A school or publisher is therefore less dependent on one proprietary assessment environment.
Recognised achievements: Open Badges allow institutions to issue digitally verifiable and portable records of skills, competencies and other achievements. Learners can retain and present these credentials across different education and employment systems.
More informed technology selection: The TrustEd Apps programme provides structured approaches to evaluating interoperability, data privacy, security, accessibility and the handling of generative AI data. These mechanisms can support schools and universities in asking more consistent questions during procurement and product evaluation.
Why closer cooperation with 1EdTech matters for Bulgaria
For EdTech Bulgaria, cooperation with 1EdTech is not simply another international networking opportunity. It can help translate global technical knowledge into practical improvements for Bulgarian education.
For schools, interoperability means greater choice. When data, content and assessments can be transferred between systems, changing a provider becomes more realistic and less costly. Schools are less likely to become dependent on a single platform simply because moving information elsewhere is too difficult.
For teachers and students, it can mean fewer logins, fewer duplicated administrative tasks and a more coherent learning experience. Technology should reduce friction around teaching and learning rather than create additional work.
For Bulgarian EdTech companies, internationally recognised standards can provide a clearer route to other European markets. A small company should not need to build an entirely different custom integration for every school, university or country. Designing products around common standards and working towards certification can improve trust, reduce integration costs and strengthen market readiness.
For public institutions, standards can support better procurement. Tender and purchasing requirements can move beyond lists of functions and include questions such as:
- Can the institution export its data in a usable format?
- Can the product connect with existing learning and student systems?
- Has its claimed interoperability been independently tested?
- How does it address accessibility, privacy and security?
- Can assessment content or learner records be transferred if the contract ends?
This is also closely connected to digital sovereignty in education. Sovereignty does not require isolation from global technology. It requires schools and institutions to understand the systems they use, retain meaningful control over data and content, and have credible alternatives when a solution no longer meets their needs.
Testbeds: the missing bridge between innovation and adoption
Albena Spasova’s contribution in Thessaloniki will focus particularly on EdTech testbeds and trialling environments.
A testbed is not a showroom, a promotional demonstration or a short pilot designed only to produce positive testimonials. It is a structured environment in which schools, teachers, learners, researchers and technology providers can test and improve a solution under authentic educational conditions.
A well-designed trial begins with a real educational need. It examines whether the school is ready to use the solution, whether the product can integrate with existing systems and what support teachers require. It then collects evidence about usability, inclusion, workload, implementation and educational value. The outcome may be a decision to scale the solution, improve it, test it again or stop using it.
International research describes testbeds as real-world environments in which educational technologies can be co-developed, trialled and evaluated using methods appropriate to the maturity of the product. This is particularly important because the evidence base behind many educational technologies remains uneven.
EdTech Bulgaria is working with t’each’one and its wider school, university, research and industry ecosystem to develop the foundations of a Bulgarian testbed. The objective is to create a trusted space in which technologies can be explored and tested with educators and learners before decisions about wider adoption are made.
The connection with 1EdTech is therefore highly practical:
Standards help answer whether a product can connect, exchange information and remain portable. Testbeds help answer whether it works educationally, for whom, in which conditions and at what implementation cost.
Education systems need both.
Bringing the Bulgarian perspective into the European conversation
At Learning Impact Europe 2026, EdTech Bulgaria will bring experience from working with schools, technology providers, universities and public institutions in Bulgaria. This includes the development of testbed and validation models, guidance on AI in schools, digital-wellbeing initiatives and programmes that involve students and teachers directly in educational innovation.
At the same time, participation in the 1EdTech community offers an opportunity to bring practical knowledge back to Bulgaria. The intended outcomes include:
- more concrete interoperability and trust criteria for school pilots and procurement;
- guidance for Bulgarian EdTech companies interested in standards and certification;
- partnerships with European institutions already operating testbeds and validation environments;
- opportunities for Bulgarian schools and universities to participate in international pilots;
- a stronger Bulgarian voice in European discussions about trusted and interoperable education ecosystems.
“Schools should not discover only after purchasing a product that it cannot exchange data, integrate with their existing systems or be evaluated independently. Open standards and real-world testbeds allow us to ask the difficult questions before scaling—not after problems appear. Our cooperation with 1EdTech can connect international expertise with the real needs of Bulgarian teachers, learners and education providers”, said Albena Spasova.
The participation of EdTech Bulgaria in Learning Impact Europe 2026 is therefore not only about presenting Bulgarian experience. It is part of a longer-term effort to build an education ecosystem in which innovation can be tested responsibly, evidence can inform decisions and different technologies can work together without limiting the choices of schools and learners.
EdTech Bulgaria will share the practical conclusions and potential next steps from Thessaloniki with its community after the conference.
