In October 1973 a department named Military Cybernetics and Army Leadership was founded at Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy. The name of the department has been changed several times in its history. At present it is called Information Technologies.
The first department head was Navy Captain Dr Ivan Yotov, who had just finished his postgraduate studies at the St Peterburg Kuznetsov Naval Academy in Problems of Information Processing. Captain Yotov worked at the Naval Academy for 41 years. He was an officer for almost 20 years. In 2004 he was awarded the honorary degree of ‘doctor honoris causa’.
Lieutenant Commander Dr Petar Zhivkov was head of department of Information Technologies from 1978 to 1992. Associate Prof. Ivancho Yordanov led the department from 1992 to 2013. Colonel Associate Prof. Yulian Tsonev has been its head since 2013.
A lot of lecturers, programmers, operators, computer engineers and laboratory assistants have worked in the department since its foundation. Some of them are CDR Nikolai Vichev, CDR Stancho Kateliev, Assistant Prof. Yordan Petkov, Mr Geodim Prosenikov, Lieutenant Colonel Dr Velichko Staychev, CDR Lyudmil Dimitrov, Assistant Prof. Rossitsa Lazarova, Mr Nikolai Nikolov, Mr Galin Bachvarov, Mr Ivan Kyuchukov, Mr Haygas Takvorov, Ms Vladka Georgieva, Ms Lilyana Popivanova, Ms Lyudmila Kaludova, Ms Valentina Mednikarova, Ms Slavka Krasteva, Ms Eva Vassileva etc.
Colonel Associate Prof. Youlian Tsonev, Prof. Kiril Tenekedjiev, Associate Prof. Maria Eremieva, Associate Prof. Maria Nikolova, Associate Prof. Nataliya Nikolova, Associate Prof. Petyr Cvetanov Antonov, Captain (Army) Dr Yavor Dechev, Assistant Prof. Dean Hristoff Stoeff work in Information Technologies department at present.
The average impact factor of a scientist from the department’s teaching staff is 12.8. The research papers of the scientists from the department teaching staff have been cited 89 times on average. These facts rank the department in the first place among all departments in the military academies and place it among the best departments in Bulgaria.
The department has been taking part in the initiation of the new university course of Information and communication technologies in the marine industry (for Bachelor’s and Master’s degree students) since 2013.
A CISCO networking academy was registered at the Naval Academy in 2002. More than 200 trainees have finished it. A Microsoft IT Academy was founded at the Naval Academy. Every year trainees from both academies win prizes in contests in the IT area for students on a national and international level. In 2013 a Pearson VUE international certification centre was created in the department.
The department has a Communication Centre. Its main task is to manage the local computer network of the Academy and to provide Internet access for the Internet users. The Communication Centre equipment has been renovated several times. Desktop and server virtualization in VMWARE using two Dell servers has been introduced.