Dr. Sharkov is Assoc. Professor at the Institute of ICT, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Since 2003, he has been Director of the European Software Institute (Sofia) and head of the Cybersecurity Lab at SofiaTechPark. He was a cyber defence adviser to the Bulgarian MoD (2014-2021) and National Cybersecurity Coordinator for the Bulgarian Government. George was a member of EU AI High-Level Expert Group and is representing European Digital SMEs and SBS in ETSI Technical Committees CYBER and Securing AI, and several ENISA working groups. He has more than 30 years of experience in developing complex software systems-of-systems, software process quality (CMMI), cyber security and resilience (CERT RMM), and trustworthy AI. He holds a PhD in AI/expert systems and is lecturing at three leading universities in Bulgaria (software quality, cybersecurity, security for AI).