World giant Google vice-president Vinton Cerf, widely known as the Father of the Internet, praised Bulgaria's advanced thinking in the field of information technologies (IT) and encouraged the country to make IT an efficient economic machine, reported local media on Tuesday.

Vinton Cerf, who is also President of the Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is paying a visit to Bulgaria on the occasion of the IT Council meeting that Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov convened on Tuesday.

The meeting was attended by some of the most powerful and influential figures in this sphere such as Esther Dyson - publisher of Release 1.0, George Sadowsky - Executive Director of the Global Internet Policy Initiative, as well as executives of leading world companies.

"You need well-educated workforce, you need to support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and to establish favorable conditions to bring foreign entrepreneurs to Bulgaria," Cerf said to a local radio program.

He recommended the Internet should become a tool for Bulgarian to export information technologies expertise without causing a brain drain. He cited the experience of India and Ireland as suitable examples for Bulgaria to follow.

"A team of the company has lately visited Bulgaria as part of a tour to assess sites in Eastern Europe," Cerf revealed the news when he was asked whether Google plans to open an office in Sofia.

Internet users, now set at one billion, are to reach 2-3 billion by 2010, he forecast.

Source: Xinhua