9 events to remember 2020!

Forbes Award for Agriculture Company of the Year

The year started memorable for us, when at the end of January we received an award from Forbes for Company of the Year and became the first winner of this award in the Agriculture sector in Bulgaria. On behalf of NIK, the award was received by Kaloyan Kumanov, who shared the following in front of the audience in the hall and on national air:

“Agriculture is one of the sectors with the greatest impact on people's daily lives. Three times a day, each of us is grateful and honors the work of the farmers — at breakfast, at lunch and at dinner. However, being a farmer nowadays is quite difficult, it is a challenge — to produce quality and clean food, at an affordable price. It is in this challenge that we are helping farmers. We believe in this our mission, but as such it is a mission of our entire team that I would like to thank, who works for it every day. I would also like to thank the Forbes team for recognizing agriculture as an important sector.”

Distinction in the ranking TOP 50 employers and the award “Employer of the Year”

At the beginning of the year, our team was included in the TOP 50 Employers ranking, which was a confirmation that we are moving in the right direction in terms of caring not only for customers. A few months later, we also received the gold award in the Employer of the Year ranking and became the top employer of the year for the Agriculture sector. Assessing the importance of each person in a team and with a strong team spirit, we from NIK covered all the criteria in the Career Show Index 2020 competition. The company won the honorary first place thanks to its values, corporate culture, positive work environment and care for employees.

Kverneland Group honoured as Worldwide Importer of the Year

The news of the international award “Importer of the Year” from Kverneland Group came during AGRA 2020, when the company's commercial director Sigmund Olsen was in Bulgaria. The award “Importer of the Year” is awarded annually by the board of directors of the Kverneland Group to one of the companies that distribute the technique and is only one for the whole world. The winning company is determined by a vote of all Kverneland employees in each of the factories and offices who cast their vote, and based on this vote and the achievements of the distributors, the board of directors decides on whom to award the award.

“The award is for the great progress that NIK has made with the technique of Kverneland in Bulgaria, as well as for their unique way of working and promoting the brand. We are very proud that a year ago we chose NIK as our partner in Bulgaria and only a year later this award is proof that this was definitely the right decision. This in itself is a precedent — for an importer who has only been working with us for one year to become an Importer of the Year. At Kverneland, this is happening for the first time in the company's history and is an astonishing achievement. The results achieved by the NIK are more than impressive, especially in the case of fertilizer machines and tillage equipment. The combination of machines, equipment for precision farming and services for more precise work in the field is really something that distinguishes NIK from all other companies in Bulgaria and is extremely rare in Europe.”

The first webinar (and more online events)

Digitization this year was only in terms of data from machines, but also encompassed communication between people. However, we found a way to make this productive and useful by organizing a number of webinars with the latest innovations from the agriculture sector and interesting topics for farmers. In 2020, we launched events that gave a virtual meeting place between the NIK team, farmers and partners. The first online event took place in April and was related to the agricultural software TechnoFarm, and its success was followed by a number of other webinars - the largest of which involved farmers sharing their experiences with the new technology in”Strip-Till in Bulgaria — what do farmers and agronomists share? and professors from the most respected universities in Bulgaria in the webinar“Soil Degradation — Can We Manage It?”

Another sensational project of NIK Academy in Italy

The Italian representative office of NIK Academy was a key partner in the creation of a training center for precision agriculture in the city of Bera, in the province of Ferrara. Together with the local organization for the acquisition of professional skills and advanced training /San Giuseppe CFP, NIK started to conduct more innovative trainings with the provision of know-how, equipment for precision agriculture and lecturers.

Active participation in the hackathon “Let's hack the crisis”

After the first agrohackathon in Bulgaria AgriTechHack, which was in 2019, NIK again joined the hackathons so fashionable in the west, namely — Let's hack the crisis in Bulgaria! We expressed our social responsibility not only to the problems in agriculture, but also to the other affected sectors of the economy and public life by participating in a 48-hour hackathon in which we were part of the jury and the mentoring team. The main goal of the event was to harness the potential of all creative people in our country to deal with public fear, limitations and isolation and to show that the crisis can lead to something good — more compassion, more concern for the society in which we live, more bold ideas.

Supporting innovation and young people

And since innovations start at the local level and young people actively participate in their creation, we also supported a local initiative in Shumen, which aims to develop and seek innovations among the younger generation - Robo Academy. The aim of the Robo Academy is to revive and develop young people's interest in science and technology. The initiative took place from 10.10 to 28.11.2020, and the participants were divided into several age groups and interests and worked together on innovative solutions.

Helping people and institutions in need

Ownership is about sharing and giving. This is enshrined in Jeepak Chopra's Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, as well as many Eastern religions and beliefs, and it is something that we as a team believe in and that is why each of us, individually or as part of our team, strives to give and give. In 2020, we were again focused on helping by improving the lives of many families in the country with the help of Leo Cadelli's organization “Friends, Help”, but at the same time we supported the hospital in the city of Kádel. Shumen, which was subjected to a heavy load.

Start of the initiative NIK Vlog

In 2020, the launch of the NIK Vlog initiative was also set. In a series of videos, experts from the NIK team give answers to the questions that most often excite farmers. From the beginning of the vlog until now, advice and opinions have been given on more than 10 questions related to curiosities about new technologies in agriculture, tips on how to set up our machines correctly, how to work with mobile applications and how to get the most out of the equipment we own.

These 9 events from the “history of NIK” in 2020 definitely show us that even with a lot of lemons we can make lemonade delicious and everyone will like it.

What is your assessment of the past 12 months?