Gradinka.org - a social cause with a long road behind, and a bright future ahead.
Around the end of 2008, I left my current job (as a Project Manager at DEPOiLab) and launched my own company. Back then, I really wanted to do something meaningful - a social project that would make a positive impact. I had a few ideas - spam.bg in 2008 was one of them to battle e-mail spam. It was obsolete due to rules that most mail providers implemented. I saw it recently revived by a company that does similar but for spam calls - brilliant!
The other one was gradinka.org - a platform that will allow the users to map, vote, take care of, and explore the green urban areas, called little "gardens" - from where the name comes.
The idea was in place; in 2012, I started a Facebook group, and due to limitations in polygon creation, I had to create and export Google Maps as a Flash file for each garden, then have some strange system place the garden on something like a semi-static page with a description and evaluation. Surprisingly, many people gathered on board and started sharing addresses for gardens. I remember that I quickly capped my ability to develop the project and even looked around for a solution, but I failed miserably back then, so I had to do it slowly and "freeze" the project.
In 2016, I really wanted to revive the project and started with the brand identity. The talented Lilia Galabova created the logo, we chose the colours together, and built the icons for the individual survey that would be part of the platform.
I had it in my head, just... did not have the time to make it real... such a pity. See, the sad story behind every personal project is that it is always after the ones that provide food on the table. I applied for a couple of grants with the hope that this would be financed, as it is a really cool idea with a lot of potential; alas, they did not approve the project.
Fast forward a decade later, in the last months of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, I finally reached the point of "personal singularity" in enterprise AI coding. My knowledge of planning web-based tools and systems, and my familiarity with modern, effective stacks and techniques, allowed me to build the project in less than 5 days by myself. There were some bumps, but nothing too difficult to deal with, ending up with a complete management system - admins, volunteers, CSR sponsors, and citizens with gamification, location detection for avoiding irrelevant comments, three cities, and the ability to draw polygons, upload images directly to CDN, and whatnot. It is a true masterpiece, a peak in my eyes, that awaits the spring of 2026, so I can grab my family and officially announce the project. It is a proud statement that if a person wants something too hard, it will happen no matter when!
And I believe that in 2026, Gradinka.org will be much more important, especially for youngsters who are digitally native and love to hang out in parks and other city spaces. I already have an idea for a few other social projects, that now only require my knowledge, the help of the powerful coding systems I implemented and some free days. 🤠