This year, between the 19th and 25th of March 2015, ClujIT has chaired once again the already well appreciated Cluj Innovation Days event. 472 participants; 40 local and international speakers; 28 hours of presentations, workshops and debate on innovation and technological transfer in – were the main numbers of the 3rd edition of the event, transforming Cluj in the regional center of innovation for a weekend. Mr. Bror Salmelin – representative of the European Commission has summarized the overall conclusions: „ The key to business success in IT is the development of own products and services, and Cluj, a city that I have been following in the last 15 years, has a great potential in this direction.”
As a matter of fact, the development of own products and services by the local IT companies, is one of the objectives assumed by Cluj IT Cluster for the next 2 years: „Currently, Cluj IT market is dominated by outsourcing, yet the technological transfer and the development of own products and services by the companies acting in the IT sector is the solution for long term growth. If at the moment about 10% of the cluster’s members revenues originate from own products and services sales, our objective for the next 2 years is to grow its weight up to 15%” declared Mr. Alexandru Tulai, President of Cluj IT Cluster, according to the official press release.
In order to reach this objective, the cluster benefits the support of German partners experience from the international network of Steinbeis Foundation that fosters economic development by facilitating the technological transfer. „In Cluj there are many universities that generate knowledge and many companies needing this knowledge. It is essential to put together the companies’ needs and the local competencies: as companies are looking for the right persons, it is equally important that researchers reach out to these companies”, explains mr. Jonathan Loefller, general director of Steinbeis Europa Zentrum from Karlsruhe.
The need for innovation in IT, including the specialization of outsourcing, have been discussed by IT managers and related industries experts, intellectual property specialists and researchers from Germany, Austria, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, US, Poland and Romania.
Cluj Innovation Days is an annual event organized by IT Cluster and aims at consolidating the IT community from Cluj and the facilitation of interaction with business partners and the public sector. Cluj Innovation Days 2015 had as a main partner Banca Transilvania and a suite of reliable partners: BCR, Orange, Oracle Partner Network, Intel, Google, Cluj Innovation Park, Deloitte, Brained City, Ericsson, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum, Research for Industry, Banca Comercială Feroviară, Cluj Hub, Outlead Marketing, Node Designs, Vitrina Advertising, Tarom, Casa de Culturăa Studenților, Primăria și Consiliul Local Cluj-Napoca. The event was also partially supported through the proejct „Innovative development through the informatization of the urban ecosystem in Cluj-Napoca”, a project implemented by Cluj IT and co-financed by the European fund for Regional Development – the Operational sectorial Programme “Increasing Business Competitivity”, Axis 1 POSCCE, operation O1.3.3 – Support for the integration of businesses in the suppliers or clusters chain.
Cluj IT is an innovative cluster association, founded in 2012 with over 40 members: IT companies, universities and research institutions, public institutions and catalyst organizations. As a business initiative, the cluster aims at supporting the increase of IT sectors’ competitively and the visibility of Romanian IT industry, and the positioning of Cluj as a regional innovation hub. The cluster benefits from the Governments’ and local authorities support as they consider Cluj IT an initiative of national importance. The clusters’ priorities for the upcoming period include the extension of international presence, common projects between the university and IT industry, the development of Cluj Innovation City, that will provide to the IT community from the region the necessary infrastructure for development, innovation and cooperation with large scale projects.
Codespring is a founding member of Cluj IT Cluster and a keen promoter of the local IT community. Codespring developed software development expertise across the years and the projects in which the team has been involved. “The focus for 2015 and the next five years is to involve Codespring in the development of complex industrial software applications and projects that require embedded and mobile programming expertise (e.g. IoT – Internet of Things), especially applications that run on dedicated hardware” – decalred Mr. Walter Brem, Codespring COO.
More information of Cluj Innovation Days: www.clujinnovationdays.com
More information on Cluj IT Cluster: www.clujit.ro
Should you be interested in finding more about Codespring and cooperation on software development and related research & development projects, feel free to write us at office@codespring.ro
