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	Romania

Internationally acknowledged IT skills

Romania - 6th place in the world and 2nd place in Europe in terms of professional competence and intellectual training.

According to a global IT IQ report made by Brainbench, Romanians already dominate Europe with more than 16,000 certified specialists. The research indicated that Romania ranks 6th place in the world and 2nd place in Europe in professional competence and intellectual training.

The research has studied the qualification of labor force in various fields: software, general knowledge, finances, health, industry, information technology, foreign languages and communication, management and executive. Brainbench is world's most important agency that makes on-line research on professional qualification.

Microsoft works with Romania

More than 300 Romanian people and a whole community of software developers work for Bill Gates in Redmond. The most eloquent acknowledgement of Romanian specialists` quality and creative potential is Microsoft's decision of buying GeCad`s RAV antivirus technology which will be integrated in 2004 in Microsoft Security Solutions. The antivirus team of GeCad has entirely migrated to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond USA.

Bill Gates has a very good opinion about Romanians. "At our first meeting he told me he was very pleased by the quality of Romanian programmers and that he was already used to hearing English with a Romanian accent on campus. Moreover, the opinion you can get discussing with people from Microsoft about the Romanian community is excellent” said Mr. Silviu Hotaran, General Manager Microsoft Romania.

Therefore he was not surprised when in the team of 200 Microsoft programmers which evaluated Windows 2000, no less than 40 specialists were Romanian employees of the richest man on Earth. "Romania has become one of the most important centers of multiple IT fields certified specialists."

“It is an internationally acknowledged fact that Romanian educational system distinguishes itself through quality" an eloquent example being given by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, who recently said that "he appreciated the existing high quality talent, especially in mathematics and computers, on the Romanian market. Therefore, according to their professional training, Romanian specialists started to be rewarded with competitive salaries which offer the possibility of a western life standard, this being the reason for them to prefer staying in the country and even for some of those that left to come back.”

Oracle pushes for Romanian “Minicom” Valley and starts up 3 excellence centers

“Oracle aims to help push Romania into becoming the Silicon Valley of Central and Eastern Europe" according to Giacoletto, Executive Vice-president for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The firm has opened 3 Oracle Services and Technology Centers in Bucharest Financial Plaza to supply services to clients all over Europe to prop up this target.

The 1st center will be specialized in administrating resources and offering support for Oracle's partners in entire Europe.

The 2nd center, the one for technical global support, is a software developing and technical support department for Oracle users in the entire world.

The 3rd center, the one for consultancy support is intended to be a regional source for Europe, Middle East and Africa for competences in implementing Oracle's solutions for telecommunications companies.

“Romania has a good tradition in mathematics, a large population and a Government motivated together to make a mini-Silicon Valley for Romania” said Giacoletto to BBW.

Giacoletto has hired around 100 mostly software engineers for the new project and expects, in the next couple of years, to expand this to 3 or 4 hundred people. All aim to be Romanian.“

Romania - 3rd place in number of IT specialists working in Germany

According to data from Federal Labor Agency, quoted by Deutsche Welle, there has been released 10.472 working permits for IT specialists between August 2000 and June 2003, out of which 1,033 for Romanians specialists.

Software industry in Romania

The software industry is growing at a remarkable rate, more than 4800 firms currently being active in this area. Over 25,000 employees are working in the software and services area. The total number of Romanian specialists is also growing steadily as the market expands. The software developed and the services provided are estimated at nearly 200 million EUR in 2002.

The software industry has posted an exponential growth as the big corporations use highly skilled Romanians for off-shore software development. This is a market segment that occupies a significant share of the specialized IT work-force. However, a highly qualified labor potential is left available to develop more competitive high-tech products.

Specialized personnel has increased by almost 40%

According to recent polls conducted by MCIT, the specialized personnel working in the IT field has increased by almost 40% lately while the migration of the employees dropped and many were convinced to return to Romania and work for local companies. The poll was conducted one year after enforcing the tax exemption for computer program development projects.

New outsourcing rival - Romania

Offshore Romania 2003, a report by Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) had a powerful echo in the international media, especially the one from business fields especially B2B.

The report confirms that Romania is now the ideal outsourcing alternative to India, with costs almost 50% less.

It claims that not only is the cost of using and providing IT services in Romania much cheaper than in India, but the country is also home to an abundance of well-educated and highly skilled workers.

"(Romania) is the area of choice for everyone else in Europe," Pete Foster, research director at PAC, said “and it is closer in cultural affinity".

Prizes

In 2002, another Romanian antivirus solution was awarded the “Most Innovative Product” Prize by the most important European competition for IT excellence and innovation, the European Information Society Technologies Awards.

This was the first East-European Winner at The European IST Awards.

High level of education

History of education and research

Romania has a strong history of education and research in all fields of engineering and software. There are 116 universities, 36 of which have a computer science related faculty.

Extraordinary results of young Romanian students

Romanian students were granted 1st place in the world for Oracle's educational programs

Tudor Vianu college students were granted 1st place in the world at the annual “International Data Modelling Competition” organized by Oracle Internet Academy. The awards were granted on February 17th 2004, celebrating the opening of Oracle Services and Technology Centers in Romania.

This year's subject was “The way a nonprofit organization can be helped to raise its revenues by using information technology”. The winning team will have the occasion, this summer, to present its project to the University of California, L.A.

“Beside the worldwide recognition or Romanian students` value, this award is a materialization of the success Oracle's investments in Romanian education had for the past years” said Mr. Alfonso Di Ianni, vice-president of Oracle for European Union Enlargement Countries.

Romania was the 2nd country that implemented Oracle Internet Academy, a global program of Oracle for college students. Romania is the 1st country in Central and Eastern Europe and the 2nd in Europe after Great Britain that benefits this program.

“Choosing Romania for opening these centers is mainly based on the human potential represented by the large number of specialists with technical skills acknowledged in informatics field” said Mr. Stefan Cojanu, General Manager of Oracle Romania.

In 2003, the Romanian Olympic team of informatics has won the 1st place among the 71 participating countries at the International Olympiad of Informatics in Wisconsin (USA), together with the American and South Korean teams. The Romanian students have won two gold and two silver medals. This was the first time when Romania has been awarded the 1st winner among all nations, although every year it has gained one of the first 5 positions.

In 2003, two Romanian high school students have been awarded by NASA in 2003 for a project about an outer space station which has a capacity of 10,000 people. They have participated in this project as part of an international contest for high school students and as a recognition of their work, they have been invited to a special scientific holiday at NASA’s headquarters.

In 2002 the Romanian Olympic team of informatics has won the 1st prize on nations, as a result of its participation at the 8th edition of IT Olympics of Central Europe, held between June 30 and July 6, 2002 at Kosice, Slovakia.

In 2001 the first Ericsson academy in Romania was inaugurated and in 2002 Autodesk made, for the Romanian universities, the biggest donation in the world - 64 Mil USD in software products.

Romania holds the 5th place among the countries of the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and the 11th place in the world within the Cisco Networking Academy program, with a total of approximately 3.000 students inscribed and 105 local Cisco academies.

Romanians - Best linguists in Europe

Romanian graduates are multi-lingual (first place in the Certificate of Proficiency in English exam at Cambridge University) and world class in competence (ranking 4th and 11th at 1999 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest ).

"Romanians are best foreign language speakers in Europe", according to The Eastern European Translators Association.

According to a study made by this organization 60% of the Romanians speak a foreign language, usually English. Some 25% of them speak 2 foreign languages (usually English and French), while 4% of them speak more than 2 foreign languages.

Despite their considerably higher living standard, other Europeans are way behind Romanians, as far as foreign languages go. Only 40% of the Germans, 35% of the French and 25% of the English bothered to learn a foreign language.

The study indicates that English will become the Romanians’ 2nd native language in future. As for the other E.U. candidate countries, Hungary ranks 2nd after Romania with 45% of the population speaking a foreign language.