Solidity of a region’s IT industry is a complex feature defined by various components like the existing multinational and local companies, support organizations, informal specialized communities, the events unrolling in respective geography, the instruments used for creation of new specialists and the propensity for innovation. Some of the predictors for the evolution of the industry on medium and long term are influenced by the global economic landscape, local demographics and attractiveness for professionals, flexibility and adaptability of the local academic players. Additionally, the dynamics of the industry and its visibility are greatly influenced by the new ventures that are starting-up locally or are choosing the region as launchpad.
Success stories like Movidius, Realmedia/imobiliare.ro, 123contactform, Freshome are necessary in order to define the vitality of the industry, but they should be prepared by a continuous process of new startups generation.
Here comes Banat IT’s association with the Innovation Labs project. Started in 2013 by the Bucharest-based Tech Lounge Association, Innovation Labs project is a learning path that consists of courses and seminars that sustain young future entrepreneurs’ drive in creating a product up to fruition. Teams of students formulate a vision and explore cutting edge technologies, build prototypes, ponder product life-cycles and branding, devise business strategies, and pitch investors for their launch, under technical and business mentors’ accompaniment all the way, cultivating the so praised and valuable product management skills and generating an as advanced as possible prototype.
This year’s Innovation Labs program is implemented in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu and Timişoara by TechLounge with the support offered by Orange, Carrefour and The Romanian-American Foundation.