Asociația Banat IT

A Silent Fluid Labirint? – Tech Communities in Timisoara

Yes, we are living in a pacific plain, here in the green Banat. Things look and they really are pretty stable, there are not major storms threatening us, the balance of inputs and outputs in the nature is predictable and slow-paced. The plants, from the most humble blade of grass to the imposing oak tree know when is the right inception moment and which is the right rhythm for growth. There is a secret fluid that connects all these vegetal creatures. We are not Venetto or Amsterdam, but beyond the natural water-flows you may see this fluid in hundreds of years old, man-built canals connecting Bega to Timis, Danube to Tisa, Mures to Tisa.

You may start asking what’s with this text (geography, hydrography or poor literature, no matter what it looks like) onTech Comm RT-1 a website that focuses on the IT scenery? My answer is that we are living within a similar reality in the tech entrepreneurship ecosystem in this region.

Probably it’s gonna be a surprise for most of the readers to learn that Timisoara counts for about two dozens of tech communities, open and informal organization, all of them voluntary-run, aiming to serve as platforms for meetings, tech novelties sharing, success-story presentation, joint learning and communication between people interested in specific tech subjects.

At a rapid glance over meetup.com (the most popular community organizing platform globally, but definitely not the place used by all the communities), you will find that Timisoara hosts 19 tech & entrepreneurship communities, while Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest, the other two most relevant cities for the Romanian IT&C industry host 14 respectively 10 such informal organizations.

This may sound as vanity metrics, but when detailed stats are run over the existing data much more relevant facts will emerge: Timisoara tech communities cummulate 2600+ members (from 8 members in the smallest community, to 421 in the largest). That is about 20% of the headcount of the IT&C industry in the city. Timisoara tech communities organized more than 360 events (since the first one still in records). In 2013, only, 11 new communities appeared.

There is a great deal of specialized technology knowledge circulated freely and shared within the numerous specialized tech communities. Even more interesting and beneficial is the fact that this knowledge circulation occurs also in a cross-pollinating way between the individual communities. Here the comparison between the region of Banat hydrographic systems and Timisoara tech ecosystem gets substance.

Over the next period, we’ll share on BanatIT.ro lots of information and analysis regarding Timisoara tech ecosystem and individual communities, in a bimonthly approach.

Until the next episode, overall detailing the list of local tech communities, keep under your scrutiny the calendar section of the site to find out about events the local ecosystem hosts.

Photo: frame from a GeekMeet Timisoara event promotion movie by Calin Deac/Simply Social