IT Local Context

According to A.T. Kearney’s “Global Services Location Index” 2009, Romania is ranked 3rd in Europe and 19th in the world, named the “new off-shoring star in Europe”. The Frost & Sullivan’s “EMS Provider Regional Migration Opportunities” 2009 Report places Romania as one of the favorite destinations for near-shore EMS production. In such context, in spite of the overwhelming IT&C volumes generated in Bucharest (Capital of Romania), Cluj-Napoca contributed to these ratings by delivering the leading hardware production centers in Romania and by hosting some of the fastest growing software development companies in South-Eastern Europe.

Cluj-Napoca and surroundings distributes it’s market shares between hardware production (30,5% of national volume, 1st rank/2008) and software development and IT services (6.3% of national volume, 3rd rank/2008). In 2009, both sectors registered fast growth: 129% (hardware-generated by consolidation of new investments) and 23% (software development). In this way Cluj-Napoca is quickly becoming Romania's techno-polis.

The City has 306.000,00 inhabitants and hosts av. 100.000,00 incoming students each year, attending 10 universities. Ranked with a high H.D.I. (Human Development Index), great linguistic skills and many professionals, Cluj-Napoca is not only a hub for software development off-shoring and near-shoring but also for other BPO (Business Outsourcing Process).

Relating to the IT activity Cluj-Napoca has a significant IT potential because of two elite universities in the country and abroad, each having an Information Technology and Computer Science Faculty. Currently, more than 5.000 software engineers are active on the work force market and a total of 1.500 graduates in IT&C are available each year. Most of them have graduated one of these two top universities:

The TECHNICAL University of Cluj-Napoca. It reunites a number of 8 faculties and more than 12.000 students. The Faculty of Automation and Computers Science is worldwide recognized for guiding more than 500 highly skilled IT specialists (software and hardware engineers) every year.

BABES-BOLYAI University. It reunites 20 faculties and more than 43.000 students.  The Faculty of Mathematics and Computers Science prepares more than 1.000 software specialists. each year.

We want to facilitate a closer interaction with students and built on its creativity, enthusiasm and productive talents. So, BitStar initiated several collaboration partnerships with both the Technical University of Cluj and the Babes Bolyai University. These partnerships validate BitStar’s involvement in the local IT movement and they are door openings for internship programs and workshops.