CONIECTO

There's something good in every bad thing that's happening to you...

This time, the long period of time needed for getting a visa for Ireland gave me the chance to attend this conference on 19-20 May in Bucharest.
Few details to show why this particular conference was so important to me: it's organised by a Department of the Academy of Economic Studies that was my alma mater ever since I started my studies there many many years ago: the Business Informatics Department. I got my Bachelor degree there, and also my PhD. I attended five of the seven editions (missed the first and the 6th for various reasons). It was a great occasion to meet my former professors, some of my colleagues who became academics themselves, peers from all over the country and from abroad, to take the pulse of what was happening in the Romanian research.

This year's edition was a bit different from what I've seen before: much less foreign participation, but a surprisingly numerous participation of peers from all over Romania. It looks like competition made the Romanian higher education in Business Informatics much more coherent. In order to compete, they must be aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses, and where can one observe them better than in an international conference?!
I'm glad that the old attitude of ignoring each other is gone. In a few years, they will have to face the international competition, and awareness of one's own value is a first step toward it.

I was a bit late for the opening session, scheduled in the Aula Magna, and when I stepped in, a small student choir was starting to sing the traditional Gaudeamus igitur. It was really impressive, I felt the deep significance of the moment and the important moments of my life when I've been there before came into my mind.

Lots of VIPs where there: among others, the Secretary of State at the Research Ministry , a prominent Member of the Academy and director of the Informatics Research Institute and the Rector o the Academy of Economic Studies chaired the session. In the public, several seniors who actually were the ones who pioneered the business informatics research in Romania 30-40 years ago. One of them, Valeriu Pescaru, happened to be my professor, but I've never met most of the others in person before - even if I was reading their books and following their strategies.

The Secretary of State mentioned in his speech the very low capacity of Romanian research to access European funds - only about 18% of the Romanian contribution to FP6 came back to Romania, so we're merely sponsoring the European research than participating in it. The Romanian Government set up a program of its own to encourage top research, targeting both projects, specialists and international cooperation.

The speech of the rector, prof. Ion Gh. Rosca, was extremely realistic.

The Romanian higher education system used to be a closed system. Under these circumstances, the ASE was the best school in economics all over Romania. And it is still. A lot has been done already to open for international cooperation: a Romanian-Canadian MBA, a National Institute of Economic Development, and many others. But starting with 2007, there's a good chance foreign higher education institutes will open branches in Bucharest, offering best quality education.
The rector was complaining about ASE not being in any higher education institutions top - even on the very last position. International recognition will be constantly sought before the entrance of Romania in the EU. Afterwards, it could already be too late.

I always cherished prof.Rosca for being direct, sincere and extremely realistic. And a very good manager - I still remember a meeting in Cluj 3-4 years ago where most of the rectors of Romanian higher education institutions were complaining about the very low funding and their lousy infrastructure. He was the only one who kept silent. During lunch, he felt the need to explain: his institution had all the money it needed, because they were project oriented; instead of begging money from the government, they were participating in national and international projects, putting their competencies to work, and providing for the necessary infrastructure. I always thought this is the right attitude.

We, the Romanians, are still suffering from that old mentality: it didn't count how much you worked or how good your work was - the result was pretty much the same. The only thing that mattered was to convince the party people you needed funding by using their own language and the "appropriate" arguments. People became experts in begging - for their institutions or for themselves. And some cannot get rid nowadays of the old mentality that the government should provide for their institutions, and they aren't supposed to do any efforts but asking for money. "We should be granted the money" says everything. We - passive. The donor - anonymous. Doesn't matter if it's our government or the legendary uncle Sam.

The festivities continued with the uncovering of a plate marking 40 years of business informatics research in Romania, at the entrance of the IT Center. 40 years means quite a history, and I felt a sort of pride for being a small part of this history. It was great to have the chance of greeting colleagues from all over Romania and the Republic of Moldavia under the sunny sky of May - and there were so many old acquaintances I was happy to meet again!

After 3 days of spending money in various Internet cafes in Bucharest, I discovered the big lobby of my department's building had been turned into an Internet Plaza, thanks to a generous Korean donation (well, speaking of uncle Sam...this was uncle Roh Moo-hyun)



I should have known! I should have gone there - free access for anyone on the street able to show identity papers. The unpleasant surprise was that Blogger was banned, because I felt an urge to blog my surprise immediately. I could have gone around and e-mailed my post - but then I thought that talking to as many people as possible was more important.

All the conference materials were in English - unfortunately the absence of foreign guests from most of the sections made the participants to prefer Romanian for presenting their papers, instead of using the chance to practice their English.
In my KM section, there were just a few papers really addressing KM issues. Most of the participants took this opportunity to put a new label on their work. But they cannot be condemned, because there's so little information on KM in Romanian yet.
I have been talking to several persons about jointly writing a KM textbook, and I got very positive feedback.

In the evening, I attended a Microsoft event dedicated to MS Business Solutions. The people from Microsoft were ASE alumni, and there's a very natural connection between Microsoft Romania and the ASE.

To me, the purpose of the event was clear enough: academia is very eager to teach the students how to use business applications, and so are the students. If Microsoft is to provide successful Business Solutions, getting a demo version and the necessary documentation becomes a must for universities. The interest of MS is also crystal clear: the future graduates will try to persuade their employers to adopt these solutions, because they were told they are the best.

One of the presenters was very sincere when speaking about this: the first target group was that of MBA students; they're already in companies, they are already decision makers,and the results of this campaign won't need much time to show.

Navision was mentioned more than a hundred times, I think. But besides the fact that it is role-based and it uses portals, we only got a glimpse of few screen captures, without a clear presentation of what academia could do with it. The presenters had to know their mission wasn't to convince this particular audience - it was already theirs; what was needed was a scenario of teaching the use of Navision and other MS Business Solutions to the students.

Seeing my professors at the mercy of almighty Microsoft, asking for demos and documentation, reminded me of myself at the time when my university was the first in Romania to introduce IT in Law study programs, and I was knocking on the door of every provider of legal databases trying for obtaining a demo version to show it to my students.

My secret thought was why nobody here was thinking of Open Source solutions? Participating in OS projects would be an excellent way to acquire programming skills, to learn how to collaborate in an international environment and to build business solutions from already available "bricks". There's a strong Microsoft monopoly in Romania - they are one of the strategic partners of our government. And they promise affordable solutions- I wonder what does this "affordable" really mean?

And here I am, back to my old sorrow: nobody's giving a penny in Romania on IT Evaluation. Like being poor wasn't quite enough, we spend our money careless.

Anyhow, the event was interesting, and the dinner provided by Microsoft was excellent - as always; with all my criticism, I was happy to be there and meet all these people.

Because foresight was one of the issues on discussion, I tried to look a bit into my own future, thinking of what I'd like to do after my two years Irish period. I am attracted by academia and I would like to stay close, and research doesn't seem to be an alternative here in Romania - but it's for sure I won't go into full time teaching again. I see myself more fit for higher education administration, for organising conferences, managing international projects, writing research applications. Maybe distant teaching, online facilitation for communities of practice and innovation networks, but who knows?!