Although Romania is one of the poorest countries in the EU, it has good chances to become the new continental hub for technology startups. Thanks to its unique culture, history, educational system and telecommunications infrastructure, the country has created a generation of entrepreneurs in technology industry who hope that Bucharest will become the new European startup capital.
Romania has been a member of the EU since 2007 and is now the second fastest growing economy in Europe. Well educated in the field of new technology talent base, low wages and operating costs make it an attractive location for international companies planning to use outsourcing. However, Romania also stresses its own technological startups, especially those whose development seems to be relatively cheap. The niche has been growing rapidly for 5 years and currently concentrates already about 170 startups. One of these startups is the company Accelerole, which is a branch of the global co-working platform TechHub. Romanian company gathers already about 100 technological freelancers and entrepreneurs.
Paradoxically, the technological boom has occurred thanks to some communist heritage. The previous system left a strong telecommunications network and the educational system largely focused on new technologies. The major advantage of Romania are also creative people, who are accustomed to working in difficult and demanding conditions. Another important factor that drives the technology boom in the country is high-speed Internet. Bandwidth of best Internet links make Romania the EU leader and the country has the 6th fastest network in the world. For comparison – the US occupies this ranking only on the 17th position. Such strong position of Romania in this field stems from the fact that it disregarded the stage of development of broadband networks and immediately set (like other countries of the Eastern bloc) fiber links. With rapid development of Internet network, Romanian users have had an advantage over their European peers. It is worth recalling that they attended education system which traditionally puts the emphasis on science. This culture of technology extends to women as well. Perhaps the biggest advantage over other EU countries is that Romania has a large percentage of women working in the sector of information and communication technologies. In this category, the country occupies the 3rd place in Europe.
The main obstacle holding the industry back is access to investment capital. However, to stimulate sustained growth, Romania needs more than foreign investment. It needs an internal marketing team. There are still many problems for Bucharest to overcome, yet there is a lot of potential here.
