Innovated in Cluj.
This city thinks #different
Welcome to Innovated in Cluj, the platform for the innovative spirit of the people of Cluj-Napoca.
This city thinks #different. Innovation implies bringing well-known things together and perfecting them so we can grow stronger, better, brighter and higher. Innovation makes us look at the world around us differently and improve it in any way possible.
M
ission
We will gather the brilliant ideas of the people in Cluj and showcase them for the entire world to see. It is the first digital Innovation exhibition of a community. It is an open public invitation to join us in endorsing and promoting the creative power of the innovative talents of Cluj.
V
ision
We want to create the best environment for the innovative spirit of Cluj to thrive and for its results to be communicated on a global scale.
O
bjectives
- Our platform will be the one-stop-shop for real stories of innovators, funding and networking opportunities, and resources for the innovator in you.
- We will catalyze the ideas and the initiatives of the community and the ecosystem in Cluj, and match them with the European initiatives.
- We create an open space for nurturing innovation with diverse means of support.
- We are welcoming everybody to join the journey of a different future: the one we build TOGETHER.
We would like you to know that this page is offered by AROBS Transylvania Software to the community of Cluj. We are providing you with a framework we think is going to make the innovation community of Cluj more visible and connected. By launching this website we are launching an invitation to you to contribute, and there are multiple ways you can do this, at different stages of this process. Thus far we are providing you with a proposal of a framework (with some examples that fit into it) a process proposal, and some proposed rules to govern it all.
Join the two online public consultations (dates to be announced soon on this website in the “Latest News” section)
The Steering Committee will be selected by the Cluster of Education Board, based on criteria discussed in the public consultations, and proposals made in a form (to be announced in News Section).
The Steering Committee will select proposals to be uploaded to the website, based on criteria discussed in the public consultations, and proposals made in a form (to be announced in News Section).
We want to be open and transparent.
What makes Cluj #different
Is the city that hosts 100.000 students.
It is the city where 1 în 4 people under 35 work in IT
It is the city with 1.500 IT companies
It is the city with 6 public universities that are recognised at international level
It is the city with most clusters in Romania, and informally known as the Clusters Capital of Europe
It is the city that wishes to become a home for startups, and inventors, innovators and brands
History - a local perspective of Cluj Journey
European Youth Capital of 2015
The city of Cluj-Napoca was declared in 2012 the European Youth Capital of 2015. What followed was a year-long collective effort to sustain the title and more than 1500 events (projects, happenings, events, etc.) that kept the whole city in highlight and created the seeds of a new type of approach to public activities. Young people felt empowered and supported and in retrospect it has started a mindset change process that opened the door to innovation in the historic capital of Transylvania.
The title of European Youth Capital kickstarted a mindset change in the city and is considered by many the start of a new era for the city of Cluj-Napoca.
Bid to apply to the title of European Capital of Culture – finalist in the national competition (2nd place)
Coming after the success of the European Youth Capital – the result of the national competition for the award was perceived by the community as a failure. As in the startup world, the power of it pushed the local ecosystem even more and connected the people in a new form of collaboration, to try to prove both to the local audience as to the outsiders that the city can follow the established strategies in the candidacy even outside the competition framework.
It was in retrospect the starting point of test, adapt, restart approach of what already started to look more like an ecosystem.
The TCIC annual Conference
Attended by Markku Markkula – the president of the Committee of the Regions – the 2016th edition of this annual event had the theme of “Turning Cluj into a European Innovation Capital” as a journey toward a collaborative and bold approach of the resources and competitive advantages of all of us, together. It was the first time in a public event that the local community was encouraged to approach the road to achieve an innovation title, and the outside recognition of Cluj hanging a functional quadruple helix environment.
Citizens’ dialogues
On the 13th of June 2017, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) organised a citizen’s dialogue in Cluj, for the first time in Romania. Alongside Mayor Emil Boc, the CoR president Markku Markkulla opened the conversation with the participants on the theme of “Reflecting upon Europe, from the heart of Transylvania – 10 years since Cluj became a European city”.
A series of large-scale events in the fields of innovation and communication transformed the city of Cluj into a European dialogue platform, offering the right context for the Citizen’s dialogue. The audience of the event was made up of students, members of civil society, non-governmental organisations, local entrepreneurs, but also representatives from the start-up area.
Participants were engaged in discussions on how Europe was perceived at the local level, as well as European cohesion, and the facilitation of citizens’ involvement in solving problems faced by the EU.
Center for Innovation and Civic Imagination
In October, Cluj-Napoca City Hall inaugurated the Center for Innovation and Civic Imagination (CIIC) during a debate that had the theme ”The Railways Park – The Contest of Solutions for the Rehabilitation of the Park”.
The Center for Civic Innovation and Imagination is used as an innovative social tool that aims to become a permanent laboratory in which to develop different forms of collaboration between the actors in the city.
CIIC aims to bring together the positive energies of the city in an organised framework, where ideas can be analysed and debated alongside experts. Through CIIC, the city wishes to promote the participation and involvement of citizens in developing Cluj and utilising resources creatively. This innovative instrument has been appreciated nationally and internationally, receiving two awards: “Gala CeRe – Galei Premiilor Participării Publice”, “Conferința Inovație și calitate în sectorul public – Premiul I pentru CIIC”
Designed, launched and proposed to the community by the Mayor of the city, Emil Boc, the Centre was coordinated and curated for it’s first years by Ovidiu Cimpean, development director within the Cluj -Napoca Municipality, who moderated douzens of public events, since 2017 to this day.
Cluj-Napoca INNOVATION CAMP #1
Organised following the JRC validated methodology. The first innovation camp organised in Cluj-Napoca was a part of the series of events co-organised by the municipality of Cluj-Napoca and ARIES Transilvania (known today as TransilvaniaITCluster).
It brought for the first time under the same umbrella actors and stakeholders from the Quadruple Helix to co-design practical and pragmatic solutions to local societal challenges with local resources.
Open Innovation 2.0 Conference
This candidacy was a joint effort of Cluj-Napoca City Hall in partnership with ARIES Transylvania, one of the IT clusters of the city, (known today as Transilvania IT Cluster.
More than 400 innovation specialists, political stakeholders and private companies from all over Europe attended the conference. The main objective of the 2017 edition of the Open Innovation 2.0 Conference puts the spotlight on the success stories and the promotion of collaborative projects between the actors of the local and regional innovation ecosystem. Thus, all the stakeholders involved focused on setting the basis for future innovation policies and on establishing the necessary actions for the nearest future in order to achieve sustainable development.
Cluj-Napoca INNOVATION CAMP #2
Cluj Innovation Camp was dedicated to cross-sectoral innovation in the Transylvania region. The event reunited 50 experts from 10 countries and diverse economic sectors at Liberty Technology Park. The main themes put under debate were education in the digital age, the co-creation of an innovative ecosystem in Transylvania and Cluj innovation manifesto. The working frame of Cluj Innovation Camp 2018 was agile, aiming to co-create solutions for a given issue. The challenge had a high stake for it was intended to be part of the greater process of establishing the local strategy for the development of an innovative ecosystem by 2030. The solutions were proposed by the 50 experts from Romania, Finland, France, Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria, Sweden, Spain, Republic of Moldova. The final goal is to take the shape of real projects and stay a pillar for Cluj-Napoca Innovation Strategy 2030.
In retrospect, the seeds of some of the most innovative projects of the city were planted in this innovation camp.
StartupEuropeSummit #SES19
Startup Europe Summit 2019 was organised in Cluj-Napoca, Romania on 21-22 March.
Cluj became the startup capital of Europe during the #SES19. Startup Europe Summit was hosted under the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Leading players in technology entrepreneurship and innovation in Central and Eastern Europe met key actors in innovation ecosystems from Western Europe.
It was an opportunity for the local ecosystem to feel as a part of the European family of startups and also to have a glimpse into the potential that the European resources might mean to the city’s needs to nurture a friendly and enabling environment for young people into developing entrepreneurial and startup approaches.
Fondation Botnar joins the conversation
In 2019 in Cluj-Napoca comes a new stakeholder, an international NGO in the look for innovative communities to join energies and forces into the mission of addressing young people wellbeing.
They curate a series of gatherings, opened an new type of community conversations, connecting different groups of people and actors into a enquiry that aimed to better collectively understand who we are, where do we come from and what are the challenges we need to address on a long term perspective.
The first actions initiated were to support small scale startups addressing social innovation topics, the cross-sectoral of a mapping effort to tackle young people wellbeing and the mapping of formal and non formal status of learning and education in the city and the metropolitan area.
Global StarupCities Initiative
The initiative brings together second tier-cities in the attempt to create a collaborative network of resources and infrastructure to serve the needs of startups from all over the world to develop their products, ideas, processes from a stage to the other – using the support of any f the cities that are part of the network. It is a bottom-up response to the need of brain circulation and talent endorsement in as many places in Europe and the world as possible.
The main event of the network is the Startupcities @UniqueSummit – Co-organized by StartupCities Braga (Portugal), Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Cologne (Germany), Heraklion (Greece), Ostrava (Czech Republic), Valencia (Spain), Vantaa (Finland), Varna (Bulgaria) and Malaga (Spain). All of them stand out for their innovation and their commitment to promoting dynamic entrepreneurship ecosystems.
Years later this initiative was assumed by the Cluj Cluster of Education – C-Edu, that now represents the city of Cluj-Napoca in this first pan-European platform for collaboration and stimulation of start-ups in Europe and the world -StartupCitiesPlatform.
Cluj local ecosystem welcomes startups mostly from AI-IoT med Tech, under the eHealth Area. For local talents and startups with ideas in other areas of interest, our work is to connect them and endorse them to the other cities in this Family of Startupcities where they can thrive, develop and contribute to the new economy of Europe.
Aici o sa fie embeduit video
Cluj-Napoca INNOVATION CAMP #3
Under the coordination of Transilvania IT Cluster the local innovation ecosystem – that already started to see the benefits of such ecosystemic approach and efforts – reunited for the third time to tackle the latest identified and collectively assumed challenges of the city.
It is the place where challenges from the year before were deepened into the problem solving process and the understanding of the potential solutions arose.
iCapital Award 2020
Cluj Napoca is the first city in Eastern Europe that managed to get in the Final part of the Competition for the Innovation Capital Title along with another 11 cities from Europe.
The model of innovation development in Cluj Napoca is the „City platform”, which ensures sustainable development of the community through social innovation and collaborative processes. These processes are the result of collaboration between citizens, the academic community, local companies, nongovernmental associations and public administration.
Thanks to a vision based on an innovative and cooperating ecosystem, transformed Cluj Napoca into one of the best developed innovative hubs from Romania and the European Union. The competition recognizes European cities who develop vibrant innovation ecosystems to address current challenges and to improve the quality of life of the citizens.
Cluster of Education C-EDU
In October 2020 Founded by the six public universities of Cluj-Napoca, the County School Inspectorate, Transylvania College Foundation, the County of Cluj and the Municipality of Cluj-Napoca launched the first Education Cluster in Romania. The main purpose of the Education Cluster is to create an inclusive and co-design platform that illustrates the needs of the community in terms of education and its accessibility. Also, C-EDU encourages the creation of partnerships between the public and the private sector, between administrations, learning institutions and non-profit organisations that would ensure better integration of young people in the labour market once they finish their studies.
Cluj Cluster of Education C-EDU is the local ecosystem response to the cross-sectoral need of learning and education of a city.
Created in – in the months of unprecedented lockdown caused by COVID 19, Cluj Cluster of Education C-EDU is a non-governmental association founded
What is Next?
C-EDU invites the community of Cluj-Napoca to a conversation on the Future of learning in the city where values, collaboration, transfer of expertise and testing of new ways to deliver education are at the core of the discussion
OurCluj
OurCity is one of Fondation Botnar’s key initiatives, aiming to support selected cities around the world to implement coordinated programs that leverage digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), and transform them into places where young people’s wellbeing and opportunity is secured. OurCluj is a living laboratory, aiming to shift the dominant paradigm of urban development from unsustainable growth towards the wellbeing of youth and all citizens (in the context of EU Green Deal towards climate neutral by 2050, European Education Area 2025, EU Democracy Action Plan, SDGs 2030, The New Urban Agenda, etc.). It is co-created with local partners (public, private, civic & youth), stewarded by SDG CoLab/Barbara Bulc and funded by Fondation Botnar. It is a 10-year strategic commitment, with a systems thinking perspective that has a holistic view of youth wellbeing, catalyses collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives & practicing communities through participatory and collaborative governance, co-designs social and civic innovation ecosystem through inclusive and sustainable programs with public, private, civic & youth partners, and builds capacities and capabilities of local partners, catalyses new structures or communities towards self-organization and sustainability.
FIX Cluj
The City Hall of Cluj-Napoca, C-EDU Education Cluster and Botnar Foundation launched the first innovation and experiment fund dedicated to financing the entrepreneurial initiatives of young people in Cluj. FIX CLUJ is the result of a co-design process of the Cluj innovation ecosystem.
FIX CLUJ is focused on building ecosystems that will support communities to rebuild, helping groups of young people in Cluj-Napoca to create innovative entrepreneurship initiatives that can have a significant impact.
This programme can be accessed by young people with ages between 16 and 26 that live, work or study in Cluj-Napoca.The programme supports young people with grants of up to 50,000 euros in three stages to experiment, test and develop their innovative ideas. Selected participants are aided in forming strong teams and guided in identifying real problems in the community and finding the best solutions for them.
Global StartupCities Summit Malaga
Organised by Promálaga, the summit was held at FYCMA (Trade Fairs and Congress Centre of Malaga).
More than 170 startups and entrepreneurs met in Malaga with other organisations, public administrations, and investors to share ideas, present solutions and find new business opportunities. In addition, nine cities from eight European countries co-organising this meeting showed the projects they were carrying out to boost their entrepreneurship ecosystems through four thematic areas: markets, talent, women, and young.
Thus, together with Malaga, the StartupCities of Braga (Portugal); Cluj-Napoca (Romania); Cologne (Germany); Heraklion (Greece); Ostrava (Czech Republic); Valencia (Spain); Vantaa (Finland) and Varna (Bulgaria) participated in this first face-to-face edition of the summit. In this regard, all cities planned to work as one in showcasing their resources for a multiplier effect in the common drive of their innovative agendas at local, national and international levels.
The content program had speakers of the highest level and addressed cross-cutting themes such as new businesses in the circular economy; citizen participation at a global level; geostrategic location, an international program for entrepreneurial villages, known as StartupVillages; global talent trends or client access program for start-ups; as well as other specific topics such as the areas of global innovation in agri-food, climate, electronic sports/video games, mobility, or health.
Innowave Summit
Innowave Summit 2022 is one of the most significant high-tech conferences in Southeast Europe, with the main focus on the digitalization of the private and public sectors and enhancing the digital transformation and technology transfer in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The event gathers together in one place the best experts in marketing, e-commerce, customer service, blockchain, cloud services, fintech and other areas of business to share the latest trends and innovations in front of a wide audience.
Innowave Summit brings together entrepreneurs, top experts, startups and C-level managers from 28 countries to exchange ideas and good practices and look for ways to elevate their business to global markets! Innowave Summit is more than just a business event. This is the place where businesses can take the next level in their development, where entrepreneurs can find new partners and customers and where startups can scale their ideas!
“The vision of Innowave Summit 2022 Cluj-Napoca is to unite the digital leaders of Europe and boost the innovation ecosystems” – this is the common vision shared by the organizers of the event and the network that supports them.
European Youth Capital of 2015
The city of Cluj-Napoca was declared in 2012 the European Youth Capital of 2015. What followed was a year-long collective effort to sustain the title and more than 1500 events (projects, happenings, events, etc.) that kept the whole city in highlight and created the seeds of a new type of approach to public activities. Young people felt empowered and supported and in retrospect it has started a mindset change process that opened the door to innovation in the historic capital of Transylvania.
The title of European Youth Capital kickstarted a mindset change in the city and is considered by many the start of a new era for the city of Cluj-Napoca.
Bid to apply to the title of European Capital of Culture – finalist in the national competition (2nd place)
Coming after the success of the European Youth Capital – the result of the national competition for the award was perceived by the community as a failure. As in the startup world, the power of it pushed the local ecosystem even more and connected the people in a new form of collaboration, to try to prove both to the local audience as to the outsiders that the city can follow the established strategies in the candidacy even outside the competition framework.
It was in retrospect the starting point of test, adapt, restart approach of what already started to look more like an ecosystem.
The TCIC annual Conference
Attended by Markku Markkula – the president of the Committee of the Regions – the 2016th edition of this annual event had the theme of “Turning Cluj into a European Innovation Capital” as a journey toward a collaborative and bold approach of the resources and competitive advantages of all of us, together. It was the first time in a public event that the local community was encouraged to approach the road to achieve an innovation title, and the outside recognition of Cluj hanging a functional quadruple helix environment.
Citizens’ dialogues
On the 13th of June 2017, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) organised a citizen’s dialogue in Cluj, for the first time in Romania. Alongside Mayor Emil Boc, the CoR president Markku Markkulla opened the conversation with the participants on the theme of “Reflecting upon Europe, from the heart of Transylvania – 10 years since Cluj became a European city”.
A series of large-scale events in the fields of innovation and communication transformed the city of Cluj into a European dialogue platform, offering the right context for the Citizen’s dialogue. The audience of the event was made up of students, members of civil society, non-governmental organisations, local entrepreneurs, but also representatives from the start-up area.
Participants were engaged in discussions on how Europe was perceived at the local level, as well as European cohesion, and the facilitation of citizens’ involvement in solving problems faced by the EU.
Center for Innovation and Civic Imagination
In October, Cluj-Napoca City Hall inaugurated the Center for Innovation and Civic Imagination (CIIC) during a debate that had the theme ”The Railways Park – The Contest of Solutions for the Rehabilitation of the Park”.
The Center for Civic Innovation and Imagination is used as an innovative social tool that aims to become a permanent laboratory in which to develop different forms of collaboration between the actors in the city.
CIIC aims to bring together the positive energies of the city in an organised framework, where ideas can be analysed and debated alongside experts. Through CIIC, the city wishes to promote the participation and involvement of citizens in developing Cluj and utilising resources creatively. This innovative instrument has been appreciated nationally and internationally, receiving two awards: “Gala CeRe – Galei Premiilor Participării Publice”, “Conferința Inovație și calitate în sectorul public – Premiul I pentru CIIC”
Designed, launched and proposed to the community by the Mayor of the city, Emil Boc, the Centre was coordinated and curated for it’s first years by Ovidiu Cimpean, development director within the Cluj -Napoca Municipality, who moderated douzens of public events, since 2017 to this day.
Cluj-Napoca INNOVATION CAMP #1
Organised following the JRC validated methodology. The first innovation camp organised in Cluj-Napoca was a part of the series of events co-organised by the municipality of Cluj-Napoca and ARIES Transilvania (known today as TransilvaniaITCluster).
It brought for the first time under the same umbrella actors and stakeholders from the Quadruple Helix to co-design practical and pragmatic solutions to local societal challenges with local resources.
Open Innovation 2.0 Conference
This candidacy was a joint effort of Cluj-Napoca City Hall in partnership with ARIES Transylvania, one of the IT clusters of the city, (known today as Transilvania IT Cluster.
More than 400 innovation specialists, political stakeholders and private companies from all over Europe attended the conference. The main objective of the 2017 edition of the Open Innovation 2.0 Conference puts the spotlight on the success stories and the promotion of collaborative projects between the actors of the local and regional innovation ecosystem. Thus, all the stakeholders involved focused on setting the basis for future innovation policies and on establishing the necessary actions for the nearest future in order to achieve sustainable development.
Cluj-Napoca INNOVATION CAMP #2
Cluj Innovation Camp was dedicated to cross-sectoral innovation in the Transylvania region. The event reunited 50 experts from 10 countries and diverse economic sectors at Liberty Technology Park. The main themes put under debate were education in the digital age, the co-creation of an innovative ecosystem in Transylvania and Cluj innovation manifesto. The working frame of Cluj Innovation Camp 2018 was agile, aiming to co-create solutions for a given issue. The challenge had a high stake for it was intended to be part of the greater process of establishing the local strategy for the development of an innovative ecosystem by 2030. The solutions were proposed by the 50 experts from Romania, Finland, France, Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria, Sweden, Spain, Republic of Moldova. The final goal is to take the shape of real projects and stay a pillar for Cluj-Napoca Innovation Strategy 2030.
In retrospect, the seeds of some of the most innovative projects of the city were planted in this innovation camp.
StartupEuropeSummit #SES19
Startup Europe Summit 2019 was organised in Cluj-Napoca, Romania on 21-22 March.
Cluj became the startup capital of Europe during the #SES19. Startup Europe Summit was hosted under the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Leading players in technology entrepreneurship and innovation in Central and Eastern Europe met key actors in innovation ecosystems from Western Europe.
It was an opportunity for the local ecosystem to feel as a part of the European family of startups and also to have a glimpse into the potential that the European resources might mean to the city’s needs to nurture a friendly and enabling environment for young people into developing entrepreneurial and startup approaches.
Fondation Botnar joins the conversation
In 2019 in Cluj-Napoca comes a new stakeholder, an international NGO in the look for innovative communities to join energies and forces into the mission of addressing young people wellbeing.
They curate a series of gatherings, opened an new type of community conversations, connecting different groups of people and actors into a enquiry that aimed to better collectively understand who we are, where do we come from and what are the challenges we need to address on a long term perspective.
The first actions initiated were to support small scale startups addressing social innovation topics, the cross-sectoral of a mapping effort to tackle young people wellbeing and the mapping of formal and non formal status of learning and education in the city and the metropolitan area.
Global StarupCities Initiative
The initiative brings together second tier-cities in the attempt to create a collaborative network of resources and infrastructure to serve the needs of startups from all over the world to develop their products, ideas, processes from a stage to the other – using the support of any f the cities that are part of the network. It is a bottom-up response to the need of brain circulation and talent endorsement in as many places in Europe and the world as possible.
The main event of the network is the Startupcities @UniqueSummit – Co-organized by StartupCities Braga (Portugal), Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Cologne (Germany), Heraklion (Greece), Ostrava (Czech Republic), Valencia (Spain), Vantaa (Finland), Varna (Bulgaria) and Malaga (Spain). All of them stand out for their innovation and their commitment to promoting dynamic entrepreneurship ecosystems.
Years later this initiative was assumed by the Cluj Cluster of Education – C-Edu, that now represents the city of Cluj-Napoca in this first pan-European platform for collaboration and stimulation of start-ups in Europe and the world -StartupCitiesPlatform.
Cluj local ecosystem welcomes startups mostly from AI-IoT med Tech, under the eHealth Area. For local talents and startups with ideas in other areas of interest, our work is to connect them and endorse them to the other cities in this Family of Startupcities where they can thrive, develop and contribute to the new economy of Europe.
Cluj-Napoca INNOVATION CAMP #3
Under the coordination of Transilvania IT Cluster the local innovation ecosystem – that already started to see the benefits of such ecosystemic approach and efforts – reunited for the third time to tackle the latest identified and collectively assumed challenges of the city.
It is the place where challenges from the year before were deepened into the problem solving process and the understanding of the potential solutions arose.
iCapital Award 2020
Cluj Napoca is the first city in Eastern Europe that managed to get in the Final part of the Competition for the Innovation Capital Title along with another 11 cities from Europe.
The model of innovation development in Cluj Napoca is the „City platform”, which ensures sustainable development of the community through social innovation and collaborative processes. These processes are the result of collaboration between citizens, the academic community, local companies, nongovernmental associations and public administration.
Thanks to a vision based on an innovative and cooperating ecosystem, transformed Cluj Napoca into one of the best developed innovative hubs from Romania and the European Union. The competition recognizes European cities who develop vibrant innovation ecosystems to address current challenges and to improve the quality of life of the citizens.
Cluster of Education C-EDU
In October 2020 Founded by the six public universities of Cluj-Napoca, the County School Inspectorate, Transylvania College Foundation, the County of Cluj and the Municipality of Cluj-Napoca launched the first Education Cluster in Romania. The main purpose of the Education Cluster is to create an inclusive and co-design platform that illustrates the needs of the community in terms of education and its accessibility. Also, C-EDU encourages the creation of partnerships between the public and the private sector, between administrations, learning institutions and non-profit organisations that would ensure better integration of young people in the labour market once they finish their studies.
Cluj Cluster of Education C-EDU is the local ecosystem response to the cross-sectoral need of learning and education of a city.
Created in – in the months of unprecedented lockdown caused by COVID 19, Cluj Cluster of Education C-EDU is a non-governmental association founded
What is Next?
C-EDU invites the community of Cluj-Napoca to a conversation on the Future of learning in the city where values, collaboration, transfer of expertise and testing of new ways to deliver education are at the core of the discussion
OurCluj
OurCity is one of Fondation Botnar’s key initiatives, aiming to support selected cities around the world to implement coordinated programs that leverage digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), and transform them into places where young people’s wellbeing and opportunity is secured. OurCluj is a living laboratory, aiming to shift the dominant paradigm of urban development from unsustainable growth towards the wellbeing of youth and all citizens (in the context of EU Green Deal towards climate neutral by 2050, European Education Area 2025, EU Democracy Action Plan, SDGs 2030, The New Urban Agenda, etc.). It is co-created with local partners (public, private, civic & youth), stewarded by SDG CoLab/Barbara Bulc and funded by Fondation Botnar. It is a 10-year strategic commitment, with a systems thinking perspective that has a holistic view of youth wellbeing, catalyses collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives & practicing communities through participatory and collaborative governance, co-designs social and civic innovation ecosystem through inclusive and sustainable programs with public, private, civic & youth partners, and builds capacities and capabilities of local partners, catalyses new structures or communities towards self-organization and sustainability.
FIX Cluj
The City Hall of Cluj-Napoca, C-EDU Education Cluster and Botnar Foundation launched the first innovation and experiment fund dedicated to financing the entrepreneurial initiatives of young people in Cluj. FIX CLUJ is the result of a co-design process of the Cluj innovation ecosystem.
FIX CLUJ is focused on building ecosystems that will support communities to rebuild, helping groups of young people in Cluj-Napoca to create innovative entrepreneurship initiatives that can have a significant impact.
This programme can be accessed by young people with ages between 16 and 26 that live, work or study in Cluj-Napoca.The programme supports young people with grants of up to 50,000 euros in three stages to experiment, test and develop their innovative ideas. Selected participants are aided in forming strong teams and guided in identifying real problems in the community and finding the best solutions for them.
Global StartupCities Summit Malaga
Organised by Promálaga, the summit was held at FYCMA (Trade Fairs and Congress Centre of Malaga).
More than 170 startups and entrepreneurs met in Malaga with other organisations, public administrations, and investors to share ideas, present solutions and find new business opportunities. In addition, nine cities from eight European countries co-organising this meeting showed the projects they were carrying out to boost their entrepreneurship ecosystems through four thematic areas: markets, talent, women, and young.
Thus, together with Malaga, the StartupCities of Braga (Portugal); Cluj-Napoca (Romania); Cologne (Germany); Heraklion (Greece); Ostrava (Czech Republic); Valencia (Spain); Vantaa (Finland) and Varna (Bulgaria) participated in this first face-to-face edition of the summit. In this regard, all cities planned to work as one in showcasing their resources for a multiplier effect in the common drive of their innovative agendas at local, national and international levels.
The content program had speakers of the highest level and addressed cross-cutting themes such as new businesses in the circular economy; citizen participation at a global level; geostrategic location, an international program for entrepreneurial villages, known as StartupVillages; global talent trends or client access program for start-ups; as well as other specific topics such as the areas of global innovation in agri-food, climate, electronic sports/video games, mobility, or health.
Innowave Summit
Innowave Summit 2022 is one of the most significant high-tech conferences in Southeast Europe, with the main focus on the digitalization of the private and public sectors and enhancing the digital transformation and technology transfer in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The event gathers together in one place the best experts in marketing, e-commerce, customer service, blockchain, cloud services, fintech and other areas of business to share the latest trends and innovations in front of a wide audience.
Innowave Summit brings together entrepreneurs, top experts, startups and C-level managers from 28 countries to exchange ideas and good practices and look for ways to elevate their business to global markets! Innowave Summit is more than just a business event. This is the place where businesses can take the next level in their development, where entrepreneurs can find new partners and customers and where startups can scale their ideas!
“The vision of Innowave Summit 2022 Cluj-Napoca is to unite the digital leaders of Europe and boost the innovation ecosystems” – this is the common vision shared by the organizers of the event and the network that supports them.
Innovation Friends of Cluj
Quality: European Comissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth
Quality: First Vice-president of the European Committee of the Regions, President of Helsinki Region
Quality: Open Innovation 2.0 thinker and actor. Former Advisor to European Commission; Innovation Systems; Open Innovation 2.0
E-car concept
Newcar4future, a Romanian start-up in which Voicu Oprean, founder and CEO of AROBS Transilvania Software is angel investor, presents the E-Car Concept – a different prototype for an electric car.
The Concept is equipped with a dual-wheel drive engine with rear-wheel drive, a 56KW battery, a torque of 1,500 Nm per wheel, and reaches 100 km / h in 5.3 seconds. The car has an estimated range of 350 km and reaches a top speed of 210 km / h.
Newcar4future is a Romanian start-up focused on research, development, and innovation for electric vehicles. The development project lasted for four years and was carried out by a multidisciplinary team joined by researchers from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. Currently, the start-up has delivered a minimum viable product, and after the completion of the finishing and homologation stages, a limited series of 5-10 cars will be manufactured.
Product: Littar represents an innovative product of the future that can solve one of the biggest problems this world has: plastic waste. Specifically, Littar is a certified asphaltic concrete foundation material made of plastic and glass waste. It combines the need for durable and affordable infrastructure with the enormous amounts of mismanaged plastic and glass waste materials. 1 square meter of road built using Littar foundation upcycles the equivalent of 5,000 plastic bottles and 200 glass wine bottles.
LITTAR is created as a synergy solution for the individual lives of the people – their city – Earth in general. It began with 2 friends, a Dutch and Romanian, who started THE CLIMATE CHANGE SRL in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
The Climate Change Company:
“Our mission at The Climate Change Company is to act differently, by improving people’s lives, having a positive impact on our environment and ultimately on the planet we collectively call home.”
The Climate Change Company was founded on a first solution named LITTAR, which improves the current ecosystem, de-balanced by the huge amounts of plastic and glass waste we humans produce. Transforming WASTE into RESOURCE, we produce the durable roads of the future.
The Lumen glasses offer a system for the 40 million blind individuals who can’t have an advanced mobility solution. It replicates the main features a guide dog brings, in a scalable product. The lumen glasses:
- Understand the environment, objects, their position and movement in 3D
- Compute interaction paths to wanted objects or generally, based on context
- Transmit information to the blind using haptic and auditory impulses
The lumen headset contains the sensory and feedback systems required to understand the environment and communicate instructions to its user. The Feedback System uses audi and haptic feedback to transmit information to its user. By analogy, a guide dog gives all information by pulling the hand. The lumen glasses do the same by using Haptics and Sound. Regarding the sensory system, it contains a set of 5 cameras of varied specifications to understand and map the world. They determine the user’s position, the environment in which it is and perceive contextual information.
DotLumen was founded by dr. Cornel Amariei, dr. Gabriel Chindris and Mihai Ivascu
Tully is a new paradigm in ADHD treatment, integrating the well-established principles of biofeedback in a manner that children can easily engage with. The discrete sensors in the bracelet monitor the level of agitation a child is experiencing. Real time data processing allows, for the first time, a perfectly timed behavioural modification intervention, with much better results than dealing with the post factum effects of an unchecked hyperactivity event.
Victor Barna, Florin Lazăr, Adina Rus, Marius Rus
MonePOS is the contactless and paperless payment solution which consists of the direct interconnection of a small device with a charging system. Also, MonePOS is an accessibility and modern solution which supports the digitalization of financial operations carried out in various fields of activity- courier, food delivery, urban mobility, etc. This solution represents a safe and quick way to make payments. With MonePOS you pay in 10 seconds.
MonePOS solutions integrate quickly and easily with other software or hardware solutions, without needing other devices. The connection is realised by bluetooth, Wifi and USB. Because MonePOS is a sustainability and ecological solution, it provides the solution of receipt in digital format, obtained by simple QR Code scanning.
You can heat your house with renewable energy extracted from the soil, water, or air with heat pumps manufactured by ECOINSTAL. Electricity consumption of up to 20% of the thermal energy obtained, guarantees you up to 80% savings in use compared to classic heating systems.
There are 4 types of pumps: Direct ground vaporisation heat pumps, Water to water heat pumps, Ground to water heat pumps, Air to water heat pumps.
Wello is a Romanian AI tech startup that promotes a healthy lifestyle for the whole family. By applying the right dietary principles and regular exercise, families improve their mental and physical well-being. They also provide curated resources that help parents educate their children on the importance of nutrition. Their goal is to raise awareness of the alarming rates in children obesity with a multilateral approach, serving as both a virtual companion through our mobile app and real-life community that offers support and guidance through different programs. The School of Health consists of nutrition and psychology classes in primary school. Wello Camp is a healthy summer school filled with nutritious food and various physical activities.
Sveatoslav Vizitiu – CEO & Co-Founder, Dumitru Petreuș – COO & Co-Founder
People
CEO and founder, AROBS Transilvania Software
Motivated to improve healthcare through startup mindset and startups
Co-Founder & Coordinator at Transylvania Digital Innovation Hub
Mayor of Cluj-Napoca
CEO of teleportHQ.io
Innovation Processes
Innovato-R project is a innovative internal process that, under the structure of a competition – open to Municipality employees aims at developing innovative projects improving the Administration performances, reducing wastes and/or valuing resources. Proposals can be focused on service quality, goods/services acquisition, cost rationalisation, energetic optimization, bureaucratic impact reduction, increased data and in digital tools management.
Innovato-R was a bottom-up experiment, open in public administration. The potential for changing perceptions and attitudes, the way in which making a call made a difference in changing mindsets and building the self-confidence of employees without a management position, it really mattered to Cluj Napoca in terms of a good practice approach.
For Innovato-R, Cluj Napoca named an internal team, of which they were a part key members from innovation division, local development, informing citizens, human resources and IT.
This project has some innovator ideas from and for Cluj Napoca, such as:
- a professional city hall
- a better connected city hall
- an opened and receptive city hall
- a responsibility and sustainability city hall
This project supports the implementation of innovative solutions of the execution staff within the specialised device. The project aims participatory development of projects dedicated to improving the performance of local administration.
The goal is to do accessible lessons and the instruments created between unemployed employees of Romania city hall, being at the same time an extraordinary opportunity for an institution to see its team develop. Through this project, stronger relations in local public administration.
Innovato-R was a good practice transfer, adopted from the city of Turin, which Cluj-Napoca in turn transferred to different municipalities in Romania.
Every Cluj-Napoca resident can come up with a valuable idea or initiative. This is the central idea of the Centre for Civic Innovation and Imagination (CCII), the place where representatives of the local public administration, citizens and specialists from the economic and university environment debate urban transformations and challenges. Through CIIC the Municipality wants to encourage participation, citizens’ involvement in what the development of Cluj means, and to make the best use of the community’s creative resources. CIIC is used in the strategic planning of social innovation, in order to increase the decisional transparency and simplify the procedures offered to the citizens of Cluj-Napoca.
Participatory Budgeting is a process, implemented by the Municipality of Cluj-Napoca that transforms the ideas and initiatives of the community into reality. It is considered to be an open and transparent process in which the community gets the opportunity to be directly involved in policy making and spending of the local budget.
Think about the way you manage your family budget. Then imagine a family ten times bigger (your living and working community) that has to collect and spend a large sum of money (the local budget).
Participatory budgeting is a similar process and its main purpose is to create a better quality of life for the city, but most importantly for the citizens, by encouraging them to get involved into defining the investment priorities of the local budget.
In this way, everyone who lives, works or studies in Cluj and is over 18 years old can vote their favourite projects, that were declared eligible by the Technical Commission from the City Hall that analyzes the projects
The goal of Com’ON Cluj-Napoca 2021 is to carry out a facilitated process of generation, development, and collecting of community initiatives, proposed and implemented by informal groups of young people in Cluj-Napoca and supported by public funds. The process is based on participatory budgeting principles.
Com’ON Cluj-Napoca aims to involve young people from the local community of Cluj in the development of the local community through a mechanism based on the principles of participatory budgeting. This participatory approach aims to demonstrate the capacity of young people and especially of those who do not necessarily have a permanent presence in the lives of organisations
FIX CLUJ is focused on building ecosystems that will support communities to rebuild, helping groups of young people in Cluj-Napoca to create innovative entrepreneurship initiatives that can have a significant impact.
Who applied? People aged 16-26 from Cluj-Napoca, in teams of 2-5 persons. The programme is dedicated to the people that live, work or study in Cluj-Napoca.
What was the application process?
Completion of the registration form and then participation in a pitching session.
Who got selected? The programme supports young people with grants of up to 50,000 euros in three stages to experiment, test and develop their innovative ideas. The programme is aimed at young people aged 16-26, who live, work or study in Cluj-Napoca.
- 40 teams were selected for a prize of 3,000 euros in Stage 1 (prize awarded without the need to establish a company);
- 10 teams were selected for a prize of 12,000 euros in Stage 2 (after going through a mentoring process; prize awarded without the need to establish a company)
- 4 teams will be selected for funding of 35,000 euros in Stage 3 (after the registration of a new private entity).
Programs for Innovation
What about the innovator in you?
We need your help to make this platform reflect the real innovators and innovations of Cluj. We want you to be showcased to the world, and for your ideas to be at the centre of attention.