Ideas Meeting People: LəRN education platform is a fresh approach to the professional training of managers and leaders

Education is one of the most fundamental building blocks in human development. A group of professionals with various backgrounds have come up with a fresh approach to the professional training of managers and leaders from thriving areas of the job market, in an ever-changing world.

LəRN is an Advanced Education Platform that aims to bring people from different fields and enable them to share their knowledge. The Diplomat-Bucharest talked to Stefan Voloaca, one of the LəRN founders, to find out more about the platform goals and its plans.

What is LəRN? How did you come up with the idea?

We live in a world that starts to be more and more focused on skills, practical knowledge as opposed to theoretical instruction. Well, not opposed but complementary.  There is an increasing demand for the professional and personal development courses. From IT security certification courses to social media management workshops, there is a wide range of skills ignored by academic teaching programs, yet unavoidable in today’s working environment or personal life.

LəRN is an Advanced Education Platform that aims to bring people from different fields and enable them to share their knowledge. We believe that learning should be a mutual exchange between teacher and student, an open conversation, a process by which skills are passed on. It is an idea that emerged from a group of professionals, with various backgrounds: teaching, entrepreneurship, communication, social innovation and culture. LəRN brings creative learning methods, interactivity, applied study and a direct approach. Our concept (and communication tagline) is Ideas Meeting People.

The “announcing” event, the Spring Conferences are designed as a practical and creative introduction to cultural management, by means of a series of meetings with top professionals, both international and local, operating in the field of cultural management, cultural tourism, as well as local entrepreneurs.  Organized as a two-weekend event in May, 11-12 and 18-19, the classical notion of ‘conference’ is extended to an interaction between lecturer and listener, face-to-face communication, visits to museums, presentation and exploration of some independent cultural spaces and last but not least, pop-up brunches and other meetings with Romanian and foreign guests in social spaces in Bucharest.

Why an education program dedicated to managers and leaders in Romania?

LəRN brings a fresh approach to the professional training of managers and leaders from thriving areas of the job market, in an ever-changing world. The Platform has multiple elements and is structured in modules that build up in synergy. The core and the main drive of LəRN is the ensemble of post-university Training Programs, also known as “short-MBA’s”. We launch this October, with 3 Training Programs: Cultural Management, Social Innovation and Coaching. These are 3 custom-designed programs, meeting the commercial needs of the market, built with highly qualified teams and in partnerships with foreign universities. Complementing the courses, LəRN will produce video and audio materials, articles and books, with emphasis on digital content: films, lectures, conferences and other dedicated events.

We bring into this endeavor all the expertise, the educational know-how but also the capacities of Spiru Haret University. Through the international academic network and the partnerships that we have, we can offer access to a large pool of teaching talent. I remember, starting 25 years ago in advertising … there was hardly anyone that could teach you the basics and the solution was to bring “expats”. We are a long way from those pioneering years, but we still have something to LəRN from others! The more you know about the world, the more you can achieve.

How would you describe the local management scene compared to other countries in the region?

Maybe I am a bit too enthusiastic about it, but I do think that Romanian managers are amongst the best and most performant managers, when they are given the right opportunities and the right tools. It’s not that I am over-patriotic … my belief is that our history gave us an unmatched capacity to adapt and innovate. Our survival in this area, at the crossroads of history, depended of it. And our fluid approach of all things is called in more rigorous parts of the world “lateral thinking”. We are very good at problem solving. Not so good at following procedures, though.

Speaking about the region, many of the managers that started some years ago as brand managers or human resources specialists are now in top management positions, at a regional level. And most of them perform well. If I look at my Facebook friends list, there are more than a couple of regional CEOs’ and multi-country-based supervisors. Probably, it’s got to do with the right mix of flexible thinking, procedural skills and experience in a market that is quite big in volumes.

What are your main priorities regarding the coaching and personal development program?

A 2013 survey conducted by IBIS Capital Ltd shows around 3,000 e-Learning companies, Europe-wide. Romania had 76 companies, in stark contrast with the 671 companies operating in Great Britain, 532 in France or 303 in Poland. There is an absolute need for personal development answers, in this respect. This is the only way for us to grow, as a society.

An exciting journey into coaching, the LəRN personal development program will bring top professionals, local and international, that will share techniques and know-how but also will offer the participants a unique opportunity to build together a network of specialists and potential partners or peers. I have to say here that our Faculty of Psychology is one of the bests in Romania and we have quite a lot of alumni in top positions across Europe, as for example is Nestor Becia – one of the most respected psychotherapists in Cardiff, and they built an impressive network of specialists that are often in Romania for trainings and conferences. We will use and improve this network for the post-university programs.

What are your goals for the first year of LaRN?

The main goal is to make us known and recognized by the public. LəRN is a platform that will grow for many years. We need first to establish our credentials, we need to deliver a good product and we need to be crystal clear about the structure of the platform. If you have something to say, people will listen. I think is enough for the first year.