Smart Transformation Forum put the Smart Cities on the agenda on September 26 at Bucharest

The Smart City sector is becoming one of the hottest topics, with nearly every major technology provider looking to jump into the connected ecosystem.

Major metropolitan areas are expected to implement technologies that could bring urban living into the digital age. Successful and sustainable Smart Cities are not built solely upon the technology mainframe, but on the support and engagement of the broader community, by prioritizing and practicing people-centered urban design and providing multi-modal pathways for all citizens to join-in and meaningfully participate in the co-creation of their Smart City.

By meaningfully and continuously engaging the public in all Smart City planning processes, city leadership, urban & private sector partners are ensuring the systems, projects & plans they create are grounded in real community needs. It’s time for our community to start turning towards smart technologies – Smart energy, Smart mobility, Smart infrastructure and Smart public services, as the core of our Smart City initiative.

Leveraging on best practices from the already implemented projects, The Diplomat – Bucharest organized the fourth edition of its national conference called Smart Transformation Forum to be held on 26 September 2019 in Bucharest, at InterContinental Bucharest.

The forum brought together over 100 participants to include Romanian Government, markets regulators and local authority representatives, Smart technologies and equipment suppliers, energy companies, community services providers for public utilities, waste management and transportation. The participants are encouraged to share knowledge, discuss the challenges they might had encountered and stimulate creative thinking about the concept of Smart Cities.

This year’s edition welcomed a strong panel of key leaders of strategic industries, such as:

• Ionut-Valeriu Andrei, State secretary, MCIS
• Mihaela Toader, State Secretary, Ministry of European Funds
• Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca
• Zoltan Nagy-Bege, Vicepresedinte ANRE
• Constantin Mitache, General Manager AMR
• Iosif Popa, Director of Strategy and Statistics, ANCOM
• Carmen Adamescu Partner EY, Leading IT Advisory Practice & IT Risk Assurance (Moderator)
• Doina Vornicu, COO & Board Member, CEZ Romania
• Adrian Modran, Executive IT, Director, Electrica
• Camelia Ene, Country Chairman & CEO Mol Romania
• Razvan Copoiu, Vice President, Industry BU South & East Europe, Schneider Electric
• Christian von Albrichfeld, Head of Country Continental
• Alexandru Nen, IoT Solutions Architect, Smart City, Telekom
• Athanasios Vamvakas, Smart Grids Director, Intracom Telecom
• Alexandru Valeriu Binig Director, Regulatory and Antitrust, Enel (Moderator)
• Radu Puchiu, Open Government Partnership
• George Didoiu, Director Tenant Services, Colliers International
• Dan Zaharia, Senior Consultant, Extind Management
• Yannis Jacob-Draghici, Solutions Engineering Director, Oracle
• Alexandru Tulai, VicePresident, Cluj IT (Moderator)

MAJOR QUOTES OF THE EVENT 

George Didoiu, Director Tenant Services, Colliers International

“Nowadays, technology goes in an area of cool and wow and the companies feel the need to follow the trend, while the actual goal may be forgotten. And this goal is to enable people, to service people and to make a better life for the people. Currently, especially in Romania, the communities are fragmented and technology is a double-faced coin. We need to understand and make technology to become a functional tool in the hand of people so that it brings actual benefits. We also need to corroborate the use of technology with the basic needs of communities.” 

Dan Zaharia, Senior Consultant, Extind Management

“Investors are mapping a wider range of Romanian cities, besides Bucharest and Iasi – the so-called “half-million” inhabitants cities. We need to look as cities such as Skopje in Northern Macedonia, Kosice, in Slovakia to learn from their best practices. For instance, cities are transforming themselves. Iasi has become an R&D center these years, compared to more than a decade ago when it was a predominant manufacturing and production label on the city. Nowadays, besides Amazon that has an R&D center at Iasi, Continental is the largest employer in the city, with over 2.500 people hired in the city,”

Radu Puchiu, Government Partnership

“A smart city must solve its problems with existing resources. First we need to see what we want to do with a city and then see if technology can help us get what we want. We must not forget people. We need to find solutions with the help of people.”

Yannis Draghici, Solution Engineering Director, ORACLE

“It’s hard to visualize how a smart city should look like. Today we live in a experience-economy. Oracle has invested a lot in data management and to protect data for customers. We haven’t began to explore all we can do with data. It’s important to start to think big.”

Alexandru Tulai, VicePresident Cluj IT

“Smart transformation is actually a cultural transformation, difficult to assume, because experience, methodologies and interest are not at a very high level. Communities are our direct client, in whatever form we find them”

Athanasios Vamvakas, Smart Grids Director Intracom Telecom

“Changes are happening very quickly. We are trying to meet our customer needs and keep up with the latest technologies. Energy is the lifeblood of change. We cannot have smart transformation without energy”

Razvan Copoiu, Vice President, Industry BU South & East Europe, Schneider Electric

“Cities grow exponentially, with 2.5 billion people moving to the cities by 2030. This implies an infrastructure development. The smart city must have connectivity, energy efficiency, integration of the human component as part of the system,”

Alexandru Nen, IoT Solutions Architect, Smart City, Telekom

“We have an extensive portfolio of solutions and experience in implementing smart city and IoT solutions. The strategic directions of the Telekom Group are perfectly aligned with the challenges of today’s society,”

Christian von Albrichsfeld, Head of Country Continental Romania

“We see future as people-centric. We have 20,000 employees in Romania, 6,500 of them working in R&D. Digitalization is one of the trends which leads to disruptive changes in mobility. We should also mention alternative drive systems, autonomous driving, connectivity and cloud”

Camelia Ene, Country Chairman & CEO MOL Romania

“Mol Group aims to become a regional leader in supplying mobility services. We are talking about digital services for our customers and streamlining internal processes. Mol is the largest car-sharing service provider in Budapest. We entered the bike-sharing segments in Budapest and Bratislava. The company aims to develop the charging infrastructure for electric cars”

Adrian Modran, Executive IT, Director, Electrica

“When we talk about cybersecurity, there is no magic box to use and then rest assured that unpleasant events will not happen for your company. Cybersecurity is executed through a selection of measures that raise operational security to a higher level. It requires a combination of preventive measures and passive-active security measures. Electrica believes in digitization and will invest in all the cutting-edge technologies that will be launched, as long as they prove their usefulness to our final customer”

Doina Vornicu, COO & Board Member of CEZ Romania

“The future of humanity belongs to automation. We can already prepare for the future. I recently read about some jobs that will soon disappear. Call centers have a 98% possibility of automation. In the next 10 years we will no longer have call-center operators. Taxi drivers have a 93% probability to disappear in the next 10 years as we talk about smart cars. However, there are jobs that cannot be replaced by robots, jobs that involve creativity, innovation and proactivity. A smart city must take into account the needs of the future. We promote innovation among our teams from CEZ. We have accessed 44 million Euro through European funds to digitize the main internal processes”

Find the full detailed agenda, panel and registration forms on the event’s official site:

Smart Transformation Forum 2019