Accelerating innovation

Professor Remus PRICOPIE,

Rector of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania.

Remus Pricopie served as Minister of National Education from December 2012 to December 2014. His activity within the Romanian Ministry of National Education began in 1996, and includes positions such as Spokesperson, Secretary General and Deputy Minister – (Secretary of State) for Higher Education, International Relations and Teacher Training. Professor Pricopie is a communication professor and Rector of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, since March 2012. He holds a PhD in Political Science at SNSPA and is a Millennium Fulbright alumnus. His educational background includes a rich international experience especially in the United States of America and European Union. Dr. Remus Pricopie has been Chair of the Task Force on Fostering and Building Human Capital (FBHC) of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) and President of the Board of Directors of the Romanian-US Fulbright Commission, to name just a few of the significant activities of representation he carried out during his professional career. The activity of Remus Pricopie encompasses trans-disciplinary research in the areas of higher education management, internationalization of higher education, public communication, public participation and collaborative public management.

H.E. Mr. Hiroshi UEDA,

Ambassador of Japan in Romania

Alexandru Mihai GHIGIU,

Alexandru-Mihai GHIGIU is the President of the National Institute of Administration (INA) as of January 21, 2022.

Mr. Ghigiu is a professor at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA), since 2018, he holds the position of Vice-Rector of the university. Between 2012 – 2014 and 2016 he was an advisor to the Minister of National Education. Also, between April and July 2017, he was Secretary of State within the General Secretariat of the Government.

Since August 2019, Mr. Ghigiu is a member of the Board of Directors of the Romanian-American Fulbright Commission.

In 2015, he obtained the title of doctor in political sciences at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies and became a full-time teacher starting in 2016. Also, Mr. Ghigiu attended numerous training and preparation courses at various universities in Europe and the United States of America, such as Universidad Complutense – Madrid (2013), École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) – Paris (2014), ETH – Swiss School of Public Governance – Zurich (2018), Kennedy School – Harvard University – Cambridge – USA (2017 and 2018) etc.

Victor NEGRESCU,

Victor Negrescu is a Member of the European Parliament, Vice-President of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), being part of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament. 

Victor Negrescu has been the rapporteur of the European Parliament for the report on Shaping Digital Education Policy and an active promotor of the allocation of 10% for quality and inclusive education of the National Recovery and Resilience Facilities, as well as 2% to the

cultural and creative sector. He managed to obtain in this regard the support of the Budgets Committee members and integrated that in the official position of the European Parliament.

In his activity as MEP, Victor Negrescu strongly advocates for consistent investments in education, culture, digitalization and youth, by Member States and the European Commission. He is the winner of the MEP Award 2015 for Digital Agenda and the MEP with the most significant pilot projects, generating in both mandates initiatives that go up to more than 80 million euros in the fields of entrepreneurship, education, innovation, digitalization, health, culture and media.

Professor Vasile BALTAC,

Title of presentation: Smart cities and the human dimension

Vasile BALTAC is professor of eGovernment at Faculty of Public Administration, SNSPA (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration), member of the boards of ECDL Foundation, Ireland and LanguageCert, UK. He is the coordinator of SoftNet Group, an IT venture more that is more than 20 years old.

Professor Constantin BRĂTIANU,

Title of presentation: Knowledge Strategies

Constantin BRĂTIANU is professor of Strategic Management and Knowledge Management at the Faculty of Management, SNSPA. He received his Ph.D. at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He is the founding Director of the Research Center for Intellectual Capital, and the international journal Management & Marketing: Challenges for the Knowledge Economy. He is a member of the American Academy of Management, Southern Association of Management, USA, and International Association of Knowledge Management. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Conference on Knowledge Management, and Chair of the Knowledge Dynamics Track. He has been Visiting Professor at universities in USA, Japan, Austria, Hungary, and Egypt. He has published over 30 books and over 200 papers in international journals and international conference proceedings. His main academic interests are knowledge dynamics, knowledge management, intellectual capital, and strategic management.

Professor Lasse BERNTZEN,

Title of presentation: A decade of smart cities

Lasse BERNTZEN is a professor in Information Systems at University of South-Eastern Norway. His research has focused on the digital society, e-government, e-participation, and "smart cities". His research examines how cities can make better decisions by using data, analytics, and visualization. He is currently doing research on how Internet-of-Things and big data can be used in some of the subdomains of smart cities, such as "smart traffic", "smart public transportation", "smart parking", "environmental monitoring", "smart waste management", "smart energy" and, "crime prevention".

Professor Milena YORDANOVA-KRUMOVA,

Title of presentation: Research on LMS and KPIs for Learning Analysis in Education

Milena YORDANOVA-KRUMOVA is an associate professor in General engineering, Ph.D. in Professional field "Economics" and Ph.D in Professional field "Electrical Engineering, Electronics, and Automation".

Cristian BULUMAC,

Title of presentation: Business-to-Government (B2G) data sharing, in the context of the proposed Regulation on harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data (Data Act)

Cristian BULUMAC is policy advisor in the European Parliament for the Greens/EFA group, covering telecommunications and space topics in the ITRE and IMCO committees. After a career in the central level of the Romanian public administration, he joined the debates on digital domain in the European Parliament.  Since 2012 he is part of the teams that drafted and negotiated the European rules on net neutrality, roaming, platforms and content regulation, consumer rights and the funding for infrastructure, research and skills in ITC. Cristian holds degrees in law and systems engineering and has previously practiced as a legal advisor for the public sector.

Professor Christian SCHACHTNER,

Title of presentation: The role of the Chief Digital Officer in public municipalis – the conceptual effect of a functional profile for successful transformation

Christian Schachtner is a professor of Public Management and doctor of Business Administration as well as Consultant and Intrapreneuer in the public management sector. The main focus is research in Agil Management, Behavioural Economics and Public Economics. Current projects are 'Public Management development within the competency-based view, new work in favour of social change and digitalization with the aspect on mindset and project based development.

Corneliu BĂRBULESCU,

Title of presentation: Move to Cloud of Enterprise Applications: large EU organisation case study

Executive Architect, Cloud CTO at IBM with 20+ years outstanding track record of transforming businesses through IT Innovation, leading Strategy, Design and Delivery of Complex IT Systems. My experience comprises the entire life cycle of the engagement, from Presales, to Solution Design, Delivery and Close. These engagements materialized as mission critical systems for IBM customers in CEE and MEA as well as a brand new ERP suite that has become the company's flagship product and a leading ERP. Project and certification portfolio reflects Thought Leadership in Enterprise Architecture, Cloud Application Architecture & Micro-services, Business Intelligence and Complex Systems Integration. That Thought Leadership has been exerted by strategic contribution to IBM as Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Strategy & Architecture, Middleware and Application Innovation, as responsibilities included Proposal Reviews, Intellectual Capital Creation and Reuse, Coaching Solution Architect Communities and Service Portofolio Management. I have driven pioneering initiatives of IBM with technical leadership roles in MEA Cloud Tiger Team and CEEMEA Solution Design Center of Excellence.

Professor Florina PÎNZARU,

Title of presentation: Sustainable smart cities in the context of the energy crisis: investing in innovative green projects for development

Professor dr. habil. Florina Pinzaru is Dean of the Faculty of Management of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania, where she teaches Management, Organizational Design in the Digital Age, and Strategic Marketing.

Florina Pinzaru holds a PhD in Economics and International Business from the Bucharest Business University ASE, a MA in Strategic Marketing, a BA in Economics and International Business from the same university, a BA in Communication and Public Relations from the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration SNSPA and she was Visiting Student at Sciences-Po Paris. She is habilitated to coordinate PhD thesis in Management and teaches regularly abroad, being Visiting Professor at ISIT Paris, France and at the University of Siedlce, Poland.

Florina Pinzaru has more than 10 years of experience as consultant and trainer in Management and Marketing for important Romanian enterprises and multinational corporations in furniture, energy and utilities.

Ciprian CIUCU,

Title of presentation: E-governance in Bucharest 6th district (S6). The middle way between playing SimCity and managing public services

Mayor of District 6 of Bucharest and also consultant in projects with Word Bank, EC, other donors on governance, project management, strategic planning.