IT and the people of Cluj Napoca. The industry that transformed a city

Currently, there are over 1,400 IT companies in Cluj-Napoca, which employ about 20,000 people. Primarily due to this industry, Cluj-Napoca has become the European city with the highest economic growth in the last 20 years.

Cluj-Napoca’s expansion into the field of technology has placed Romania on the map, so much so, it’s being labelled the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe.

In the early 2000s, in a gray city with tricolor-painted benches, several local entrepreneurs stubbornly believed in the potential of an almost unknown field in Romania. "At that time, my neighbors, who knew I was a computer science graduate, were asking me if I could fix their TVs," recalls Dan Mircea Suciu, a professor at Babeș-Bolyai University.

From the perseverance of these entrepreneurs, the first IT companies from Cluj-Napoca appeared, and they were the spark that generated a real explosion. There are currently over 1,400 IT companies employing about 20,000 people. Primarily due to this industry, Cluj-Napoca has become the European city with the highest economic growth in the last 20 years.

And this economic growth has come with a lot of changes. Cluj has become a university center populated with a growing number of students, has enriched its cultural life with film festivals and concerts and has begun to attract tourists. At the same time, the city has developed chaotically, with controversial real estate projects and exorbitant rental prices and housing.

The video was created by Recorder, and initially posted here: https://recorder.ro/it-ul-si-clujenii-industria-care-a-transformat-un-oras/