This study began out of the need to discover the degree of involvement IT Cluj companies show when organising and supporting events for the local IT community. The main IT events in Cluj and the monthly activity of the TSM magazine were taken into account.
Cluj is well-represented, at a national level, from the point of view of the events it hosts. Bucharest is the only city which surpass Cluj from this viewpoint. The selection of events took into account the number of participants for each event.
IT Camp - The first edition took place in 2011 and has, since then, attracted important representatives from the international Microsoft community, to Cluj.
Romanian Testing - This is an event for the testing community.
DevTalks - This event targets developers and takes place over the course of 1 day, into 4 tracks.
Techsylvania - This event, which has reached its third edition this year, targets entrepreneurs and technology lovers.
MobOS - This event focuses on mobile and IOT technologies.
IT Days- This is the main event organised by Today Software Magazine. The event takes place every year, at the end of November and targets the entire IT community.
Even mammoths can be Agile- This event focuses on Agile principles.
Lansările Today Software Magazine - This event occurs every month, it is hosted by partner companies and is free of charge.
To offer a relatively clear image of the level of contribution that each of these companies has had in the organisation of IT events, two sets of criteria must be considered.
The first set of criteria taken into consideration is the number of times the companies participated as partners in each event. Out of a total of 57 IT companies in Cluj, we chose only those which got involved in the major local events. 9 companies were shortlisted: Accenture, Accesa, Endava, Frequentis, Yardi, Yonder, 3Pillar Global, ISDC, Telenav. The following hierarchy resulted from applying this set of criteria:
In terms of sponsorship, 3Pillar Global leads the top, followed by Accenture and Endava.
The second set of criteria we applied refers to the level of material and financial support these companies have invested. The three levels (bronze, silver or gold ) received equivalents where possible. The table below highlights the degree of involvement shown by these companies:
The top is led by Accenture followed by Endava, Yardi and 3Pillar Global.
Prepared and plan up to a year in advance, these events try to attract the best speakers in their designated fields. Even if the tickets may be expensive at times, the money is mostly spent to pay for the location of the event, the food and the guest speakers. Most of the times, the available budget directly influences the quality of the events. Therefore, a company, which supports such an event, not only promotes itself, but also helps the IT community improve.
If you attend the talks for one or two days, it does not mean that you stop working. On the contrary, this is an opportunity for you to learn, to discover new things, to socialize, which allows for the development of an out-of-the-box frame of mind, which is useful for your ongoing projects. To attend such events, in most cases, it is enough to tell the HR department that you want to participate. If there are many employees who want to attend the event, the company becomes involved in the sponsorship of the event, which contributes to the success of the event. Moreover, such successful events make the companies supporting them more renowned, which then impacts the entire local IT community. Such examples are present worldwide. Then, why shouldn't we get more involved in making Cluj a landmark in this respect?
by Vlad But
by Delia Mircea
