ENERGY

Going green -  Renewable energy, of course – no one talks about anything else. This goes for Romania, too, though for a while we will not feel as much pressure to radically replace traditional energy sources with green ones as others do. What kind of energy, then? Currently, 29% of production comes from renewable sources: the high-yield hydroelectric power, which allowed Romania to look like it had complied with EU’s directions.

When it comes to other types of renewable energy, Romania is the country with the lowest investments in the EU, and its luck of having hydroelectric power is up to the flow of rivers, which is dwindling, and with it so is the willingness of international organisations to accept hydropower as renewable energy. Therefore the green future of the Romanian energy is connected to wind, sun and biomass.

For now, gas and coal are the preferred sources, which are highly pollutant and generate 70% of the energy production. However, ”Wind is Romania’s biggest chance for green energy,” believes Ondrejs Safar, who supervises the installation of 240 wind turbines at Fantanele Wind Farm, as part of a CEZ project to build a 600 MW installed power (equal to one nuclear reactor of Cernavod=) wind farm in Dobrogea.

IT

Reality of virtual reality  - The dream of smart homes and offices is still on the mind of those who imagine the evolution of technology in the next decade. Guided by technology every minute and constantly connected to the Internet, the man of the future seems like a part of an ever-expanding virtual gear. Adobe Romania’s CEO Alexandru Costin, believes that we are now at a crossroads in every fi eld and especially in IT, when the speed at which knowledge is acquired and innovation is applied has become exponential. He thinks this speed will maintain for decades from now on.

TELECOM

 Universal gadget -  Over the coming years, the phone will continue its metamorphosis, from a mobile terminal we can use to talk to sort of a Swiss army knife capable of doing everything. Or at least something more than it does today. Mihnea {erbu, senior product manager of Orange Romania says, ”The phone will continue its transformation along with the technology: camera, internal memory, screen, size and uses.” Therefore we will have a portable computer on our hands: ”We will soon see a phone that will be part of the computer family, equipped with processor, graphics memory or hard drive.”

LABOUR MARKET

 Fle-xi-bi-li-ty - How we will work in the future will obviously depend on the health of the world economy. Yet demand for productivity and efficiency will increase, regardless of the context. A phenomenon, though helped by the crisis, which was already a trend, is the shift from permanent employment contracts to working with independent contractors. The shift to this system will also entail adjusting internal processes of companies. Most contracts with independent contractors are signed for singular projects, which generates fl exibility both for companies – which can get top specialists without having to hire them for an indefinite period of time and for specialists, who can choose only those projects they are interested in.