#slickflick

[emrearslan-blog]

#Mobile Apps: Dama Onlin

Fotoğraflarınızdan resimli hikayeler oluşturun... http://itunes.apple.com/tr/app/slickflick/id447328714?l=tr&mt=8

[inbonobo]

For Romanians, perhaps for the first time in history, the world is now flat. Forty-five years of Stalin-esque communism meant sports and education were the only acceptable ways to compete in Romania. Soviet-era industrialisation ended up producing a country where almost half of the educated population were trained to become engineers. Today, in 2012, they are more likely to be coders. And now they can take their place with the rest of the world on the level playing field of technology. (via With A Talent War In The Valley, Perhaps Romania Has The Answers? | TechCrunch)

The best Romanian coding talent was noticed by Microsoft in its hay day. It’s now gradually becoming democratised, spread out across more platforms, initially through outsourcing and now through the influx of Western start-ups in search of affordable skills. So what exactly should you expect to find in Romania? What are the pros and cons? Here’s the lowdown, with some generalizations.

People are smart, educated, fluent English speakers and resourceful lateral thinkers. On the downside, entrepreneurial culture has not yet developed. This translates into a reluctance to take risks and a lower ability to collaborate across teams. It might sound odd to Valley readers, but Romanian engineers would much rather work for a salary than for a stake in a business.

There are some examples of local entrepreneurial communities, like the one formed around the Timisoara Tech Incubator or Startupper supported by the team of Adulmec in Bucharest. But the most impactful movement is the one involving start ups that left Romania, with the likes of Ubervu, Summify and Brainient.

There is a discrepancy between skills. There is a lot of Java, .NET and PHP skills. More ‘exotic’ coding languages like Ruby, Python are harder to find. On the mobile side, there are considerably more Android coders than iOS developers.

One appeal for many western startups that either set up shop in Romania or develop a team there is the ability to offer student internships straight out of university, pick the best and groom them with the kinds of skills that they need.

Salaries are low in Romania compared with Berlin, London, Silicon Valley. This reflects the reduced access to opportunities and lack of exposure to cutting edge developments. You would expect to pay €2,000 (net) for a great developer in Bucharest. The rest of Romania is even cheaper, by about 30%. But beware of confusing the tax systems and bureaucracy.

You will find the largest tech communities in the historical university centers of Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara & Iasi. In Bucharest you have the largest and most diverse talent pool, but also a more competitive environment with higher volatility. In smaller communities there’s a stronger sense of reputation. Western cities like Timisoara and Cluj tend to have better work ethic.

Finding really valuable engineers takes time. The general guidelines are to hire a ‘magnet coder’ that can attract other trusted people from the community. When recruiting, look for Polytechinc graduates from one of the above university centers. The most popular job sites are Bestjobs.ro, ejobs.ro andJobber.ro.

The best screening for engineers is high school. There is a bit of an ‘Ivy League’ of high schools in Romania. These schools are focused on math and computer science. Every large city has one or two. 

Good Romanian engineers don’t like to be the 15th person down the chain working on a little piece of code or feel disconnected from the business. They are more likely to defect to another business if they don’t feel inspired by you or your company or the team you assemble. The real geniuses will do their own thing, just as anywhere else.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Maria Constantinescu, founder of Slickflick, the photo story app.

[thbm]

Топ-3 финалистов Seedcamp Paris 2011 по версии TEHBUM.

1. Bluefields - это стартап, который претендует на огромный пирог. Согласно заявлению ФИФА в 2001 году в футбол на планете играло около 250 миллионов человек. Зарегистрировано около 1.5 миллиона команд и 300 000 профессиональных клубов, если хоть небольшая часть этих 1.5 мио команд создаст аккаунт, то это будет успех. Монетизировать платформу можно: предлагая футболки от вами любимой профкоманды, продавая права на ленты новостей от локальных спортивных ресурсов и другие варианты. Отпадает надобность писать в группах или лично, о следующих тренировках-матчах. Установил приложение на смартфон и ты всегда в курсе событий. Тулы для оплаты также будут при нем, я надеюсь.

2. SlickFlick, как указано у них на сайте, позволяет читать и создавать комиксы, добавляя подписи к фотографиям. Социальный шаринг, также присутствует. Чуть позже первый пробник будет.

3. Уже описанный ранее infogr.am, больно уж горячая тема в современном вебе, создание инфографики.