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Romania is at the best point for its digital transformation, having a commitment at the highest level of the state that digital transformation is an utmost priority for the country, Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Transformation Sebastian Burduja said on Wednesday.
"It is a commitment made by the prime minister of Romania, and I think he is the first prime minister to do so. Digital transformation matters, it is important and has to be continued. Then, based on this commitment, in the last 10 months we have been successful with several things and I will be brief: the government cloud, a project worth EUR 600 million, which has a legislative basis now, has a technical documentation and has tenders already launched for more than EUR 100 million. At the end of 2026, we will have this government cloud completed and at least 30 state institutions migrated to the cloud. As it happened from the very beginning and also when we wrote the cloud ordinance and when we improved the technical documentation, we did it in this spirit of partnership with the private sector, including with Microsoft, and I want to thank you for all the contributions you have made," Burduja told the "Microsoft Envision Romania 2023" event.
He mentioned the Law of Interoperability promoted in the Romanian Parliament by MP Sabin Sarmas. He added that for the first time the government comes and tells the state institutions that they do not own Romanians' data, Romanians own their own data and the institutions are under an obligation to stop giving people the runaround, told Agerpres.
"It is the first law in many years that amends national security laws and defines new types of threats to national security, including propaganda, including disinformation. And I count on Microsoft to help us bring good practices from Finland and other countries around the world to combat these threats to Romania's security," said Burduja.
He added that digital transformation is not only for a better quality of life, but also to be more competitive.
In his opinion, at this moment only a quarter of Romanians have basic digital skills, although somewhere over 80% of Romanians are connected, are online. He added that there is potential and challenged Microsoft and the rest of the IT&C sector to make 1,000,000 digitally literate Romanians every year. That is how Romania will be able to reach the target set by the European Union under the digital decade throughout 2030, namely 80% of European citizens to be digitally literate.
