Igor Girlea, principal consultant in the Legal Committee for appointments and immunities, Parliament of the Republic of Moldova
The European Union’s EU4Digital Initiative currently embraces four key programs: EU4Digital Facility, EaPConnect, EU4Digital Cyber, and EU4Digital Broadband. EaPConnect, a €10 million program aims to bring together research and education communities from EU and Eastern partner countries and to reduce the digital divide. The project will extend network infrastructure to scale up scientific exchange across borders, offer new services to enhance international R&E cooperation, strengthen national research and education networks (NRENs) in R&E ecosystems, and build knowledge, skills, and collaborative working through events, training, and other initiatives.
StrategEast has interviewed experts from the EaP countries. Here are the answers from the expert on Moldova.
Does IT education in your country require further improvement? Do you think this program can bring tangible results for strengthening IT education in your country? Can the community of IT specialists be considered not only a professional association but also an important element of civil society in your country?
Unfortunately, even though the IT education system is one of the most efficient in Moldova, it needs an upgrade through, first structural changes of the educational institutes and, second, adjustment of the curricula to the nowadays challenges and requirements of the IT world. So, in these circumstances, definitely, this program, if properly implemented in Moldova, will bring some benefits to the IT community of Moldova, especially because of the experience exchange that this proposes.
More than that, taking into account that our culture is highly influenced, yet, by the soviet way of thinking, this program would allow a great part of the IT community to explore the European culture in their field of activity.
There is no doubt that the IT community can be and is more than just a professional association. Nowadays, the IT community influences the political agenda more than other professionals, because of the massive use of political technologies on social-media platforms. The recent results of the presidential elections in Moldova prove that the IT community influences politics and society thus needs to be highly responsible regarding societal issues.
