December is the time to count all the good things and key learnings from the last year. 2023 was for SOFTECH an incredible time, since we celebrated 25 years of activity in the software development industry! Our team grew with new members and our technical portfolio enlarged with new projects! We were busy with delivering high quality services to our customers, bonding with our team and with meeting new prospects. Let’s count the best moments of 2023 in the following paragraphs!

New milestone: 25 Anniversary Year

In January 2023, we have already prepared the terrain for an awesome year, as we stepped in our 25^th year since the foundation of SOFTECH SRL in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, back in 1998. Right before joining the MWC Barcelona 2023 edition, we reunited to prepare a video summary of our 25 years.

In our short video, we tried to encapsulate 10 essential things that we genuinely celebrate at SOFTECH in 2023. The shortlist pinned the following: the actual process of software development, the fact of growing with our home city – Cluj-Napoca,  the strive to deliver excellence, the international cooperation, the fine-tuning philosophy, the tech innovation, the will to automate industries, the effort to build long-term partnerships, the embracement of organic growth strategy and the authentic local spirit – software made in Transylvania.

Recognition by Forbes Romania

In the first half of 2023 we also received the good news of being ranked on Forbes Romania’s 2023 Champions League list. The ranking counts those companies in Romania that recorded continuous growth and profit over a period of 10 years! 600.000 active companies in Romania were analysed and the list was closed at 1069 entries! We are proud to be on this selected list and we will strive to continue our constant positive results as a proof of good business and high quality software development services.

SOFTECH Team Events

What is a company’s life without its team events – small or big? Since the early years of existence, our company has taken care of fostering a healthy working environment, a good life – work balance. Being in a pure intellectual industry, we consider that our productivity largely depends on the well-being of our minds and body, of our social interactions and sense of belonging.  Therefore, together with our HR department and team leaders we have managed to organize a series of well-crafted team events.

• Team Logouts – these were fun self-organized team events, where our colleagues got to know each other better and understand what makes each of them tick. We simply loved the ideas, the style of hangouts and the follow-up images! Congrats!
• Family Day 2023 – this is an annual event offered to the families of our colleagues, so they can understand our software development community better and have the chance to interact in an informal way.
• Sporty outings – these are more or less events of our choice that we love to attend and do sports: running, mountain biking, hiking, kayaking and so on.
• Company Trip 2023 – a fantastic weekend spent together, in a large team format. The tipping point of the weekend is the hike on the mountains, during which we get to know each other better. It is also a way to convey the message that weather, as life, is unpredictable and one has to be ready for change.
• 25 Years Anniversary Party – was the cherry on the top of the cake! We gathered all our colleagues, our customers, our partners, our students, our families and friends to spend a fantastic evening together! Good music, good food and excellent company spiced the atmosphere!
• Christmas Party – is coming up! (stay tuned)

Student events and programmes

Having offices in two major academic centers from Romania – Cluj-Napoca and Târgu-Mureș, SOFTECH is happy to welcome internship students during each academic year. We are also keen on being part of student-oriented events, since the future belongs to the next generation of software engineers and developers.

• Mentoring Programme – a student oriented programme initiated back in 2010 in partnership with local elite universities. What is particular for the recent couple of years, is that we are rolling this programme in Cluj-Napoca and Târgu Mureș, in tandem with hybrid opportunities to enroll at distance.
• Transylvania Students Scientific Conference 2023 – as an already traditional partner, we were proud to see that students mentored by our colleagues did so well with their science papers!
• Vibe Koli 2023 – was a new opportunity to support VIBE Festival’s Knowledge Forum organized for the pupils and students attending the event in Târgu Mureș.
• Summer Internship – is not only the best software development experience you can get over summer, but also a great opportunity to know our team better.
• SISY Conference 2023 – IEEE 21st International Symposium on Intelligent Systems and Informatics took place in Pula, Croatia, in September. Our mentees attended the conference with 5 papers presented by 5 student teams.

Local Business Conferences and Meet-Ups

Since we are part of our local IT community, we love spending time with our industry peers and joining networking events, in the region. From all the events organized by Transilvania IT Cluster, by Cluj IT, by Today Software Magazine and to the high-level international strategic business forums chaired by ANIS Romania, we tried to participate in each action. We believe that the local ecosystem is the result of our individual actions, thus we thank all these organizations for the beautiful work they are doing.

International Business Conferences and Events

Being in the game of providing software development for the international market is not easy! Our company always has to be out there, meeting new potential business partners and entrepreneurs willing to build a software product. Our expertise and our technical skills can be better explained in a direct meeting, where we get to know our future customer and have a customized discussion. This year we have managed to attend the following major global events.

• MWC 2023, Barcelona – the world’s most influential exhibition for the connectivity industry. An event where we found inspiration, we learned about the latest technologies and made new connections for various full application life cycle development projects.
• Gitex 2023, Dubai – the largest tech show in the world, with 41 exhibition halls and two mega venues. This was definitely something bigger and very new for our company. The volume and diversity of business present and the show gave us w new perspective!
• Web Summit 2023, Lisbon – Europe’s most dynamic tech conference where the tech ecosystem is defined! It is a world of startups, of entrepreneurs, but also of large investors and business owners. The dices are rolled in Lisbon for many new tech ventures. We have added a new perspective on what is going on in the tech world and made some interesting connections.

Getting ready for 2024

Best of 2023: SOFTECH Year in  review launches the questions: what is up next in 2024?  At the end of the year it is time to prepare for the upcoming one! While we thank all our customers, employees and partners for their support and dedication, we wish to further deliver excellent results on all software development products we are part of! Contact us for further details and information.