People
The Global StartupCity network offers in each of the cities a transversal innovation team as a primary contact point and communication.
Cluj-Napoca’s team covers 4 different angles and each of our Innovation Team members joined the team with a wide vision in each of the component they cover:
Research: Razvan Chereches
Professor of Public Health & Chair of de the Department of Public Health, Director of HIVE Health Innovation Center – Babeș Bolyai University, expert-evaluator for the European Commission.
Knowledge: Ion Petrovai
Medical doctor, marketer, trainer and community leader, focused on healthcare innovation (through FreshBlood HealthTech) and university led innovation (through GIPIA). HUB Project Manager for the EITHealth RIS Innovation hub since 2018. EITHealth Starship Biodesign Fellow since 2017.
Start-ups: Zaki Milhem
MD, PhDc is Chief Innovation Officer for Iceberg Consulting, as well as founder and CEO of Neuroptimum Mental Health Clinic and WakeZ, a digital therapeutic start-up for sleep and mental health. Skilled in Business Modelling, Product and Innovation Management, Go-to-Market Strategy, Communication and Research, Zaki has recently won EIT Health InnoStars Service Excellence Programme and is a vocal advocate for digital literacy in healthcare, with published contributions at prestigious conferences such as ICPIC Geneva 2019 and Stanford Medicine X 2019.
As an innovator, Zaki has won most innovation competitions he entered, such as Innovation Labs, icee.fest and EIT Healthcare Startup Bootcamp. Zaki is conducting clinical research, leading Romania’s first digital interventional clinical trial, as well as within AMOS – his Biotech PhD project, a contribution to slowing the antimicrobial resistance phenomenon. He is also one of the coordinators for the Students’ Entrepreneurial Society(ASAIH) from Cluj University of Medicine and Pharmacy.
Starting September 2020, Zaki coordinates the eHealth Working Group for the Transilvania IT Cluster and he is involved in several eHealth initiatives in Transilvania Digital Innovation Hub as well as FIT Digital Innovation Hub.
Ecosystem: Alex Roja
PhD has over 16 years of experience in academia and research with courses and research grants in areas such as strategic management, innovation, digital transformation and entrepreneurship. Alexandru Roja has been a visiting professor at several european universities addressing topics such as technological innovation management, strategic management, innovation ecosystem development, digital transformation strategies and strategic intelligence. He has participated in several Horizon 2020 projects, and he organized multiple incubation programs for students developing the university entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem. He is expert evaluator for Horizon 2020 projects.
He currently works within Transilvania IT Cluster with responsibilities for the development of the Transilvania Digital Innovation Hub strategy and the operationalization of Transilvania Living Lab, as well as as an expert in Horizon 2020 innovation projects.
The Municipality endorses the Global StartupCity Innovation Team and also designated representatives to ensure the access and facilitation of the local ecosystem:
Emil BOC
Ambassador of Cluj-Napoca eHealth& IoTM start-up city
Emilia Botezan and Oana Buzatu – Acting as Innovation Strategy Officers (ISOs) in each StartupCity.
Responsibilities:
- To detect problems at ecosystem level and to propose one local solution to solve that with the support of the EiA.
- To select a new innovation team of four people in each ecosystem.
- In 2021, to coordinate the new innovation team with one meeting every quarter and in 2022, based on the previous results, could be one meeting per semester.