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00:00:00essential information and advice from the best
00:00:04specialists. Info Diaspora, how many
00:00:08Romanians, so many answers. At TVR International.
00:00:37Romanians from near and Romanians from far, welcome to a new
00:00:40meeting under the generic article 7. Article
00:00:447, the Constitution of Romania, Romanians
00:00:47from abroad. I propose
00:00:50in this edition to
00:00:53talk about people who have
00:00:57returned to Romania to give
00:01:00back what they received in the years spent
00:01:04in Romania. So, among the topics
00:01:07that I would like to propose to you at our meeting, under the generic 7,
00:01:10will be the transfer of
00:01:14expertise from the diaspora to Romania and why
00:01:17not back. Also about
00:01:20partnerships, here, there, in all fields,
00:01:23about common applications for
00:01:26accessing funds, whether we are talking about
00:01:30culture, research or other fields,
00:01:34also about your professionalism
00:01:37as Romanians settled abroad,
00:01:40who, with the experience you
00:01:44have, can help
00:01:46Romania in countless fields so
00:01:49that things work better and better
00:01:53and my guests who left
00:01:56Romania in the 90s, I would start
00:02:00with journalist Robert Schwarz, Robert Schwarz is
00:02:04the one who led the Romanian language editorial office at
00:02:072CV for 20 years from 2002 to
00:02:112022,
00:02:13from interpersonal also, when he left Romania, he was
00:02:17the director of the German Göte college, then it was called
00:02:21the German high school,
00:02:24part of the dictum, because here everything is Robert Schwarz Journalist, publicist and artist, because
00:02:27he also sang, thank you, I'm glad
00:02:30to be here on your show, yes, as
00:02:34a student and after that for a few years I sang in the choral group
00:02:37Song, yes, it was a unique,
00:02:40extraordinary experience, with a
00:02:43fantastic audience and with many shows recorded
00:02:46here at TVR with Tudor Vornicu, from
00:02:50Germany, very close, but the Romanian from
00:02:53far away also comes, more precisely from California,
00:02:57from Silicon Valley, where...
00:03:00he has been since the 90s, Nelu Mihai,
00:03:03freshly appointed as honorary advisor to
00:03:08before resorting the Minister of Energy, Mr. Nelu Mihai
00:03:11has a doctorate in computer science
00:03:14and I met him at the Romanian Energy Gala a year
00:03:18ago, that's right Mr. Nelu Mihai, yes, I remember,
00:03:21yes, welcome back, I'm glad to be with
00:03:25you. Nelu Mihai, at that
00:03:29gala you said: that you are grateful to Romania and you
00:03:32came accompanied by one of, attention,
00:03:35your professors, you are standing next to a school principal
00:03:38who has an extraordinary project with
00:03:42the school and about the school he left, that moment was
00:03:46impressive, how you wanted to share the joy
00:03:50of that recognition from the Romanian state with one
00:03:54of your professors. Yes, I think
00:03:57it is not only. it is about a generous
00:04:01gesture, but it is also a duty to acknowledge those who
00:04:04influenced us and perhaps changed our lives at a certain
00:04:08moment and I always enjoy mentioning
00:04:12those who in one way or
00:04:15another contributed to my evolution as a person and as
00:04:18a professional. You said that you want to
00:04:21help Romania in strategic fields, technology,
00:04:25energy and
00:04:27but in areas where there is a investments, as you did.
00:04:31not only in the United States of America, but also in
00:04:35Romania? Practically since other countries, and that you want to give
00:04:38back to Romania what you received during your studies at the Faculty of
00:04:42Automation and Computers in Bucharest. You
00:04:45had a few years of sustained activity at
00:04:48the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering in Măgurele
00:04:52where you achieved
00:04:55some premieres in Romania during those years in the field of computer
00:04:59networks. and you will see that here you have something in common
00:05:02with Robert Schwarz, Mr.
00:05:05Schwarz has a testimony, he came
00:05:09with the magazine 2000 plus, a magazine.
00:05:12taken, re-edited, a magazine that from
00:05:161968 until
00:05:191981 under communism
00:05:21worked, was creative, had
00:05:25articles, articles that didn't appear then
00:05:28appear now, I kept the archive
00:05:32that I found in '90 when I became
00:05:34director, and I put it away well,
00:05:38the archive with the texts written in the years when the magazine was banned,
00:05:42so in... the 80s banned by communist censorship and I
00:05:45found last year the bag with the files, with the texts
00:05:49written then, I had forgotten where I put all the files,
00:05:53I found them at home in Sibiu in my parents' house
00:05:56and together with Anca Berlogia Boariu, I
00:05:59said let's do a project, why with her? because she
00:06:02had collected the texts then in the 80s and put them in a
00:06:06closet, where did I find them? It's a magazine in
00:06:10which we have the articles written then. but there are also
00:06:13articles written now by students
00:06:16from three German high schools, from Götte in
00:06:19Bucharest, Honterus in Brașov and Brokentall in Sibiu, because
00:06:23we want to pass on this relay, a school magazine that was
00:06:27invented by the illustrious Romanian language professor
00:06:30Nicolae Saftu in 1968 and
00:06:34which was then taken over by other professors, a few
00:06:37enthusiastic ones and by students, a very
00:06:41good editorial staff and now. I found them all and
00:06:44they live in Japan, in the United States, in Canada, in
00:06:48Israel, they came to the launch at
00:06:51the Gheote Institute in Bucharest at the beginning of September, from all over the world,
00:06:55there were 150 graduates,
00:06:59former teachers, professors, it was a,
00:07:01it was a festival and a festival obviously with
00:07:05music, because a former student Hanno Hofer, with
00:07:08his band, Night Loosers, offered
00:07:11us a... concert after the launch, it was
00:07:14a wonderful evening and I'm very happy that we can talk about
00:07:18this project, a project that I did with the Monster Finus
00:07:21Association, a project co-financed by the National
00:07:25Cultural Fund Administration. It's an extraordinary project and if
00:07:29you allow me on the cover, it is
00:07:32the former biology professor, Șerban Sârbu, a Sibian,
00:07:36former classmate in 4th grade, in general school 16 in
00:07:39Sibiu, and then he became a colleague. at in
00:07:43the teachers' room, Șervan Sârbu, a very well-known
00:07:46speleologist and biologist, together with Cristi Lascu discovered
00:07:49at Movile Cave, some creatures,
00:07:53which have
00:07:55survived for thousands and millions of years
00:07:59through chemosynthesis,
00:08:01living in a sulfuric
00:08:03acid, hostile environment and
00:08:07they came into NASA's focus because
00:08:10from there the idea developed that something
00:08:14similar might be found on Mars, well
00:08:17Șerban Sârbu is here
00:08:20at a students' carnival, now he's in
00:08:23America, but on the cover he's in a
00:08:27photo as a journalist, important for us two, but not
00:08:30only, in 1984 at a carnival of
00:08:33students and teachers, a tradition at the German high school in Bucharest
00:08:37and he has a drawing badge with a
00:08:41head in a... press, a pressed
00:08:43head, head press, so in full communist
00:08:46censorship, a very important
00:08:49message then and I believed and
00:08:53I am convinced that even now it is an equally
00:08:56important message, attention, censorship awaits you around
00:09:00the corner, we must be very careful, yes, because
00:09:02the danger is not only imposed silence, but
00:09:06the slow collapse of consciousness and
00:09:10truth, a real global network of
00:09:13Romanian intelligence, yes, correct, correct, exactly,
00:09:16exactly that's what we wanted to bring to the
00:09:20attention of our viewers, and
00:09:23now it's your turn, Mr. Nelu Mihai, to
00:09:26tell us, what are the premieres in Romania and then what you have
00:09:30managed to do, look, for so many years, because you have been
00:09:34away since '92 and a year ago
00:09:38on the stage of the Romanian Energy Gala, you said exactly that
00:09:41you... want to do something also
00:09:44for
00:09:47President Iohannis' visit to San Francisco, I started
00:09:51to be much more involved in different Romanian
00:09:54projects, especially in the area of
00:09:58Cloud Computing, cyber security and
00:10:01energy. I am proud that
00:10:05in fact I managed to convince
00:10:08at first,
00:10:11the political system. and then the economic
00:10:14about SMRs that are now being implemented
00:10:18and Romania is one of the first countries in Europe to adopt
00:10:21this technology, it is about small
00:10:25nuclear reactors that can be
00:10:29implemented much faster, it is known that when a
00:10:32nuclear power plant is built it takes a very long time in addition to
00:10:35the investment, and they must necessarily be of a certain size,
00:10:39these modular reactors are
00:10:42of a smaller size, generally
00:10:4550 MW,
00:10:49150, 200 MW and are
00:10:52realized much faster, much faster and also with them
00:10:55a network can be implemented more easily, if you remember,
00:10:59I also said at the gala that Romania needs to
00:11:02implement a distributed electricity network, not centralized,
00:11:06because distributed systems are much more resilient and
00:11:10with these modular nuclear reactors such
00:11:13a thing can be implemented, because you can build more,
00:11:16in less time and in different
00:11:19locations, the most important
00:11:22achievement before leaving. What have you
00:11:25achieved here in the country? Before leaving Romania, I think the most
00:11:29important
00:11:32thing is hard to quantify. Probably it was
00:11:35bringing for the first time to the Institute of
00:11:38Physics, to IFA, in fact, not only to the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering
00:11:42the first internet network in Romania in
00:11:461986, together with
00:11:49my mentor, Dr.
00:11:52Professor Dr. Paskovic. Also, I
00:11:56implemented, probably for the first time
00:12:00a real-time operating system in Romania, at that
00:12:04time, Romania was under embargo, it could not import
00:12:07nuclear equipment of
00:12:10high
00:12:12precision and high quality and so I
00:12:15built a multi-channel
00:12:18analyzer
00:12:20on IBMPC, finally that may be too
00:12:23technical. but probably these
00:12:27would be the two, the two achievements that I am somewhat
00:12:31proud of and that are also mentioned in various
00:12:35specialized articles and those from the recent period
00:12:38or from how many decades already
00:12:42spent in the United States, over three decades, I have always been
00:12:46a contrarian, a rebel, as Academician
00:12:49Andrus called me, there are more, so many
00:12:53things that I am probably most proud of. is a
00:12:57real-time operating system called Vertexmc which
00:13:00is
00:13:04the nucleus of the Hubble telescope and which has been implemented in
00:13:07over a billion
00:13:08devices
00:13:12also together with another Romanian, Professor
00:13:16Lazar from Columbia University, I was among the pioneers
00:13:19of the current called software-defined
00:13:23networking, that is. networking which
00:13:25is, in which the center of gravity is more on
00:13:29software, cyber security
00:13:32systems, in general on the part of digital networks
00:13:36for intercepting high-
00:13:38speed traffic,
00:13:40multi-cloud operating systems and so
00:13:44on, so
00:13:46in general being in Silicon
00:13:48Valley,
00:13:51it was interesting that a session recently
00:13:54in Romania. about entrepreneurs, an entrepreneur said
00:13:57tell us what problems you have and we will
00:14:00solve them. Well, that is not the attitude of an entrepreneur, an
00:14:04entrepreneur finds the problems and
00:14:07solves them and also wants to
00:14:10change the world or contribute a little to
00:14:14social improvement and civilization, so you need a much
00:14:18bigger dream to achieve smaller things. Mihaela Crăciun
00:14:21I would continue here in the same vein.
00:14:25how long does it theoretically
00:14:28and practically take to transform the
00:14:31Prahova Valley or the Izei Valley or the Târnava Valley into a
00:14:35Romanian Silicon Valley. it's interesting that a
00:14:38journalist gives the correct
00:14:41solution, because these processing centers should not
00:14:45be made in Bucharest, Ploiești, Sibiu
00:14:48or in other big cities,
00:14:52lower temperature, because... these systems
00:14:56need air
00:14:58conditioning,
00:15:01first of all there is a need for funding
00:15:05for such a thing, there is a need for an attitude
00:15:08I would say of the business environment first of all, because
00:15:11many times the business environment
00:15:15expects the state to help
00:15:18it, but an attitude of the business environment to help it, not to hinder
00:15:22it, I would add Robert Schwarz,
00:15:33many times they tell how they stumbled over obstacles
00:15:37raised by the state, they coming with
00:15:41a private
00:15:42conversion,
00:15:45this is not a very good point of view, because the state is indicated
00:15:48to invest when it comes to
00:15:51vanguard, unconventional projects,
00:15:55the private sector is
00:15:58much better when it comes to technological projects
00:16:02and a Silicon Valley, I never
00:16:06liked this. Let's make another Silicon Valley, each
00:16:09country has its own characteristics, but of course
00:16:13everyone follows the Silicon Valley model. So, there is a need
00:16:16for funding, there is a need
00:16:19for a closer collaboration
00:16:23between, I would say, not necessarily,
00:16:26Romanian companies and American companies, but between
00:16:30Romanian companies and Silicon Valley, and there
00:16:34is probably also a need for a little political will, because
00:16:37in these, in such projects, in Romania
00:16:41there is still a need for state aid, at least
00:16:44legislative, if not financial. Mihaela Crăciun
00:16:47spoke about the transfer of expertise, I think it's
00:16:50the easiest thing to achieve, it's harder to find
00:16:53partnerships, as you said, between
00:16:57companies from Romania and Silicon Valley, or perhaps even
00:17:00some Twinning Projects, that is twinning
00:17:03projects that will work
00:17:07together. with the support of the respective states, but
00:17:10far from the political sphere, that is,
00:17:14based on the applied file, how many more decades
00:17:17do we have to wait, please answer us, as in personal
00:17:20life, the best relationships
00:17:23are always made at a personal level, so all these things must start
00:17:27and we discussed this before the show, with the collaborations
00:17:31of business people, technology
00:17:34people. Romania with equivalents from
00:17:38other countries, not only from the United States. My opinion is that Romania must
00:17:41improve and increase its cooperation
00:17:45with the European Union, much more. But everything starts
00:17:50relationships, certain connections
00:17:54are created, scientific interests are created, material
00:17:58interests, trust, and
00:18:01these can generate projects
00:18:05that gain momentum. There is
00:18:08always. Yes, there is this dictum divide
00:18:12and conquer, yes, you start with smaller things, you show
00:18:16that you have succeeded and then you start to evolve
00:18:20to larger things, so my advice,
00:18:22and once again, I have noticed that sometimes advice is not well
00:18:26received in Romania, is that Romania's
00:18:30evolution depends very much on the interaction
00:18:33between Romanian minds, people.
00:18:39of science and Romanian politicians personally with their
00:18:42equivalents from other countries,
00:18:45to
00:18:49this intergovernmental
00:18:51relationship.
00:18:54I would like now to move abruptly to a topic
00:18:57that concerns us all and
00:19:00the main reason
00:19:03why you have returned, not
00:19:06oscillated. in fact, you are both here and there, is
00:19:10the other field for which you have expertise after
00:19:13computers, that of
00:19:17energy,
00:19:19the price we pay for energy in
00:19:22the country and what our viewers
00:19:25say, I don't know in Germany, if here the kW
00:19:29is more expensive than in Germany Robert, yes, surely the price
00:19:33is fluctuating, but if we look at European statistics we see that in
00:19:36Romania much more is paid for example than
00:19:40in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Ireland and
00:19:43it's clear that nobody understands
00:19:46why, because Romania produces
00:19:50electricity, sometimes exports
00:19:53and it's very good that it helps the Republic of Moldova, after
00:19:57that aggression by Russia against Ukraine was launched,
00:20:01this collaboration works, it goes
00:20:04on, but still. the price paid in
00:20:07Romania is quite high and
00:20:10the explanations do not always
00:20:13sound very clear, they are not
00:20:17very convincing, let's see, with your
00:20:21expertise and experience, Mr. Nelu
00:20:24Mihai. So,
00:20:27unfortunately, the explanations are very complex, it's not that simple
00:20:31and always, we must report the price
00:20:35of energy, of the kilowatt hour, in this case
00:20:39we are talking about electricity at the average
00:20:41level of the population, because we cannot report the prices
00:20:44of energy in Romania
00:20:48compared to Germany. So there are more ways to
00:20:52improve or solve
00:20:55this situation in my opinion,
00:20:59one of them, as I said, is
00:21:01for Romania to switch from
00:21:04this centralized network,
00:21:08to a distributed network. What does this mean? It means that instead
00:21:11of having a few hundred energy producers,
00:21:14we have tens of thousands of energy producers,
00:21:18in which all possible sources should be
00:21:21used, both gas and nuclear industry,
00:21:25solar industry, wind industry,
00:21:28also, based on my experience at this
00:21:31moment, we must move to
00:21:35a higher quality of the energy system, also in Latin
00:21:38there is the dictum non multa sed multum,
00:21:41yes, so we must make sure that these energy
00:21:45systems are much more efficient, to generate
00:21:48energy when needed. For example,
00:21:51we don't generate enough energy in the morning and I
00:21:55understood that we import from Bulgarians, when in fact
00:21:58we have over 2 GW of solar
00:22:00systems which, however, due to the fact that they don't
00:22:03have the best technology, start producing much
00:22:07later, also I have seen
00:22:10that at noon we sell to
00:22:13Hungary for next to nothing, again, because
00:22:16the energy systems are not calibrated correctly to produce. that in
00:22:20a distributed way it's about that Gaussian
00:22:23curve,
00:22:26and there is also a cause, I would
00:22:29say, at European level that the Ministry
00:22:33of Energy has specified, it is about the connection between
00:22:37Romania and the rest of the states in the European
00:22:41Union, through Hungary and Austria, which is not
00:22:44what it should be and which needs to be resolved. I don't think
00:22:47the problem of the kilowatt hour
00:22:55is the explanation, there are also other problems of distribution
00:22:57price, price that is not exactly
00:23:01correct, but these are businesses it's hard to
00:23:05you gave a positive turn to Divide
00:23:09and conquer earlier, but in this case it's more like the negative
00:23:14divided and as long as it remains divided you can
00:23:17control it better,
00:23:21yes,
00:23:24normally the President of Romania or the Prime Minister or
00:23:27the Minister of Energy should have a computer
00:23:30screen, a dashboard, I don't know what the word is in Romanian, in
00:23:34which at every moment to see how much is produced in
00:23:38Romania from each, each energy
00:23:41source. Let's hope that this
00:23:44will be implemented, it can be implemented also by.
00:23:48and again, there is also in
00:23:51energy this part
00:23:54of the world,
00:23:58of private businesses and state-owned enterprises, there must
00:24:02be someone who correlates these
00:24:04two, two parts of the economic system that
00:24:08sometimes do not oscillate on the same frequency.
00:24:12It is one of the areas
00:24:15that affects us, but there are others when
00:24:18I say in the
00:24:20end you come the same way, you oscillate between Germany
00:24:23and Romania and many times when
00:24:27you enter the grocery stores in Romania
00:24:30you leave an amount,
00:24:34I don't know, maybe even greater or equal to what you
00:24:37would leave for those respective products in another
00:24:41place, yes, I oscillate between Berlin and
00:24:43Bucharest and
00:24:45obviously
00:24:48when I go here to Bucharest, in
00:24:51the various supermarkets, but also in
00:24:54the market, there are products that are much cheaper than in
00:24:57Germany, but there are some basic products that are much more
00:25:01expensive and you wonder why, because they are produced in
00:25:04Romania and are sold at a price that
00:25:07you don't find in Berlin or
00:25:11London, we are talking about these, of course here, sorry those who
00:25:15produce them are our parents, grandparents
00:25:18no no. our viewers, some of
00:25:22them left for a while and those five years turned
00:25:25into 10, into 20 and it would be
00:25:29good if sometimes some prices
00:25:32were corrected, I'm not saying from the government or
00:25:35from the center to be corrected, there needs to be some
00:25:39correlation between purchasing power and prices in
00:25:43supermarkets, these are economic mechanisms that sometimes
00:25:47work and sometimes work even in the interest
00:25:50of the buyer, but sometimes
00:25:54the prices are totally aberrant. It's a topic
00:25:57that I'm sure is discussed a lot and public
00:26:00debates are needed. to bring some
00:26:04peace and order, because people are dissatisfied,
00:26:08they buy, they buy, but they grumble,
00:26:11it's good for everyone to be happy world, you were at
00:26:15the Repatriot
00:26:17summit, Mr. Nelu Mihai, and that's exactly why I wanted
00:26:21to discuss this transfer of
00:26:25expertise and about Romanian professionals
00:26:28from all fields from abroad who
00:26:32a... as you do, as Robert
00:26:35Schwarz does, I come back
00:26:38to give back, many would want to come back, no,
00:26:42not everyone necessarily has to come back, what needs
00:26:45to be done is some will come back because
00:26:48there are better opportunities in
00:26:51Romania, but it is important to create this
00:26:54network, as in your magazine, this network of
00:26:58Romanian intelligence, regardless of whether people want to
00:27:01come back or not, because Romania can be helped
00:27:04by those who don't come back
00:27:08to Romania, they settled in Germany or the United States or France
00:27:12or another country, but Repatriots
00:27:15are trying to do something in this
00:27:18area, more from a marketing
00:27:22point of view, so to speak, they aim to become more
00:27:25active, but it is an extraordinary resource that
00:27:29Romania must use and there must
00:27:32be receptivity from the Romanians here to
00:27:35interact with the Romanians who have left and vice
00:27:39versa, the Romanians who have left with the Romanians here, have you
00:27:43found this receptivity,
00:27:45because as I said, I discovered you
00:27:49last year at this gala of Romanian
00:27:53energy, there have been other such
00:27:56events, they are still continuing with Romanian
00:27:59researchers from abroad, with doctors, with all
00:28:02professionals, I try to remain positive,
00:28:05but, but the answer, but the answer is yes and
00:28:08no, so yes, there are environments where
00:28:12it is clear that collaboration is desired, both scientific
00:28:16and business, but there are
00:28:18also
00:28:20environments that are not so positive in this collaboration,
00:28:24it is important that we, those who have
00:28:27positive intentions to help Romania, overcome
00:28:31those or convince those who are skeptical from
00:28:34this point of view, I want to make a parallel to the prices of,
00:28:38so the truth is the following, that prices
00:28:40have increased everywhere, including in the United States, I don't know if in
00:28:44Germany, but if we talk about the prices of agricultural
00:28:47products, Romania should be an
00:28:50agricultural power in Europe and can
00:28:53become so, we were talking about Romania becoming a
00:28:56European power in energy, similarly, it should normally be
00:29:00also in agriculture. I am
00:29:02not a specialist in this field, I don't know what should be done,
00:29:05but I think the Romanian people have the
00:29:09necessary resources and correctly supported from a legislative
00:29:13and financial point of view, they could
00:29:15surely, there are European programs that meet
00:29:19the demands and needs of
00:29:22producers, but from producer
00:29:25to consumer is a long road,
00:29:29it's another story, there are a few
00:29:32extraordinary documentaries about agricultural
00:29:36producers, about cabbage or potatoes, who
00:29:39refuse even today, 35 years after
00:29:43the political change in Romania, to associate, because they have
00:29:47this trauma, this negative
00:29:50experience from the period of the communist dictatorship, when
00:29:53the agricultural production association,
00:29:55the cooperative, was blatant swindling, now
00:29:59they prefer to produce each for himself. A village
00:30:03with 400 farmers and each has his own tractor,
00:30:07so it's crazy to have 400 tractors in a small village, they don't
00:30:11associate, there the politicians should come and convince
00:30:15people that it's good to take advantage of
00:30:18cooperation, of collaboration, and it's a topic that we also
00:30:22address, because there are these mixed
00:30:25societies, I have been president of the German-Romanian
00:30:29society in Berlin for two years, we go on...
00:30:32political, economic, social, cultural
00:30:36topics, we have extraordinary cultural projects, but I think
00:30:39it would be good to concentrate on
00:30:42these topics as well, it's harder to find people who talk
00:30:46about the difficulties and about the possible successes that
00:30:50you can have, topics, topics that we at public television, at
00:30:53Romanian television, bring to attention every week in
00:30:57traditional shows, whether we're talking about village life, or we're talking about
00:31:01the farm show.