Voluntary IT Specialist Involvement in Romanian City Digital Strategies

The rapid evolution of new technologies offers public administration the opportunity to streamline its activities and the services it offers to the community. Most of the time, however, administrative institutions do not have the financial, technical and human resources necessary to implement modern digital solutions. In this context, our study analyzes the impact of the voluntary involvement of Information Technology specialists on the development of digital development strategies of cities in Romania recognized as IT centers. Starting from the premise that civic involvement is no longer limited to isolated initiatives, but has become an important resource for transferring expertise in the process of co-creating public policies in Romania, we will review the forms of participation of IT specialists in the efforts to digitize local administration in major university centers in Romania, the resources of this form of civic activism, as well as the effects of these collaborations, having as a benchmark the components of the digital development strategies of the respective cities. Our research is based on the analysis of official documents available to the public in the cities of Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași and Timișoara, as well as on reports from other civic or state organizations in the field of technology. Being limited to the four mentioned cities, the results of our study cannot be considered relevant for all urban centers in Romania, but by identifying collaboration mechanisms between local authorities and IT volunteer communities, we can hope that this expertise transfer system will expand and lead to the dynamization of the digital transformation of local administration in our country.