For those who decide
Company and technology executives, public administration, investors. AI adoption with a measurable return, governance, procurement, public services. The main stage and the closed room.
Three days in the city where National Culture Day (Ziua Culturii Naționale) is celebrated, where artificial intelligence meets the technical talent pool of Moldavia, Romania's north-eastern region. Leaders, companies, startups, investors and a new generation of AI specialists. A premium, applied event devoted to the way AI is reshaping everything around us: public administration, the economy, education, healthcare, transport.
The rest of the world talks about artificial intelligence. Here, you leave with something in hand: a defined pilot project, a meeting that actually happened, a prototype that runs, a person hired.
The format is built on four strands, each with its own audience, running in parallel in the same building. On top of them sit two programmes that belong to Iași and cannot be moved: the regional forum with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, and the day AI meets Romanian culture. The festival is not a government event and takes place regardless of the political calendar.
Each strand has its own audience, its own hall and its own outcome. You can come for just one and leave satisfied. If you come for all of them, nobody will stop you.
Company and technology executives, public administration, investors. AI adoption with a measurable return, governance, procurement, public services. The main stage and the closed room.
Engineers, data specialists, technical directors, researchers, security people. Agents, retrieval-augmented generation, evaluation, inference cost, infrastructure, adversarial testing. The technical stage.
Startups, scale-ups, investors, funds, innovation teams. The pitch competition, the demo area, investor meetings, pilot projects with large companies.
Pupils, students, young researchers, universities, employers. Hackathon, research showcase, undergraduate dissertations, recruitment. The third day is devoted entirely to them.
The rest of the programme could be held anywhere. These two could not: one comes from where Iași sits on the map, the other from what day 15 January is.
Romania, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine. A closed session and a public session on 15 January: digital government, reconstruction, energy, cyber security, talent, European funding. Participation is by delegation, not by ticket. Chișinău is two and a half hours away.
15 January is National Culture Day and it falls right in the middle of the festival. We treat it as a working theme: the Romanian language in the age of large models, missing datasets, digitised archives, digital humanities, copyright. No patriotic kitsch.
Each day has its own focus and its own audience. The order is deliberate: decisions and the public sector on day one, culture and startups on day two, and the next generation on day three.
Keynotes, executive panels, AI Winter Labs workshops and the first round of B2B meetings. In the evening: Winter AI Networking Dinner.
Startup Pitch, investor panel, Demo Day, Corporate AI Challenge. On National Culture Day, in the evening: AI After Dark, 20:00-02:00.
Exclusively for secondary school pupils, university students and young founders. Winter AI Youth Hackathon with mentors from companies, prizes, scholarships and internships. The official close of the festival.
The festival is more than a schedule: it rests on real selection, participation and follow-through. Applications, judging, mentoring, prizes, then 90 days of incubation after the event.
A competition for 8-12 selected AI startups from Romania and the region. A 5-minute pitch to a jury of investors, companies and experts.
A hackathon for secondary school pupils and university students. Teams work on real problems set by public authorities and companies: AI for communities, tourism, mobility, education, health.
Companies bring a real business problem: operations, sales, customer relations. Teams develop solutions or working prototypes.
AI is #real. The event is #real. So are the #benefits: a partner leaves with meetings booked in advance, talent recruited from the largest university centre in Moldavia, demo activations and a post-event report with measurable indicators.
This is the first edition. We would rather set out here what we know for certain, as of 11 August 2026, than fill the page with empty boxes where logos ought to be.
Want to be among the first names on the list, as a partner, a speaker or a university? This is the moment the programme is being decided.
We don't put everyone through the same form. Choose the route that applies to you and fill in only what matters for it.
You are coming for the main stage, the workshops and the networking. Entry is by registration.
You apply for Startup Pitch, on day two. We select between 8 and 12 startups from Romania and the region.
Secondary school pupils or university students, with a supervising teacher, for the hackathon on day three.
You want a partnership package, your own workshop or a Corporate AI Challenge.
You register a delegation from a city hall or a county council for the local government workshop and the round table.
You request accreditation, the press kit or an interview with the organisers.
The Smart City Romania network, run by ARSC
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