French journal Le Monde has recently published the story of a Romanian young man who was able to make all his childhood dreams come true at the age of 22.
Who is this young man? The Director of a Romanian-French software joint venture, Akela Informatique, who was able to devise IT programmes for Paris City Hall, M6 television and Dassault Systemes in only two years since the company’s establishment.
Lucian Butnaru, the 23 year-old manager, has graduated the IT High School in Brasov and came to Bucharest in 1996 in order to attend the French department of Engineering Sciences within the Automatics Faculty.
When he was a pupil, he used to race in several school competitions as his interest in computers grew, though PCs were lacking from Romania at that time. His first computer was a HC.
The computer helped Lucian, who was coming from a low-income family, to earn a penny from recording games on discs for his mates or devising IT programmes for kith and kin.
He decided to get a job during his first year in college. The little money sent by his parents made him adopt a quite different approach towards a workplace.
“My first job was at Cinor, where I worked as a part-time employee,” Lucian recollects. “I went there in a rush asking for a position in the software department. They interviewed me and after I told them about my skills, they said they had nothing to offer me.
But I proposed them an application for testing car driving skills and persuaded them to let me work there for three months to prove my abilities. It was September 1996″. The three months extended and Lucian was soon promoted. In May 1997 he was hired by a Romanian-French software joint venture, Crin Soft, which still operates in Romania.
“I earned 280 dollars a month (against 100 $ at Cinor i.e.) and I learned how to work with professionals. This was where I devised my first software, aimed at France Telecom and M6,” adds Lucian. Subsequently, he was appointed project manager, being in charge with the finalisation of contracts with television channel M6. He was sent to a five-week training in France during the second faculty year.
The owner of the Romanian company that had employed Lucian thought to develop an application with a French partner. On that occasion, Lucian met his present French partner, Michel Diaz, who runs Groupe Diaz, a company established in 1983 and having 50 employees and annual turnover of 40 million francs.
The young Romanian was able to devise an application for the French partner over three weeks all by himself, while the French partners had estimated the operation to stretch over six weeks. Lucian had dreamt to have his own company since he was a teenager.
The director of the Diaz Group decided that the young Romanian programmer deserved to be helped. He offered Lucian $700 salary a month and bought shares in the newly fledged company, Akela Informatique, established in 1998.
Lucian, which was the only employee of this company at the beginning, produced software and also managed the activity of the small business.
The company had 10 employees at the end of 1998, but reached 25 employees one year later and 70 employees now. Last year was the best as the number of employees tripled and turnover increased by 350%.