My recent visit in Romania prompted me to do some research on the development and growth of the Internet and on government-led digital projects in my native country.

Since the fall of Romanian’s Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, the entire country has been making changes in every aspect of life–from politics, the economy and human rights, to the improvements of the democratic system and the media.

In addition to reading print media, Romanians find the Internet a quick and effective way of communication. The younger generations have better opportunity to use the Internet, while most of the adults watch TV and read newspapers.

With a population of 21 million people, Romania has the eight largest IT market in Eastern Europe. Although its Internet penetration rate of 23% is the lowest in European Union, the growth rate is one of the biggest (517% since 2000), and the growth rate of online advertising is the largest in Europe.

During the opening session of the “WiMax in telecom competition”, organized by Finmedia, Dan Georgescu, President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and Information Technology, declared:

WiMAX is one of the most recent developments in communications and, in this domain, Romania has proved its openness for new, state-of-the-art technologies. Considering the current 1,2 million broadband connections in Romania, at a 5.5% penetration at the population level, WiMAX may trigger a major change in the broadband offer in our country. Thus, for 2007, we estimate a 10% broadband penetration rate that would bring us closer to the European average of 14.1%”

Projects for upgrading the communications infrastructure to allow a greater Internet penetration are strongly encouraged by the government, which has implemented a series of e-government projects. One of the projects financed by the European Union and the Ministry of Education of Romania, is the network called ROEdunet. It is an online system for collaborative production of open educational resources by teachers and students, based on Web2.0 collaborative technologies.

The Internet has not only become a social, political, educational tool, but it has also become a center of all types of entertainment and cultural events. Video bloggers, for instance, are also becoming a huge phenomenon. Folk singers, dancers, actors are promoting their names by posting their videos on the World Wide Web.

Honestly, what could be an easier way to promote your talents than posting on web sites such as You Tube, or MySpace! One of the online videos I saw in Romania was the “Numa Numa Dance” by O-Zone (a love song in Romanian language).

Although the freedom of expression is guaranteed by the Romanian Constitution, certain limits of the freedom of expression on the Internet are still a matter of concern. During the transition from the totalitarian rule in Romania, journalists are struggling to find their place in society, and some of them still face government censorship. Fortunately since Romania became a member of the European Union, the government censorship and filtering has been scrutinized.

According to the RoBloggers Survey of 2006, the Romanian blogosphera includes about 28,000 bloggers. Among them, I would say that there are some interesting blog sites. Here are some examples: nitza.ro, nastase.wordpress.com of former Prim-Minister of Romania, mirceageoana.blogspot.com of the former Romanian ambassador in the US. To be honest, some of the web sites discovered through this mini-research project were unknown to me.

In the last several years, the Internet has become a considerable part of the lives of Romanian people. They use it for research, business, banking, e-mailing, blogging, and so on. However while Romania has a high growth potential, I think that it still has not yet become an Internet country.