For sure we all remember the last days of February, when our neighboring country Ukraine was confronted with the terrible reality of war and thus began the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
Around 8 million people, mostly women and children, had to flee their home, and seek refuge in safer places. About 20,000 of them passed at one point though Iasi, needing immediate help. From food to accommodation and information, the resources that were required to help all these people were mind-blowing.
I definitely remember the rollercoaster of emotions and the urge to be of help, in any way we could. But, most importantly, during all the commotion, there were a few people who took this impulse further and managed to do something quite out of the ordinary: create the framework and the tool needed to help the entire community get involved.
Our guests
Cristi, Bianca, and Sorina are the core team of Think Out – a local startup and a cash flow management app. In the first days after the war broke, they saw a need: to help the Ukrainians that were taking refuge in Iasi. And, doing what they know best, they built a digital instrument to cover this need.
The result of their efforts was Ukriniasi.ro – a platform that swiftly became a joint community effort to integrate Ukrainians in Iasi. Through this platform, they are making the best to provide vital information for Ukrainian refugees, in order to make their stay in Iasi – be it long or short – better.
Their team was later completed by Olga on the call-center end, a refugee herself and one of the first beneficiaries of Ukriniasi.ro, and now Victoria, who has taken over the project manager role with the objective to help it become an independent, self-sustaining endeavor.
The event
On September 29th 2022, six months after Ukrinaisi.ro was launched, we had the honor to meet these amazing people for our sixth Community Talks edition, an event held in the comfort of our Iasi office and moderated by our own storytelling evangelist, Diana Niculaes.
It was an amazing session. For an hour and a half, time seemed to stand still as we learned all about this project from its first steps to the bright future ahead, talked about accomplishments, challenges, and tipping points, and discussed the multitude of lessons everyone learned throughout the process.
Beyond the exceptional stories and adventures they shared with us, the feeling that lingers on is one of hope and faith that in the worst times, our empathy and our ability to work together will help us come through.
What is Community Talks
After two years of remote work, we feel the need to, once in a while, get together and learn about inspiring stories from our line of work or from our community that are relevant to us.
With this idea in mind, we created this program that we called Community Talks. It is part of our larger discussion about tech storytelling and how to have better conversations in our everyday work.
Once a month, we want to invite somebody from outside RomSoft to share with us an inspiring story, or just to have an interesting conversation, be it in the technical area or anything else that we have a shared interest.
Our guests will play the role of the Guide to any good story, helping us navigate through difficult challenges, acquire new skills and understand where the opportunities lie in this rapidly changing world.