Our mentors and partners

Cristian Pațachia
Development & Innovation Manager
@Orange Romania

Manager with more than 20 years’ experience in the telecom industry, with expertise in a broad range of technologies, product development and innovation management. At the moment he is the Development and Innovation team manager in the Engineering department, coordinating multiple research projects in various fields such as: 5G & networks of the future, cyber security, smart cities, APIs exposure and monetizing, cloud technologies & IoT/M2M.

Ana Ciobanu
Startup Programs Manager
@Orange Romania

Entrepreneurship specialist with over 15 years experience in working with startups, from early stage to mature companies. Startup community builder and active contributor to the development of the Romanian ecosystem, coordinated and implemented projects and programs, for startups and innovative companies financed by Structural Funds in Romania or by the European Commission. She joined the Development and Innovation a Orange Romania in 2023 and coordinates the activity of Orange Fab Accelerator.

Bogdan Chiriță
Strategic Partnerships Manager
@Orange Business Services

Sales professional with more than 20 years experience in business development and sales management, across different sales channels and business segmentation; passionate for business transformation through innovation, integrated IT&C solutions and startup synergies.
Presently managing Orange Business Services in Romania partnership strategy and Orange Fab business synergies.

Marius Iordache
5G Technical Manager
@Orange Romania

With over 13 years’ experience in the telecomunications industry, Marius is currently leading the technical implementation of Orange's 5G network in Romania.
He is CCIE certified and has vast experience in planning, designing and creating architectures for complex fix and mobile networks, in multi-vendor environments. He contributes to multiple techical research projects in the Horizon 2020, 5G-PPP framework.

Bogdan Ștefănescu
Product Manager
@Orange Romania

Marketing graduate with a passion for technology, Bogdan has over 9 years of experience in telecom and is specialized in sales, project and product management.
Since 2019 he is a Product Manager in the Marketing - New Business team, where he manages and develops platforms for value added services, cloud, mobile security and complementary services, as well as facilitates the interaction with the Orange Fab startups.

Ioan Constantin
Cyber Security Expert
@Orange Romania

Ioan is a Cyber Security professional with more than 10 years of experience in the development, implementation and audit of cyber security systems. He joined Orange Romania’s Development and Innovation team in 2018, with active roles in multiple research and innovation projects in areas like Machine Learning, Threat Intelligence or Resillience.

Mădălina Cojocaru
Senior PR
@Orange Romania

Corporate communication specialist, tech savy, with over 7 years' experience in internal & external communication, social media, crisis communication, content management & events. Madalina has coordinated or has been involved, from the PR perspective, in rebranding campaigns, for digital products or startup support programs.
Over the course of her career, she worked in banking and telecomunications, and in 2020 has joined the Orange Romania team as senior PR, where she supports communication efforts for the innovation, B2B and Orange Money areas.

Cătălin Brezeanu
Telco Cloud Expert
@Orange Romania

Politehnica University of Bucharest graduate, specialized in communications networks and software, Catalin is currently involved in the development and implementation of Cloud and IoT projects for Orange. He is also focused on technological research, participating in Horizon 2020 projects and purshuing a PhD in the virtualization domain.

Cristian Turcin
Cloud Services Product Manager
@Orange Business Services

Product Manager with over 10 years of experience working in the telecom industry and banking. Background in both consumer and enterprise areas. Passionate about building enriching and functional products and experiences for customers.
In Orange Business Services, he is managing and developing Cloud Platforms, Hosting and complementary professional services.

Andrei Son
Country Innovation Manager
@Continental Romania

Andrei Son is the National Innovation Manager of Continental R&D Romania and the leader of Advanced Engineering Romania group(ADAS AE-RO).
He started his career from university as a software developer in a Timisoara startup oriented to custom software solutions for business production and processes.
He has experience in project management, information systems architecture, consultative technical sales, online marketing, telemarketing, corporate auctions and public financing projects.

Andrei Avadanei
President
@Centrul de Cercetare in Securitate Informatica din Romania

Andrei Avădănei is the president of the organization that presents DefCamp – the biggest information security&hacking event from Central and Eastern Europe.
He is the CEO of Bit Sentinel, a startup who provides informatics security services, meant to protect companies from cyberattacks. He has more than 10 years of experience in IT and over 60 prizes from competitions, in tracks such as web&app development, algorithms or cybersecurity.

Bogdan Iordache
Co-founder
@How to Web

Founder of the How to Web Conference, one of Europe’s leading startup events. Advising early stage startups on raising capital, building useful products, crafting great pitch decks.
Previously partner with Gecad Ventures, entrepreneur, founded and exited Conectoo, enterprise email marketing service. Also with MVP Academy, MVP Angels, TechHub Bucharest, 3TS Capital Partners.

Continental Automotive Group is one of the main suppliers of the automotive industry, with more 87,000 employees in over 170 locations. They all work in different areas, but have a common vision: a more safe, sustainable and interconnected mobility – and are on the lookout for these elements from the Orange Fab startups.

The National Cyberint Center pleads and acts for the discovery, prevention and combating of vulnerabilities, risks and threats at Romania's cyber security. NCC supports, in partnership with the public sector, private sector and academia, a series of projects centered around building knowledge and capabilities in the cyber security domain, at a national level.

One project targets to consolidate the educational zone for post-university studies for cyber security, that is already in place or under implementation in twenty universities across the country.

The most important cyber security exercise (CyDEx), the only one focusing on the practical component, was initiated by NCC in 2017 to evaluate the level of technical expertise for participant specialists in case of a major nation-wide cybernetic incident, but also to develop an efficient early warning, alerting and fast response mechanism for this type of incidents.

NCC has organized the European Cyber Security Championship (ECSC) together with partners from the public, private and associate sector, on 9-11 October 2019 in Bucharest, implementing in the same format the selection and training of Romania's national team. For this edition of the event, the Romanian team has won first place. The final ranking was established after the participants solved tests in domains like web security, cryptography, reverse engineering and investigating, programming, Linux / windows / macOS security, mobile and IoT security.

The National CyberInt Center joins the Orange Fab initiative, supporting the Security domain, to support cyber security startups.

TechHub is a unique environment where technology startups can start up faster. We nurture an international network of like-minded and focused tech entrepreneurs, providing places where they can work, meet, collaborate, network, learn and have fun. By getting the right people together in a physical space, good things happen.

Fab Lab Iași is a coworking space opened in 2017 with a 700 sq.m surface that offers flexible scenarios for use of the space (competition areas, co-working, makerspace, training rooms). The space functions as an independent platform which will bring together innovation and the tech community from Iasi.

Rubik Hub is a community of communities, of startups and co-founders, mentors, investors, freelancers and nomads.
Our mission is to inspire, educate, connect and support founders to create successful global startups.

Cowork Timișoara is a coworking space opened in 2017 with the mission of helping entrepreneurs, digital nomads and other creatives find the perfect place to work.

Oradea Tech Hub is place started by the community, for the community, situated in the Oradea fortress. It is a space developed to empower passionate people about technology and creative works to develop innovative startups, exchange know-how, collaborate and build strong relationships.

Silicon Forestgives small and medium-sized companies the opportunity to focus on daily tasks and offer everything their employees dream of. The offices are fully equipped to support collaboration and innovation, include all utilities and access to free high-speed internet, meeting rooms, coffee, water and bakery, free events and a brilliant community.