Speakers
Sabin Sărmaș
President of IT&C Committee, Chamber of Deputies
Romanian Parliament
Throughout
his professional career, Sabin Sărmas has been actively engaged in both public
and private organizations within the digital sector, with a focus on digital
products, data governance, and e-government.
Since 2020,
he is a Member of the Romanian Parliament and serves as the Chairman of the
IT&C Committee within the Chamber of Deputies. In this capacity, Mr. Sărmaș
initiated two important reforms. The first one regards the law on
interoperability, which, sets the ground for a coherent and integrated digital
infrastructure of Romanian public administration, by interconnecting the IT
systems of public institutions. The second transformation is achieved by the upcoming
law regulating electronic signatures and trust services for electronic
transactions, which creates a predictable legal framework for the use of
electronic signatures for simplified business relationships and interactions
with public authorities.
In
consideration of the regulation gaps identified within civil society and public
administration, as well as in order to create transparent legislative
processes, Mr. Sărmaș created a working group, called "Law and Technology
Lab". The main goal of the group is to gather contributions from diverse
stakeholders and multiple visions from different areas of society, industry,
the private sector, and public institutions. He chaired a complex work process
and debates in order to design regulations that meet best the stringent needs
of society.
Mr. Sărmaș
also serves as a member of the Committee for health and family in the Chamber
of Deputies and in the Special Committee for Automatization and the Future of
Work. He is engaged in the parliamentarian groups responsible for fostering the
relationships with the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of Singapore.
Sabin
Sărmaș served as the President of the 2022 Plenipotentiary Conference of the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which took place in Bucharest. In
this capacity, he was responsible for coordinating the procedures in which
Member States reached consensus on actions to ensure that digital technology
reaches and benefits people across the world.
His
dedication to digital transformation crystalized in 2019, when he took office
as President of the National Authority for Digitalization, which he left 2021
to become a Member of the Parliament. In this capacity, he was responsible for
coordinating and implementing national policies, strategies, and projects
related to information technology, communications, and the digitalization of
public services.
Mr. Sărmaș`
involvement in the community debuted in his constituency, where he served as
member of the local council of Cluj-Napoca, maybe the most important innovation
hub in Romania. His strong engagement in the local community is also
demonstrated by his membership in administration boards of local public
companies and his participation in community projects promoting use of
technology in the administration.
Prior to
his experience in the public sector, Sabin Sărmas worked in the private sector
as a software engineer and business developer. These diverse experiences
enabled him to gain a multi-faceted and comprehensive understanding of
challenges of IT sector.
Mr. Sărmaș
holds a degree in telecommunication engineering from the Technical University
in Cluj-Napoca, and various research assignments at the Vrije Universiteit
Brussels and at the Technical University in Cluj-Napoca.