Spokane-Based Imprezzio Is Running a Software Contest for Technical Students

It's fitting that Spokane-based Imprezzio Inc. is running a software contest for technical students in Cluj, Romania. Many people don't know that Spokane boasts a steadily-growing presence of successful IT and technology companies. It's also not well known that Cluj, the "cyber-city of Eastern Europe", is a preferred outsourcing location by many in the high-tech world.

This month, Imprezzio's President Russell Page and company co-founders Kelly Birr and David Talarico will travel to Cluj to award prizes and internships. The annual contest, running since 2009, is open to all students studying at a technical school, college, university or other educational institutions. Creativity, feasibility, and originality are encouraged in the projects.

Imprezzio called for entries this year in the areas of:

• Social/Leisure Software
• Easier Living Software and
• Brainy Software

Past winners developed projects including: An object-oriented game engine in Turbo Pascal, a micro-blogging platform, a collaborative editing program, a fingerprint matching program, a tracking system for smartphones, a robot, and two brain agility games.

Why Romania? With over 245 IT/computer companies, a network of 64,000 km of optical fiber and 62,000 students graduating each year, more than 90% of whom are fluent in English, it's easy to understand the reasons for Cluj's IT Rush, which has been building for the past 20 years. 

KPMG, a Big Four auditor, has acknowledged Romania as one of the world's top new IT outsourcing destinations. Romanian student teams took first place at the International Olympiad of Informatics in 2003 and were awarded a first place certificate in a Proficiency in English competition at Cambridge University in the same year.

Imprezzio's Romanian subsidiary, Imprezzio Global, employs developers, solution architects, software testers, technical writers, graphic designers and project managers who work with Imprezzio Inc, and clients in the US, Canada and Europe. Spokane-based Imprezzio also has offices in Seattle and Canada.