The Romanian start-up awards will celebrate the country’s most exciting and innovative new businesses with a gala event on February 5. The public are invited to help choose the winners in seven categories via social media, as of yesterday (January 8 ). “We’re looking for the best entrepreneurial minds of Romania and aiming to bring the tech scene together for a great night,” says Patrick de Laive, co-founder of The Next Web, which is organizing the awards in partnership with Geekcelerator.

For the next three weeks members of the public can nominate start-ups for the awards. In the next stage, judges will choose up to five nominations for each of the seven categories. In the following week, nominations will be online for a public vote, before the winners are announced at the ceremony.

The seven awards are Overall Start up of the Year, Best Founder or Co-Founder, Best Web app, Best Mobile App, Best Design, Best User Experience and Best Investor.

The event is part of a series of start-up awards being hosted across Europe throughout January and February. Winners, from Romania and the other national competitions, will receive invites to Europe’s second biggest internet/technology conference in Amsterdam in April, also organized by The Next Web. Normal ticket price is EUR 999.

The venue for the awards in Bucharest is yet to be announced, but the organizers promise a “sizzling” club.

TheNextWeb.com is a source of technology news, business and culture with a worldwide perspective. Launched in January 2008, the site reaches over 6 million visitors from across the globe.

The Next Web Conference is the second largest European Internet conference and is held every year in April, in Amsterdam.

Geekcelerator is a US fund that promotes innovation in technology with investment, strategic and design thinking, product conception and customer development, coaching and raising further rounds of money.

Find out more about The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam, April 25 and 26, 2013.

Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com