Young IT fellows refuse to work with Grindeanu Government after changes to criminal laws

The young IT fellows enrolled in the GovITHub program are refusing to work under the coordination of the Grindeanu Government because of the emergency ordinance bringing changes to the criminal laws. The GovITHub program, an initiative of the previous Ciolos government, aims to develop applications and software that the government institutions can use in relationship with citizens and companies, in a move to ease bureaucracy. Twenty IT experts received grants of EUR 2,000 per month for a period of six months to develop these IT solutions. Besides the fellows, some 300 volunteers work in the program, started in October of last year. “The principles governing the GovITHub activity are based in transparency, civic involvement and an open collaboration system, of the open source type. This is how it was possible in only four months for GovITHub to develop projects with a national impact, which under different circumstances would have cost the Romanian state EUR 1 million. In this context, the current Government’s decisions, taken during the night of January 31/ February 1, as well as the manner in which they were adopted, invalidate the mission of GovITHub and blatantly stand against the principles of this program and the personal values of the fellows. As such, the GovITHub fellows have democratically decided to stop collaborating with the current Government,” the representatives of GovITHub fellows said in a statement. The fellows also expressed their concern for the dangerous direction Romania is heading to and raised concerns over the democratic values that need to be protected. Some of the projects developed so far as part of the program included a voting app for Romanians living abroad, an online platform where last year’s voting situation could be tracked in real time, a registry of social services in Romania, and a national system keeping track of the results of newborns’ hearing screenings. editor@romania-insider.com (Photo source: ithub.gov.ro)