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.