36 electronics students graduate from Orange Educational Program

„Only Education Provides Evolution”, this line stands against the wall in the room of Orange Training Center in Bucharest’s Leu Student Complex, which on Thursday hosted the awarding ceremony of the new graduates of Orange Educational Program 2014-2015.36 students of the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunication and Information Technology within the Polytechnic University in Bucharest have graduated the telecom operator’s educational program.

Jean-François Fallacher, CEO Orange Romania said he is proud to patronize this event and to see the fourth generation of this program graduating. In his view, 2015 was a little bit shaken for Orange, as it had to face new competitors but mostly had to face competition from the Internet actors. “It’s been a tough but a good year for Orange”, Fallacher said, explaining that despite new challenges coming from various parts, the telecom operator had to keep up with them and develop new services and strategies such as Orange TV and the service allowing people to watch TV from laptops, tablets and other gadgets.

Orange Romania CEO unveiled the company needs new brains to join the team, especially that they are part of the generation born in this digitalization boom. “We need you, guys, at Orange (…) Please, shake Orange up!,” was his message to the fresh graduates. Fallacher also remarked this year there have been more girls among the program’s graduates compared to other years. “We’ve made a lot of progress here, I’m proud of this,” he mentioned.

In his turn, Stefan Slavnicu, Technology Officer Orange said this program is a gantry for the students to have a direct contact with the telecom industry. According to him, the program is an opportunity of training specialists and a benefit for Orange. „It’s important that you develop in the future what you are learning here,” he argued. According to Slavnicu, two of the graduates of the program’s 2015 class have been already hired at Orange.

Orange Educational Program, as part of its top corporate social responsibility initiatives, was set up in 1998 in partnership with Bucharest Polytechnic University.

The program comprises 163 hours of classes lectured by 21 experts from Orange and by other 10 specialists of the partner companies of the program such as Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Nexans and ZTE. Andrei Piti?, entrepreneur and president of the Employers’ Association of the Software and Services Industry (ANIS) also held a lecture within the program.

20 percent of the engineers, experts and managers within Orange’s technical department have graduated from Orange Educational Program.

A total of 300 students of the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunication and Information Technology within the Polytechnic University in Bucharest attended the program, developing essential abilities such as team work, leadership, project management, creativity, innovation spirit and analytic thinking.

The students who coursed this year also benefitted of 10 honor scholarships mounting to EUR 24,000 and of internships in Orange departments.

Two of the students graduating today attended Orange Innovation Labs during April-May this year, a project intended for the youngsters who are great on technology.

„Orange Educational Program was school, friendship, creation, information. There is nothing more satisfying than learning new things on what your are gone on and having nice teachers and colleagues (…) It was not work, work and just work. It was a vast repository of new experiences (…) I wished to create, to ask, to imagine that in the new future, the solutions that some only dreamt of will be enforced by others,” said Vlad Teohari, valedictorian of the 2014-2015 class and attendee at Orange Innovation Labs.

Orange Educational Program has three components: Engineering program within the partnership with Electronics and Telecommunication Faculty, a program dedicated to the students of the University of Economic Studies and the Orange First Step internship program.