Toward the end of 1989, my professional life in Italy was beginning to move forward, though it had not yet found a clear direction. Opportunities arose, meetings took place, and promises were made, but none of them immediately turned into a stable job. Some of these episodes are described more fully on other pages of the site; here I bring them together to trace the beginning of my professional reconstruction.

A door left ajar

One of these opportunities seemed to be taking shape at Datamat, one of Rome’s major information technology companies. Through Giovanni M., I had met members of the company’s management in his office, and shortly before Christmas I was invited to an interview. I felt that the discussion had gone well. They even spoke to me about the possibility of hiring me.

I waited to be called again, but the phone call never came.

It was one of those situations to which an emigrant quickly becomes accustomed: a door seems to open, but remains only half-open. I could not wait too long, nor could I afford to become discouraged. I had to accept every opportunity that allowed me to work in my profession and earn the money I needed to live.

EUR Microcomputer

One such opportunity came through Carlo C., who ran a small computer company in the EUR district. The firm sold and installed computers at a time when Italian businesses and institutions were beginning to computerize at a rapid pace.

Many customers bought equipment only to discover afterward that a computer, without suitable programs and people who knew how to use it, solved almost nothing. Computers were relatively easy to sell; the real problem began after they had been installed.

The Rebibbia project

Carlo had obtained a contract to computerize a clothing depot located inside Rebibbia Prison. Contrary to what one might imagine, the project had nothing to do with prisoners’ records. It concerned the management of the depot that supplied clothing and equipment to prison staff throughout Italy.

The project had been started by several Polish programmers who, after receiving their visas, had left for Canada. The work had to be continued and brought to completion. I accepted the assignment and, for a time, worked either at the company’s premises or directly at Rebibbia.

For me, simply returning to a technical environment was extremely important. After months spent almost entirely preoccupied with my residence permit, rent, and the money needed for the following day, I was returning to computers and programming. It was the field I knew, one in which I could demonstrate what I was capable of without constantly having to explain my past or the position I had held in Romania.

Roberto

At Rebibbia I met Roberto C., the manager of the clothing depot. Our relationship soon went far beyond the professional circumstances in which we had met. We became friends, and our friendship lasted for more than thirty years. Later, our families also came to know one another.

Of everything that remained from that project, my friendship with Roberto was probably the most important.

An uncertain collaboration

My collaboration with Carlo C. did not last long. Payment for the month of February was delayed. He maintained that the client had not yet paid him and that he would be able to pay me only after the project had been completed.

The money did not arrive until April.

For someone who had only recently settled in Italy, with no savings and no security about the following day, such a delay was not a minor inconvenience. It meant being unable to pay the rent and everyday expenses. I could not continue under those conditions, so I ended the collaboration.

EUROTRONIC SRL

Meanwhile, the project Giovanni M. had first mentioned to me in September was beginning to take concrete form. In January 1990, he founded EUROTRONIC SRL. The company's headquarters were near Piazza Bologna, in a much more central area than the EUR district.

Giovanni offered me the position of technical director, a title that sounded impressive even though, at first, I was the company’s only collaborator (not employee!) of the company. For this role and other succesive commitments, I had to, when I had "il permesso di soggiorno", open the so-called "partita IVA", i.e. the Italian freelancer tax regime.

Giovanni had served in the police and was very familiar with the problems of access control and surveillance. One of his ideas was to create a system capable of automatically recognizing vehicle registration plates at the entrance to a garage or restricted area.

Such systems are commonplace today. In the early 1990s, however, the technology was not yet sufficiently mature. Video cameras did not always produce clear enough images, lighting conditions changed, and number plates could be dirty, damaged, or difficult to read. Even organizing convincing demonstrations for prospective clients was difficult.

I worked alongside Giovanni for two or three years, sometimes in parallel with other assignments. Not every project we imagined became a commercial product, but each one gave me contacts, experience, and a better understanding of the Italian professional environment.

A small bridge between Bucharest and Rome

As EUROTRONIC’s technical director, I was also responsible for finding the people the new company needed. It was the period immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain, when many specialists from Eastern Europe were leaving for the West. A large number were computer scientists and engineers passing through Italy on their way to the United States or Canada.

After the Romanian Revolution, word reached some of my former students that I was in Rome and working for an information technology company. Several came with their families. I knew many of them well, and some were also friends. I was able to hire those whose skills EUROTRONIC needed; others, whose specializations included computer graphics, real-time systems, and other fields, I put in touch, through Giovanni M. or other acquaintances, with companies looking for specialists.

One of those hired by EUROTRONIC was Sorin D., who had graduated in Computer Engineering in Bucharest only a year earlier and had been one of my students. Giovanni M. took an immediate liking to him, especially after Sorin began implementing in C the automatic number-plate recognition program, one of the projects Giovanni cared about most.

Sorin continued working on the program for almost three years, even after I had left EUROTRONIC. He kept developing it after moving to England: from time to time, he returned to Rome to show Giovanni how far he had progressed and to obtain further funding for the work. He later moved to the United States, where he became a university professor. His program, remarkable for that period, never achieved industrial validation.

For me, these encounters represented an unexpected continuation of my university life in Bucharest. Former students were reappearing in another country and in an entirely different context, and the teacher–student relationship sometimes developed into a professional collaboration. For a time, Rome had become a meeting point between the world I had left behind and the one in which I was trying to build a new life.

At the “kolkhoz”

Before long, a small group of Romanians had gathered in Rome, many of them former students or acquaintances of mine and all in similar circumstances. Giovanni M. understood the problem: they needed not only work, but also somewhere to live until their situations became clearer.

He rented a very large apartment where all of us could find a place to sleep. It also had a spacious dining room where we ate together, “at the kolkhoz,” as we jokingly called it. For people in transit, with little money and an uncertain future, it was a practical solution that helped us stay together.

I too had to leave Sirio’s home and move in with my former students, especially since my own family was due to arrive in Rome in the following weeks.

As the oldest member of the “kolkhoz,” I also took it upon myself to be the cook. Sirio had taught me to make aglio, olio e peperoncino pasta, with garlic, extra-virgin olive oil, and chili pepper. In my own version, I also added parsley and a little tomato sauce, then sprinkled a teaspoonful of grated Parmesan over the top. It was a simple, inexpensive dish, well suited to our communal meals. At other times I made pasta with tomato sauce, which the ladies preferred.

Naturally, my wife did not like life at the “kolkhoz” at all and insisted that we rent an apartment of our own. That is what we did: two weeks after my family arrived, we moved to Settecamini, a district beyond the Grande Raccordo Anulare, where rents were more affordable.

Sold together with the computers

Not every computer salesman was like Carlo C. I also met Fabrizio M., an exclusive Olivetti dealer, at a time when Olivetti was one of Italy’s major computer companies. He had found a different solution: he “sold” me to the client together with the computers. It is, of course, a joke, but that is essentially what happened.

Before delivering the equipment, Fabrizio introduced me to the client and entrusted the information technology side of the project to me. In this way, he ensured that he would not later have to deal with every problem related to the use of the computers, while responsibility for the software and for the operation of the system as a whole fell largely on my shoulders.

Two of his clients from that period remained my clients for more than thirty years: UNACOMA — Unione Nazionale Costruttori Macchine Agricole — and Conquiste del Lavoro, the daily newspaper of CISL (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori). Fabrizio supplied their computers, but as far as software was concerned, I became their almost exclusive provider. Over the years, I came to feel like a member of those organizations, and the programs I created continued to be used by their employees to this day. I will have other opportunities to discuss these two clients and the projects I carried out for them.

From computers to software

During that period I understood something essential about the Italian information technology market. Computers were selling well and in large numbers, but the real need — still recognized by very few, even among so-called “specialists” — was software. Companies needed programs, equipment integration, staff training, and, above all, people capable of turning a concrete problem into an information system that actually worked.

My training, which some people in Romania had considered too theoretical, was beginning to show its practical value. My knowledge of programming and systems design enabled me to learn quickly technologies I had not used before and to understand the problem beyond whichever product or programming language happened to be fashionable at the time.

I had not yet found a stable position. I had, however, found an environment in which what I knew was needed and in which I could gradually rebuild my professional identity.

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