Summary: Ever try to think of living in a world where your best friend wasn’t one text away? Or maybe a world where research was done by rifling through stacks of books verses simply just googling it? In today’s podcast we explore technological changes immigrants, from the once communist country Romania have experienced throughout their lifetimes and how they have grown in the technological world around them. As we dive deeper into the subject as a podcaster I will try to create a timeline for listeners about our speakers lives throughout technology, as Ana Wiener did in “On reading issues of Wired from 1993 to 1995” and Astra Taylor did in her piece “The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the digital age.”
Guest Biographies
Norocel Popa
Norocel Popa is 50 years old, and immigrated to Canada in 1996. He grew up in Deva, Romania while Romania was a communist country. Now he lives in Mississauga, Ontario working as a BI (business intelligence) developer for Woodbine Entertainment Group.
Anca Schmidt
Anca Schmidt is also 51 years old and immigrated to Canada in 1995. She studied organic chemistry in Romania and now works as the Senior Director for Quality Control at Mylan Canada in Etobicoke.
Simona Cheoreanu
Simona Cheoreanu is 56 years old and immigrated to Canada in 1998. She is now a Project Manager in Equity Research for BMO Capital Markets. Fun fact:
Host: Welcome to Diving Deeper. I’m Audrey Popa, and as I’m sure you already know I will be your host for the evening. On today’s show we will be looking at the technological transitions three very unique people have gone through within their lifetime. Their one similarity is that these people spent most of their lives growing up in a communist country, yet when immigrating to Canada were immersed the world of technology in three very different ways. Today we will hear from Anca, Norocel and Simona, three Romanian immigrants and we will attempt to understand how technology has changed their lives. Thank you again to our lovely guest speaker’s for coming in to speak with us. Okay let’s get started shall we.
To begin, I’ll ask Simona the first question. Growing up in Romania, what was the extent of your interaction with technology? What products did your use and how did they effect your daily life?
Simona: Growing up during communist Romania, I was secluded from the world- especially from a technological standpoint. The government believed that the people of Romania could do everything by themselves and that they didn’t need to import anything into the country. The good thing was that there was a very strong emphasis in school on learning and developing technological skills, but everything was done with outdated labs, and while we did learn a lot of theory about technology we were well behind practically. Just to give you an example, I graduated with a computer science degree in 1990 and yet I was not able to touch a computer in the first 4 years of university studies; only after the revolution (in December 1989) in the last 4 month of my degree did new technology start to get imported into Romania.
Norocel: When I was younger, I grew up an only child in a small one-bedroom apartment. Both my parents worked, but my father was really passionate about music, especially the older stuff, so we had a lot of audio equipment around the house I could use- amplifiers, reel to reel tapes, turntables. That’s what sparked my love for music. Eventually these passions were what led me to electrical engineering and computers when I went to university, although that doesn’t say much- the only options for schooling at the time was the army, teaching, medicine, law and engineering. I’m lucky I was actually curious about the field though, as it was very competitive and I went to the best engineering school in the country.
Anca: Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, the technology that surrounded us was pretty much limited to black-and-white TV, radio, audio (turn table and cassette player) and rotary telephones. There were no computers – I saw a computer for the first time in the first year of university – it was a huge machine, located in the basement of the IT school, and was running with perforated cards! We were fortunate enough to have access to most of the home technology available at that time, what was though specific (and not in a good way) to the communist system is the extremely limited access to information which was restricted and highly censored to information outside the communist world.
Host: Giving a quick description of your job now, did you ever expect yourself being as immersed in technology as you are now? How has technology benefited and retracted from your personal and social lifestyle?
Simona: This is a loaded questions with multiple parts to it, I could write a book on it. So, I currently work in BMO Capital Markets in Equity Research which is a business department, not a technology department. If I compare today’s technology with what I had experienced in Romania it is certainly a huge difference both because of the regime difference but also because of world’s technological advancement. Had I ever dreamed to use this kind of technology in university? Obviously- I just had no real understanding how the technological world would have moved forward! I love technology and I believe in it’s benefits in all places: at work and at home to speed up processes and to open up the world. To be able to face all the technology changes I had to continue to learn non-stop. I had to enroll myself in multiple courses, but also as the web technology and the Internet world expanded, learning and finding answers to technological problems became easier. Dr. Google today knows everything, you just have to want to learn.
Norocel: I am currently working as a BI (business intelligence) developer for Woodbine Entertainment Group. I helps businesses make sense of data by mining and creating visualizations to help better understand what data tells by displaying it, but yes I love new technology. If anything, things are moving forward too slowly. Technology helps keep in touch with family and friends even when they are not in the same area (or continent) as you. I skype my parents every day, as my father has a heart condition which keeps him from being allowed to fly. Not only that, but these advancements help you listen to very good quality music in ways that wasn’t accessible 40 years ago. I have people I don’t even know from across the country sending me playlists weekly just because we share the same taste in music, it’s awesome.
Anca: I am working in the pharmaceutical field, leading the quality control activities of the Canadian branch of a global company. About 95% of the work performed in our laboratory would be impossible without the current advanced technology used, as it would be the worldwide instant communication through email and video calls with my collaborators across the world, as far as Australia, Asia or Europe. I could not do my current work without my laptop and cellphone, which allow me to connect with anyone and at any time, even when away. While this allows me immediate access to all information and people I need to connect, it also can negatively impact my personal time away from work, as I in fact end up connecting with work even on vacations or on holidays
Host: Looking at the different macro environmental and social factors, how do you think technology/the immensity of social media will effect future generations? How does this compare to the impact it had on your own childhood?
Simona: To begin, I think that the education system will have to change. During my time as a student I went to school to find answers. It was the only place to where one could find answers that were buried deep in books. Today you have answers everywhere but young people need guidance and motivation, which in my eyes seems to be lacking among the general public. We need to teach them to ask these questions, and be curious. There is this sense that since you can find everything on Google you actually know everything, that is simply not true. Technology is here to help, not to replace. It can replace repetitive work but not intelligence. On another page technology makes the world feel small. You may be in Australia communicating face to face with a friend while you lay in your bed, but it can also keep you in bed instead of going out and feeling the real world and the real interactions.
Norocel: If anything, it should make humans smarter and more informed. There is a good chance, though, it might exacerbate the extremes. Those people that will be interested in what technological advancements have to offer will have all the info and knowledge at their fingertips. There will be no need to pay for expensive schools to learn something valuable when it’s all available on the internet. But those who will not be interested, well, they will play video games all day.
Anca: The immediate access to any type of information through the internet is something we could have not imagined growing up. For example, to study for my Masters thesis I had spent thousands of hours searching information through hundreds of books – the same amount of information is now available with a simple google search within a single day! The biggest challenge current and future technology brings is information overload – it is very easy to feel overwhelmed by the thousands of entries popping out for a simple search! While technology makes everything we need available at the tip of our fingers, it also limits direct human interaction, that cannot be replaced, at least not yet by a keyboard or a screen.
Host: Our guest Simona, Norocel and Anca have all explained to us their different experiences with growing up in a communist country, their immersion into technology and finally their love for technology. As different as all their stories are, the common thread between them all is the importance they place on technology within their lives, but also the potential dangers it could bring moving forward. Thanks so much for listening, and well see you next week on Diving Deeper!
