Language: English

UNCHAIN 2026 – AI, Legacy, and the Cost of Standing Still: The Strategic Reality Facing Europe’s Banks

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AI, Legacy, and the Cost of Standing Still The Strategic Reality Facing Europe’s Banks

Hundreds of finance leaders keep coming back to Unchain each year. This year, they have the chance to access Super Early Bird tickets for UNCHAIN Festival 2026 now available for a limited period of time, offering a 50% discount until January 31st  https://unchainfestival.com/tickets/. After this period, prices will increase.

How UNCHAIN 2026 Brings Europe’s Banks Face to Face with Execution Gaps, Infrastructure Risk, and the Limits of Automation

Over the past five years, the financial ecosystem across Central and Eastern Europe has undergone a quiet but profound transformation. What began as an urgent push for digitisation has evolved into a deeper reconfiguration of how finance is built, distributed, and experienced, from the unbundling of legacy banking infrastructure and the rise of embedded finance to the convergence of payments, credit, loyalty, and data-driven decision-making.

Insights gathered across previous editions of UNCHAIN Festival and distilled in its sector whitepapers point to a clear direction: finance in CEE is no longer defined by isolated products or institutions, but by ecosystems. Banks are navigating legacy “spaghetti” infrastructures while experimenting with parallel core systems and AI-driven internal automation. Retailers are moving beyond transactions toward experience-first models where payments, lending, and loyalty blend seamlessly into the customer journey. Meanwhile, fintechs are no longer challengers at the edges, but integral players shaping interfaces, expectations, and speed.

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SERP Conf. Sofia 2026: Visibility in AI-dominated Search

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SERP Conf. Sofia 2026

The SEO, E-commerce, and AI conference returns with a specially designed AI Lab, Masterclass and a new host

23/01/2026, Sofia, Bulgaria – On March 25th, at the Inter Expo Center, SERP Conf. Sofia 2026 will once again gather professionals from 20+ countries for its Eastern Europe Edition. The event will deliver curated expertise, strategies engineered to scale beyond academic knowledge or theories, and high-class networking, as it has done during its 6 editions so far – 4 in Bulgaria and 2 in Austria.

In an industry where there are many multi-track conferences promising everything to everyone, SERP Conf. has established itself as an event deliberately focused on substance over scale and measurable outcomes over marketing noise and paid presentations.

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The Superscrieri Awards reach their 15th edition: entries open until January 31, 2026

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Superscrieri

The competition expands into new areas of journalism with the introduction of four new categories: Interview, Thematic Journalism, Innovation, and Feature Writing

  • The Superscrieri Awards, which recognise the best journalism in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, are accepting entries from journalists until January 31, 2026;
  • The competition is also open to written materials published in Hungarian in Romanian publications. The articles must be accompanied by a translation of the material into Romanian;
  • This year’s competition comprises nine categories: Investigation, Journalistic Debut, Local Press, TV & Video Journalism, Civic Influencers, Interview, Thematic Journalism, Innovation, and Feature Writing. Of these, four categories are new: Interview, Thematic Journalism, Feature Writing, and Innovation;
  • Dan Duca, editorial director of HotNews, is the new president of the jury. The jury is joined by Alina Radu, director of Ziarul de Gardă, and Marian Voicu, TVR producer and founder of Veridica, as members;
  • Cătălin Moise joins the jury for the Civic Influencers category, dedicated to online content creators who promote social issues;
  • Journalistic materials published or broadcast in any print or electronic medium between January 1 and December 31, 2025, are eligible;
  • The winners of the Superscrieri Awards will be announced at the awards gala in May.

Bucharest, January 23rd, 2025: The Superscrieri Awards, an event that recognizes excellence in journalism in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, announces the opening of registrations for its 15th anniversary edition. Journalists can register until January 31 by completing the registration form. Journalistic materials published or broadcast in any print or electronic medium between January 1 and December 31, 2025, are eligible. The winners of the Superscrieri Awards will be announced at the awards gala, which will take place in May.

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Work from anywhere

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SingleFan - Old_Flickr_Laptop

I don’t like working from anywhere. Whenever I can, I try to work from home, from my computer only.

It’s a desktop PC, with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

While travelling, I use a laptop. But it’s much more inefficient.

I keep thinking that my „inefficient” way of working (at a laptop) it’s others’ way of daily work.

Very hard for me to understand how people can be productive on a laptop, when they have the option of Desktop PC.

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Romania today, read between the lines: what 2025’s books reveal about Romanians’ new priorities

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english books read
  • 5 out of the top 10 titles overall focus on health, emotional balance, and well-being
  • BookTok is setting the bestsellers again: Animal Farm and 1984 rank high in Fiction, alongside two other “classics” boosted by TikTok.
  • Fyodor M. Dostoevsky leads the authors’ chart in 2025. Ioana Pârvulescu is the best-selling Romanian author.
  • The Little Prince, the undisputed winner in Children’s Books: No. 1 in the category for the past three years and Libris’ best-selling book in 2025.
  • Thriller and romantasy are the subgenres dominating Young Adult and Books in English.
  • The Big Dictionary of Diseases and Conditions ranks in the top 3 in 27 counties.

Libris’ 2025 data outlines a clear picture of how Romanians are calibrating their cultural choices in a context marked by constant pressure, uncertainty, and a growing need for personal stability. An analysis of last year’s reading behavior shows that books about health, the relationship between body and emotions, and stress management are reaching the mainstream for the first time—reflected directly in the overall bestseller chart.

The fact that several mind–body balance titles appear among the top positions in the overall chart alongside classic literature and established fiction signals a shift in priorities: reading is being used as a tool for clarification, regulation, and personal decision-making.

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The perfect student

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On "Pitch Perfect" (2012)

I had no Internet access until 1997.

Until 2001-2002, I rarely had Internet access.

After the winter of 2002-2003, when I joined LEADERS Foundation and had almost 24/7 computer & Internet access, I always had Internet access at least once a week.

I can say that after 2002 lots of decisions were clearer because there was a place I could get information from, and before 2002 there was a lot of fog.

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Planuri 2026

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Too many items

Am niște proiecte personale pe care le-am tot amânat, și vreau să lucrez la proiectele mari până am timp să ajung la proiectele mici.

Pe de altă parte,

„There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.” – Bill Watterson (Nu avem niciodată suficient timp pentru toate nimicurile pe care vrem să le facem).

Dar asta nu mă oprește, pentru că cred în același timp:

“Always aim for the moon. If you miss you’ll land among the stars.” („Țintește întotdeauna spre Lună. Chiar dacă ratezi, vei ajunge printre stele.”) ― Anonymous

Concluzie: Propune-ți multe lucruri, fă doar o parte din ele, nu te opri din încercat. :)

(via »)

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Apologize, but don’t beat yourself up

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Un mic interviu

Sometimes I tend to forget this – An apology is enough!

In Romania, when you make a mistake, and you say „Sorry”/”Scuze”, sometimes the person doesn’t even look at you. You have to figure it out whether you’re pardoned or not.

The thing is, it doesn’t help the situation when you keep insisting on by saying „Sorry!”. OK, we got the message. If it was pardonable, it was forgiven the first time.

If the person doesn’t want to forgive you, insisting on the topic would likely only make things worse.

Note to self – Say „Sorry” once, try to compensate in some way for making a mistake, but don’t overreact. You are not actually Superman, no matter what you might think.

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