The Brief+ | Tech Innovation, Funding, Startup, Issue #1
This is the first issue of The Brief+, the Iceberg Plus newsletter — and we want it to be genuinely useful.
We're here to tackle complex topics in deeptech innovation, startup funding, trends, and the real challenges shaping the national and European innovation ecosystem.
The Brief+ comes out twice a month on Substack, with ideas from our team and partners — researchers, founders, investors, public authorities — alongside news from our project ecosystem and real opportunities in funding and mentorship. Occasionally, we'll send a spontaneous issue when there's a funding call, event, or course that's too relevant to wait for.
Alright, let's get into it.
A sharp take — or rather, an internal conversation about AI, consulting, and taxation
Ionuț Țața: For anyone interested in internal debate, I'd recommend the HBR episode with Bob Sternfels from McKinsey. He talks about how to reorganize a consulting firm in the AI era, after major controversies. The question that really challenged him came from Adi Ignatius: what remains valuable when information and processing become commodities?
Diana Ceresmis: Jim Collins offers a partial answer — still relevant today, I think — in From Good to Great: companies that survive major technological shifts are the ones that adopt technology early, but know who they are and where they're going. Technology helps them get there. The flywheel only works if you know what it's spinning around. Sternfels also talks in the podcast about the period ahead, where AI adoption is genuinely just beginning — the fear of the future is greater right now than the actual impact. For now, large companies will ask consultants what kind of AI to implement. They'll ask whether it's safer to wait, especially if things are still working fine. But after this adoption phase — however long it lasts — the underlying problem remains.
Ionuț Țața: That's exactly the consulting industry's core problem. If your model is built on information arbitrage and processing power, AI eats you alive. So either you reposition around judgment and relationship, or you become infrastructure.
Diana Ceresmis: That's why I think the next correction will come from outside the market. If more than 50% of a business's output is AI-generated — who validates quality? Who's accountable? A mandatory human auditing framework would function as an accountability standard. And a market signal.
Ionuț Țața: And we'll need a better-regulated fiscal mechanism than what we have now. If AI agents replace human labor without contributing to the social systems they're eroding, we have a structural problem. Taxing AI agents should become redistributive.
Diana Ceresmis: Gradually and proportionally: the more you automate, the more you contribute. The logic is the same as with employees — you generate value in society, you participate in its cost.
Ionuț Țața: Which would become the funding mechanism for UBI — Universal Basic Income.
Diana Ceresmis: But taxation doesn't answer the existential question for the ecosystem: how do you reinvent yourself as a relevant actor? Human auditors are a partial answer. Not fiscal oversight — but a signal that ethical judgment and moral context can't be automated. At least not credibly. And we already have precedent for what happens when you let systems operate without genuine ethical oversight.
Ionuț Țața: The debate stays open as long as we're heading into a period of change followed by a settling we can only sense the shape of right now.
Diana Ceresmis: What's certain: if we don't actively invest in what is irreducibly human — institutions, culture, moral judgment — we're left with efficiency without substance.
Three questions that remain open:
- Who audits AI in business — the market, the state, or the industry itself?
- What does a fiscal model look like that funds the transition without slowing innovation?
- And what of what we're building today will still be relevant when automation becomes the default?
The answers aren't simple. But the innovation ecosystem is exactly where this conversation needs to happen — before it becomes public policy.
Short-term opportunities
Platform Launch | MetaVET — VR Training Environment
MetaVET brings virtual reality into the classroom — or more precisely, into the workshop.
This European platform, developed in partnership with education and technology organizations, creates a digital training environment where students in vocational schools and technical high schools can practice hands-on skills in conditions that are safe, interactive, and close to real industrial settings.
📍 CATTIA Brașov, Strada Institutului 35 📅 Wednesday, March 11, 2026 | 17:00
At the event: platform demo and testing (PC + VR) + networking.
Who is it for? Vocational schools, technical high schools, dual education associations, manufacturing and industrial companies.
👉 Confirm attendance at diana.ceresmis@iceberg.plus
⚡ Digital Energy — Brașov Energy Day 2026
On March 13–14, Brașov becomes — for the 14th time — the center of the conversation about the future of the energy sector. At Radisson Blu Aurum, Digital Energy brings together two days of concrete discussion on how technology, data, and automation are rewriting the rules of the industry — from regulation and infrastructure to security and resilience.
The event remains connected to the European COALition Hubs initiative, in which we are partners alongside regional hubs across Europe working on the digital energy transition.
📍 Radisson Blu Aurum, Brașov 📅 March 13–14, 2026
🛠️ 9 free courses for artists who want to work with technology — TECA
3D printing, laser cutting, VR/XR, computer vision, AI, IoT sensors, and cultural entrepreneurship — packed into 9 online sessions in the first week of March.
The TECA program is designed as a hands-on toolkit for students in arts, design, architecture, new media, scenography, and performance who want to integrate technology into their practice — no advanced technical background required.
Funded by the European Union through Creative Europe. Free, with limited spots. Certificate of participation upon completion.
📅 March 2–10, 2026 | online, in English, on Zoom
Schedule:
- March 2 | 18:00–21:00 — 3D Printing for Sculpting and Product Design
- March 3 | 18:00–21:00 — Digital Imaging in Creative Arts
- March 4 | 18:00–21:00 — Computer Vision & AI in Art
- March 5 | 18:00–21:00 — Laser Cutting for Artists
- March 6 | 13:00–15:00 — XR/VR for Artists
- March 7 | 18:00–21:00 — Tech in Theatre
- March 8 | 18:00–21:00 — General Electronics for Artists
- March 9 | 18:00–21:00 — Electronics & Photonics for Creative Arts
- March 10 | 18:00–21:00 — Cultural Entrepreneurship for Artists
From research to market — the SUCReD course
Do you have a research idea that deserves to go beyond a journal article? Or are you already working on a solution and wondering how to actually bring it to market?
Together with partners from the SUCReD project, we've created a course that gives you a clear roadmap from research to product or service — covering the right partnerships and concrete commercialization steps.
The course is designed for researchers, PhD students, tech innovators, entrepreneurs, and people in organizations who work with research outputs and want to turn them into applied solutions.
What you'll learn: intellectual property and how to protect your research results; how to validate the market potential of an innovation; the concrete steps to turn a scientific result into a scalable product or service; how to build effective science-to-business partnerships; and project management from idea to measurable impact.
📍 Free and available online: 👉 https://sucred.thinkific.com
To close, a hello from our colleague Loredana Gavrilescu — who will be writing the next issue in two weeks about the sectors reshaping the world, from healthcare and urban mobility to energy.
You'll also find updates on regional VCs, European grants, and tech opportunities that many Romanian founders are still missing.
See you in two weeks.
Brand Strategist @ Iceberg Plus