Răzvan Florian is the president of the Romanian Institute of Science and Technology and also a principal investigator working at the intersection of machine learning and program synthesis. He has previously developed a new learning rule for spiking neural networks, components of which were implemented in hardware in the Loihi neuromorphic chip developed by Intel. Dr. Florian has also founded several startups (Arxia, Epistemio, WebCube, and Zindro) and has previously contributed to the reform of the Romanian research and higher education system.