Remarks by President Serzh Sargsyan at the Ceremony of the Annual Presidential Education Awards in the Sphere of Information Technology

Honorable Mr. Torossian,

Dear attendees,

First of all, I would like to congratulate all the participating students and pupils who have been conferred upon the Presidential Education Awards in the Sphere of Information Technology. Indeed, I congratulate us all because these awards belong to all of us: your success, dear young men, is the success of all ours. I am glad that along with your awards, today you have a chance to receive another award: by this I mean, of course, the opportunity to freely get in touch with our compatriot Vahe Torossian, an individual who has achieved great success in this sphere.

Of course, I would like to offer my thanks to the awards committee for its responsible and extensive work. I believe that the awards go to the most deserving ones. Established 11 years ago, these awards have already become an important step aimed at the development of the mentioned sphere in our society. Year in and year out, we can see the positive results of our policy pursued in this sphere. We can see the testimonies of the rightness of our choice and of its prospects.

All IT specializations, as well as qualified cadres are really in-demand in our country. I think that we should give fresh impetus to the works aimed at meeting this demand. In our today’s conversation with Vahe we mentioned that there is a huge demand for cadres in this sphere, and the training of such cadres is a crucial condition for its development. Of course, we are going to give a fresh impulse to this process. I think we have resources to meet this demand which stem firstly from not only our desire to implement reforms in our education system, but also from our actions already, and naturally from the out-of-school opportunities given by I do not know how to call it - shall I call it Tumo technological center or Tumo excellency center – never mind, a center which provides people with knowledge and the chance to engage in their favorite professional activities. Technological entrepreneurship can and should become an important part of our economy, and a key stimulus for our economic development.

Dear partakers,

As a society, we must understand that having a great number of IT specialists is not an end in itself. This not merely an economic issue: they are already forming a certain stratum in our society. This is the new class of intelligentsia peculiar to the 21st century. For every country, it is not only an economic, but also a political and a state of civilization indicator. An educated and well-to-do middle class inevitably gives a new, higher quality to social relations. It puts forward higher demands for education and healthcare and at the same time, presents programs and proposals. It also puts forward demands to ensure a higher level of political and economic freedoms. And it is natural. This is the path to progress, and in our case, this is the very route to progress.

I thank you once again, dear young men, and congratulate you on this success.