During the past years we have been suspicious to any award ceremonies and we don’t believe in such things anymore.
People had the same reaction to the award ceremony of the IT sector in Armenia. “What science or information technologies can develop in our country if the scientists are receiving 45.000 drams a month and paper letters are working faster than the internet in the country?” say people who don’t believe in the development of the IT sector in Armenia. They didn’t even try to understand and appreciate the fact that it was a great occasion that the former executive director, the head of the board of director of Intel company Roger Keith Barrett visited Armenia, during which he received the president’s prize for contribution to the development of IT in the world. Craig Barrett is a pioneer advocate for education development. Recently he was recognized by the US president as one of the leaders of the private sector as an initiator of national education, science, technologies, architecture and mathematics. He has published over 40 articles about the influences of the compositions of materials and is the author of the book entitled “architectural principle of materials”. Craig Barrett visited Armenia with his wife Barbara Barrett, who was the US Ambassador to Finland in 2009. “If this award was not organize, something would be missing for sure. And I am surprised when you say that awards are fictive here. I can debate with those who are thinking that way,” said the general director of Synopsis Armenia company Hovik Musayelyan, who is also the executive council president of the IT sector awards. One year ago the president of Armenia announced about the launching of the president’s prize to be given for contribution to the development of IT in the world. Accordingly, the annual prize is awarded to people, who have brought exclusive contribution to the development of IT. An award committee has been formed which consists of famous people. An election commission for award has been established too. “The main mission of the committee was to nominate the main group of candidates for the election commission. The committee elected Craig Barrett from the many candidates that had been nominated,” said H. Musayelyan. In answer to the question what relations the Synopsis has to the award he said, “It is six years that the Synopsis is in Armenia. Besides the engineering work we are doing, our mission is the development of IT technologies and innovation environment in our country as well. The company can imagine the prospects of its development in this context.” “Armenia does not have the raw materials for production but has a good intellectual potential, thus it has stabile and active participation in the development of technologies in the world.
“The brightest people of the world by visiting Armenia will raise the reputation of the country. Innovation cannot be crated from rocks; certain environment is needed,” said the CEO of Synopsis-Armenia Rich Goldman during the days of Barrett’s visit. Craig Barrett had traveled to over 100 countries of the world and he was in Armenia for the first time. In 2009 when by the decree of the RA President this award ceremony was set there was only one condition that the award winners should receive their awards in Yerevan – personally by the President. The giant of the IT sector received an award and mentioned, “It is my pleasure to be here and receive an award for the Information technology sector. But this award is not only mine; it also belongs to the people, who have made efforts to develop this sector. I consider myself a blessed person.” “Education is an urgent topic in any country,” mentioned Barrett during his visit to Armenia by adding that he is not well aware of the problems of the sector in Armenia. But he was quite impressed by the meeting with the students of universities. “Students are bright, aggressive and attentive.” To the question whether some day teachers will be substituted by computers, Barrett said, “The good teacher is the best technology of the classroom.” He is convinced that due to technologies the students start to learn more and faster but the actual contact of the teacher and the student cannot be replaced by a computer. The former president of Intel was satisfied by the professionalism level of the IT specialists of Armenia. Barrett was informed about the IT sector and the companies functioning in Armenia about 20 years ago. He was also aware of the activities of Synopsis in Armenia and Intel is one of the subscribers of the latter. During the meetings with the Armenian leadership Barrett has discussed issues regarding private computer classes for elementary school teachers. Musealyan also alluded to the initiative of Synopsis, which is the annual award to the Best Student of the Year granted by the RA President and the International Olympiad of Microelectronics. “The award ceremony of the IT sector is one of our ambitious initiatives to ensure that the IT sector is considered a priority in Armenia. By the way, in this regard Barrett inspired us with hope. He said that he as the executive director of Intel Corporation he had dealt with the Armenian IT sector by buying microchips from Armenia back from the soviet times. It is a pity that during these days certain people in Armenia claimed that IT cannot be developed by organizing competitions or by hosting prominent IT specialists of the world in Armenia. I should mention that our goal is to bring the prominent people of this sector to Armenia,” he mentioned by signifying Barrett’s company, who had provided the best launch for the competition. The award committee is already occupied by the selection of the candidates of 2010.