More than 150 Albanian talents in the field of technology have turned their visions into real businesses, and today they proudly present impressive products.
Prime Minister Edi Rama held a meeting with Albanian startups, which today mark over 2,000 registered nationwide, holding legal status, while 4,500 entities operate in the IT sector with around 15,000 employees. These figures were presented during the meeting by the Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and Business Climate, Delina Ibrahimaj, who highlighted, among other things, that IT service exports amount to around 200 million euros.
Among the young participants were the winners of the Startup Grant 2024 and 86 new startups recently informed that they are winners and will be funded by the Startup Grant 2025 this year.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Hello and thank you very much. I really appreciated the applause because it was so genuine, and it’s true that today we have 89 winners of the program, but it’s equally true that we are aware the program needs to be expanded further.
Meanwhile, just yesterday, I saw an analytical audit on what has changed through the e-Albania platform in the lives of Albanians, and three points stood out to me. The first is that through the platform, Albanians have saved a total of 620 million euros, which they would have otherwise spent to obtain the services they’ve received over the years. The analysis is very interesting and detailed, covering areas such as fuel, distances, and more. The second point that struck me is that 75 million sheets of paper have been saved, which is no small feat.
This is the big surprise and, in the same vein, the blessing of technology for countries like ours, which, through interaction with technology and accessing the services it offers, have the opportunity to make advancements that would have been impossible without technology. For example, we would never have been able to create, in such a short time, a public administration capable of delivering the services that e-Albania provides with the same level of transparency, speed, and accuracy. Impossible!
Meanwhile, the progress up to the emergence of the power of digital technology has been linear. Now, we are in the era of exponential progress.
If, during the time of linear progress, the shift from one typewriter to another took several years, then access to that product for those who were poorer required a lot of time—so much time that less developed and poorer countries ended up still using typewriters that others had already discarded.
Today, it’s a completely different world. Today, despite the fact that we may be behind in many things, we can surpass others in certain aspects thanks to technology.
It’s no coincidence that a country like Estonia is far ahead of a country like Germany, not only with e-Albania but also with negotiations.
We now have an artificial intelligence model that transfers laws and all 250,000 EU texts, for which other countries before us have employed an army of translators and drafters, while our model does it in just a few minutes—a task that would normally take translators and drafters. For Croatia, this task alone took 7 years. Meanwhile, we are doing it at a very fast pace, and within 5-6 months, we will have it completed in terms of volume. We will have it in Albanian, with very high quality, and the model improves every day.
Similarly, with public procurement, we are working with Microsoft on an innovative public procurement model without human participation, which actually—or more precisely—carries out the procurement process until the result is issued, without human involvement. The relevant commission then certifies the result, and of course, makes the final decision. And in the end, responsibility for signing contracts and public expenditures lies with humans, not yet with artificial intelligence. But it’s still a very ambitious project, and just a few days ago, a workshop was held at the National Agency for Information Society with representatives from 16 countries working in this direction.
In fact, everyone has played a specific role. We are trying, with Microsoft, to create a model where we do everything. It’s something we hope and aim to have ready by the end of 2026. Meanwhile, in the near future—though I’m not sure exactly when, as work is still in progress—e-Albania will take it to the next level. The Diella character that currently appears and speaks will handle the entire service. It will no longer be necessary for users to follow Diella and click through; instead, the process will be initiated by a request.
Having said all this, I believe we are building great potential here with you and others like you, who can help us further develop governance processes by using our data.
In the meantime, we were talking earlier, before we came in here, about “Ecole 42,” which will soon open at the Pyramid. It’s an excellent school for digital technology, and it’s actually outside the traditional education system. It’s a school that doesn’t have the usual requirements that traditional schools have. It’s an age-neutral school—anyone can enroll. Of course, there’s a selection process, but it’s a school that is truly one of the main pillars of the digital revolution that France is leading, as they are now at the forefront of these developments.
Thank you very much for your patience. Delina wanted me to share the news that here are 89 entities that will receive support from the government, but in fact, it is Delina’s role, not only to announce this, but also my sincere thanks to her in your presence for the very valuable work she has done in advancing the relationship between the government and the startups, which I hope and wish to strengthen and expand even further.
And don’t forget that now in Albania, we have the “Durana” technology park, which is a park specifically for you and for everyone like you, both inside and outside the country, to develop technology products, and it offers an exceptionally favorable incentive system. And very soon, I believe by the beginning of next year, we will also have the building in Vlora, right in the center of Vlora, which has extraordinary spaces—it’s fantastic for high-tech development and will function as a park. So, those who need space, offices, or who will develop technology products there will have a completely different fiscal system and set of incentives compared to areas outside the building’s perimeter.
So, keep that in mind, and I really hope that by then, you will have made new developments because the speed of development here is truly remarkable. I also remember in my first conversation with Mira Murati, when we were discussing speed, and she told me something that was quite frightening. She said, “If it took a year to go from iPhone 12 to 13, now with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, it will take only one day to move from one thing to another. What is new in the morning will already be outdated by evening. That’s how fast the pace of transformation is going to be.”
Thank you so much, and lucky are those of you who, while transforming at such speed, are also transforming yourselves gradually. Because when you’re working with art, it may take six months to complete a painting, and in those six months, you become six months older, but you’ve created a painting. Whereas you can accomplish so many things in six months and just gain six months of experience, not become older, as you have time to use these words.
Thank you!
