Speech by Prime Minister Edi Rama at opening ceremony of the Coding Academy at the National Agency for Information Society’s Tech Space:
Hello everyone!
Albanian vocabulary contains a number of word that if they could actually talk they would have founded an association of persecuted words and one of the extensively abused words is definitely the word “vision”, “plan”, “program”, we come across on daily basis. I heard the word “vision” uttered by this event moderator, for first time, as this is rarely the case, the word was used in the right place and in the right and for the right person when he introduced Linda Karcanaj, the director of the National Agency for Information Society (NAIS), because, without Linda, without her leadership, vision and commendable management, we wouldn’t gone that far and we wouldn’t manage to be right where we are today.
These accomplishments and the position where we are today were for the sake of truth the result of that huge leap and the most significant example of the tremendous leap can be illustrated by two simple figures. In 2013, when we took office, NAIS was actually founded and the online public services it delivered counted to only 13.
A total of 1200 public services will be delivered via online platforms by December. I believe this figure speaks for itself. Just like it is the case also with the exponential growth, although not according to us, or the sufficient growth in the number of the online users if compared to the opportunity. Our ambition is to put an end to the exhausting chapter of the public service delivery in the past three decades all due a still nascent and fledgling administration, which has yet to work hard to live up to its performance expectations, an administration that still suffers from long-time illnesses, including one of the most severe one, bribery. We will put an end to that chapter for good by delivering all public services to the very pocket of each citizen, the smartphone of everyone, to the nearest personal computer of everyone so that nobody would have to leave home and wait on long queues, always fearing what kind of face of the state will show up in front of him in the shape of the latest administrator, who, though significantly improved, he or she still remain an undesired face just for the reason they have been surviving at the expense of people over the years.
By the end of this year, we will have every opportunity to deliver a range of 1200 public services via online platforms, with people no longer having to report at offices in person, without waiting for someone to give you a hand to cross the long queue in order to receive the required service sooner, or not to be denied the service.
Of course, transition from an obsolete mentality of interaction with the state institutions to this new approach for everyone would take some more time, but it is for sure that public service delivery has significantly improved. As of today, there is a number of 660 active online services, while introduction of the latest group of a range of more online services would complete this stage of the ongoing digital revolution and 95% of public services, except a minor number of services that need physical presence to leave fingerprints when applying for a passport or some other services, will be all available to the citizens via the online platform.
On the other hand, yesterday was really a moment of joy followed by today’s joy, because both activities are connected with one another, be it the opening of TUMO Tirana centre, or be it the opening of this new path that was initially launched in Poland to later expand to a number of European capitals and arrive here in Tirana as the first country in the region. It is an honor for us, it is a pleasure, and we are proud of being among these capitals to offer our young people one more opportunity to access the world of technology.
Another project will follow soon and it will become part of the life of our youth, the start-ups project designed to send the best performing Albanian young people to Silicon Valley. We will be able to provide them to join Silicon Valley through their creations and geniality.
In the meantime, we have made sure that the reconstruction plans include as a need and as a novelty the introduction of structures that will house such activities, to learn and develop technology in the new residential neighbourhoods under construction now after the existing ones collapsed because of the devastating earthquake. As part of these ongoing efforts, a government delegation is visiting Paris today to continue an open discussion and bring France’s famous innovative school “Ecole 42” to Tirana, which is one of the latest accomplishments in this domain and is another very nice offer to all those who want to dedicate themselves to technology, either to develop a basic set of knowledge or to become experts and even, why not, the most talented ones can become innovators.
Given that whenever in the presence of Michael Granoff, I can’t help myself but think and speak about money. Greeting Michael first, I believe that Michael always likes my ideas. He hasn’t turned down any of them as of today, certainly after carefully weighing them all in his “monetary steelyard” and listing then them according to his instinct of the ultra successful entrepreneur. If this was not the case, he would suffer losses and wouldn’t have been here at the helm of his fantastic Foundation. He will definitely like the idea about his Foundation’s involvement sooner rather than later together its greatest strength, which is not based on the money, something I already said yesterday and will reiterate constantly. He is laughing and it is not that he likes me to tell these things publicly, although they have plenty of money, yet never enough and government the municipality, other stakeholders are always needed, here and there, whole society and business. However, this is another story and whole new school for Michael. In the end of the day, the greatest strength and the highest added value the Foundation provides to our endeavour is its knowhow and capacity to channel its knowhow, offering it whenever possessing it or by searching it all over the work and importing it here. I believe that the Foundation would provide precious assistance if it will involve sooner rather than later in our efforts to build the experts network we need to start designing plans that would then require to be financed under the European Union’s investment and growth plan for the region.
“Michael is about big money man, believe me. As your president would say, huge money, incredible money, never seen such amount of money, believe me man”.
It is actually a programme with nine billion euros in grants, with one billion euro allocated as a guarantee fund for the remaining 20 billion euros in funds that will total to around 28 billion euros to support all countries in our region through projects in three key areas; infrastructure and transport, from roads, highways, regional transport links, railways; energy, gas and gasification, extension of the gas pipeline as part of the Trans-Adriatic pipeline; and the third area is digital interconnection of the region.
It is about a massive funding to support the entire backbone of the region’s digital interconnection. Understandably this is all about projects with a regional impact, but it is of course also about projects that every country will design on their own within an overall regional vision. Of course, the European Union doesn’t deliver cash money bags to any country it allocates for, but every country should build capacities required to absorb these funds through development of the right vision, the right plan, through development of the right programmes and projects and this is all what makes the difference.
The friends coming from Poland know this quite well as they have gone through the integration process before us and clearly know that one of the areas where Poland has made the difference with many other new countries that joined European Union was its impressive capacity building to absorb the EU funds. One of the data I have come across when looking into the progress of the disbursement of EU funds, Poland has been one of the first former communist countries side in terms of the level of the EU funds absorption and interestingly enough, if we look at the whole European Union, the Bloc’s strongest and wealthiest members are the countries that succeed in absorbing the largest share of funds for the EU projects, and this is not because they are stronger and take the lion’s share of funds for themselves, but because they possess more knowhow. In the end of the day, the difference is quite obvious between “the developed” and “the developing” member states and this difference between the nations is not based on what you have, but on what you know. You may be rich in incredible natural resources and still be an undeveloped country just because you lack the knowhow and have failed to invest in the knowhow to turn these resources into wealth. I always highlight this example. Albania is the second richest country in water resources in Europe. Israel is a water superpower though it lacks water resources, while we are face water supply shortages, face irrigation water and we have abundant water and cause floods when we are forced to discharge water from our dams to avoid the dam’s failure and collapse.
This is a whole story of regress because of the lack of knowhow and therefore I believe these investments and the today’s and yesterday’s events and the whole work carried out by NAIS since Linda took over the Agency’s management is an investment many times bigger in terms of profitability than it may result in terms of figures. One invested euro translates exponentially into profit in 5, 10, 15, 20 years later. Therefore, although yesterday we expressed our gratitude to the Foundation, I must repeat them today, because they are never superfluous, especially when it comes to such investments.
I want to thank our Polish friends. I’m sorry that my late mother is no longer here as she was very spiritually connected to Poland, she was graduated in Poland, she spoke Polish just like she spoke Albanian and every time she happened to watch on TV that I met a Pole, she would ask me ” how was it, what did he say,” as if I had met a cousin who had not had time to visit her at home.
Of course, I also wish every success and courage to all those who are here today or that will join this academy day by day. I am convinced that these spaces will face the overcrowding problems in terms of demand. I wish the overcrowding comes as soon as possible, that then Michael will find it impossible to say: “Look we have no money as we are now developing another project on global warming.” Because I know very well that, despite the fact that resistance is his first instinct, even when it comes to ideas he really likes, the second step marks his involvement and not only with his mind, but also with his heart and soul. So let’s hope that overcrowding becomes a reality as soon as possible so that we can knock on your doors for partnership and help first and foremost through your best experience you know all too well to find, collect and bring in view of complicated projects like these ones.
Thank you very much man! Don’t forget, 28 billion, imagine!
