The 2023 European Connectivity Summit will be held in Yerevan

The European Communications Summit 2023 is being held in Yerevan on June 6-7 under the title “Connecting the Unconnected: Europe & Beyond”.

The opening of the summit on June 6 was attended by the RA NA Vice President Hakob Arshakyan, the Deputy Minister of High-Tech Industry of the Republic of Armenia Avet Poghosyan, representatives of the industry, international partners from Georgia, Greece, and Kyrgyzstan.

Kristine Gyonjian, the director of the Union of Operators of Armenia, made an opening speech and spoke about the goals of the event, industry priorities, challenges and the work being carried out in that direction.

The RA NA Vice President Hakob Arshakyan welcomed the attendees. He made a speech about the importance, opportunities and challenges of the Internet, information security and certain restrictions for children in accessing the Internet.

“Work is being done at the legislative level in order to be able to create the necessary toolkit for families, children, schools, and non-governmental organizations, which are related to the restriction of Internet access, so that they have the opportunity to protect themselves from content that is not necessary for them,” Hakob Arshakyan said.

Avet Poghosyan, Deputy Minister of High-Tech Industry of the RA, emphasized in his speech that the RA Government’s 2021-2026 the program envisages that by 2026, 80 percent of settlements of Armenia will be provided with access to broadband Internet, which is a fairly high indicator in the world.

“Currently, we are moving towards that goal at a progressive pace. Already 66.5 percent of the communities of the Republic of Armenia are provided with broadband Internet, which includes 96 percent of the population. It is also noteworthy that those settlements that do not have access to broadband Internet are provided with mobile Internet,” Avet Poghosyan mentioned.

The participants of the summit were also welcomed by Igor Mkrtumyan, Chairman of the Council of the “Internet Society” NGO, and Michuki Mwangi, an honored technologist of the “Internet Society” organization.

The European Connectivity Summit 2023 has three main directions:

• “Technical issues, challenges and opportunities related to community networks”.
• “Policy making and creation of innovative financing mechanism for additional Internet access and network solutions”.
• “Training and education opportunities to deploy additional networks in hard-to-reach locations.”

The purpose of the summit is to bring together professionals and interested organizations from all over the world, including Armenia, to find solutions for creating opportunities to provide Internet access in remote settlements.

The event is held with the support of the RA Ministry of High-Tech Industry, the “Internet Society” organization and the Union of Armenian Operators.