Why should you set only very high goals for yourself? Interview with Armen Baldryan

Neither the private nor the public sector in Armenia has a sufficient understanding of how modern technologies can contribute to their development. About a year and a half ago, UEICT President Armen Baldryan expressed this opinion in an interview with NEWS.am Tech. As it turns out, this problem is still relevant. In a new interview, the specialist noted that the penetration of modern technologies into both private enterprises and public institutions is progressing very slowly. However, this is due not only to ignorance or unwillingness, but also to some more objective difficulties.

According to Baldryan, the introduction of innovative technologies into any enterprise usually requires large investments. Not all companies are ready for such investments, and many prefer to hire a large number of low-paid employees than to change all the usual processes and automate the work performed by these employees.

“Some people find it easier to hire 10 people than to change so much in their work. However, the thing is that new times have come, and it is wrong to send these 10 employees to basic, low-paid jobs. It will be much better if they do more scientific work and if their potential is used to obtain more complex and valuable products,” the specialist noted.

The introduction of new technologies into production processes will require not only investments in business, but also serious changes in the educational system: it will be necessary to train completely different specialists, “to teach people not to dig holes, but to operate machines that will dig these holes.” All this, of course, also presupposes many difficulties and challenges, but Baldryan is convinced that this is required by the path of development, and these changes are necessary.

In addition, in order to understand and accept the need for these changes – and to make it easier to take a step towards them, you need to set very high goals for yourself.

“If you set very high goals for yourself, even if you achieve 80% of the goals, that’s already great. For example, if you set a goal to increase the country’s GDP not by 2 times, but by 10 times, or to raise salaries not by 10%, but by 10 times, you will start looking for ways to achieve these higher goals and you will understand how important innovative transformation is for this and how important it is for people to do not basic work, but complex work. Perhaps you will not achieve goals like a ten-fold increase in GDP or salaries, but the result will definitely be better than the initial two-fold increase in GDP or a 10% increase in salaries,” the specialist noted.

According to Baldryan, work on innovation and technology transformation should be carried out jointly by the private and public sectors. This will require not only desire, but also legislative initiatives, the creation and development of infrastructure, investments and much more. According to him, certain work in this direction is already being carried out in Armenia.

“At least, discussions on this topic are already underway. We hope that we will soon move directly to the matter. Armenia has no alternatives: there is huge competition on the international market, and we have no right to lag behind and get stuck in one place,” Baldryan said.

Source: https://tech.news.am/