The new Security and Defense Innovation Center marked with its opening a new era of technological development and modernization in security and defense.
This center, which was inaugurated today, is attached to the Military Cyber Security Unit, another major project for defense in the digital world, with a key role in the fight against cyber threats and the protection of our information systems, established thanks to the support of the US.
The new Security and Defense Innovation Center will strengthen national capacities in the field of security and defense through the implementation of innovative projects and the integration of advanced technologies, as well as promote the development of an ecosystem of innovation in security and protection.
Prime Minister Edi Rama visited the new premises of the Center, together with the Minister of Defense Niko Peleshi and senior leaders of the Armed Forces.
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Maybe I will sound repetitive, but I want to reiterate a complete conviction that innovation is a blessing for a country like ours. A country like ours that comes from a deep backwardness and must do its best to make up for lost time, and bridge the extraordinary distances that history has created between us and other countries with which until yesterday we had no contact, while today we are destined to see them as our family of tomorrow. This gives us the opportunity to make great leaps forward in a short time, which 20, let alone 30 years ago, would have been unimaginable.
It is a blessing which we must take as an extraordinary gift in this part of our journey and we must use it to the best of our ability as every step we take in this direction brings us with dizzying speed to the developed world; innovation gives us the opportunity to aim for things that much more developed countries, precisely because they are much more developed, find it more difficult to do and today, I am very glad that we are given the opportunity to share with the public the existence of this new reality, another reality of this time where we are trying to drive innovation, introduce technology, transform processes and change a very heavy legacy in the institutional aspect of this country.
And this center, which is joined by the new Innovation and Excellence Agency that we created precisely to have an internal driving force in every central department, in every ministry, is a nucleus that promises a lot. It promises a lot and it is precisely the girls and the boys we met today, their generation, to which this center refers beyond the borders of the perimeter of the Armed Forces, as the minister emphasized, the goal is for our Armed Forces, our army, to become a center of technological development beyond itself, which of course is an example that we are not called to create, but simply to take and implement by looking at many other countries.
Let’s not forget that the Internet itself was developed in the defense system of the United States. In parallel with this process, we are also moving forward with the process of growth and direct financial support of our Armed Forces. For the first time in the historical trend, the salaries of our Armed Forces are increasing every year, as we have promised, and they will increase again this year in a significant way, because our goal is for us to have a military force financed and paid individually for each of its personnel similarly to the average of NATO countries, which we are aiming for every year and practically today, unlike not many years ago, we have an army which in terms of salaries is at level A in the region.
But this is not simply a support for what we have today, this is a support for what we want to have tomorrow. And certainly the need to increase the financial motivation of students of the Defense Academy, to increase the financial motivation of students who look at the possibility of a perspective in our Armed Forces, and more for all those students, whether in the defense system or in the general university system, who have something to give to this country in this aspect and who will be referred to this innovation center, we naturally have to take our measures for their financial motivation.
The other thing I want to emphasize today is that in order to respond to the new challenges and to respond to this new level of commitment for our vision for the Armed Forces of Albania 2030, a new military strategy and a new long-term development plan of the Armed Forces is now ready and will be submitted to the legislative process in the Assembly. While we are also preparing the new platform for the development of the military industry. A platform that will be included in the entire legislative body of the Republic of Albania, to start a wave of investments in the defense industry, making Albania a country that not only consumes what the taxpayers give in terms of defense, which not only provides the Armed Forces with imported instruments, tools, weapons, but also through the industry of defense profits that circular back to the Army, and through its military industry, manages to supply local products, certainly in cooperation with large, serious enterprises of allied countries.
Our ambition is that within 2030 we will have military exports of the brand “Made in Albania” and on the other hand, of course, that our army will start to be equipped with military tools of the brand “Made in Albania”. For this we are lucky because we are a small country which has great allies. The most advanced countries in the defense industry today in the democratic world are, not only willing, but also interested in seeing their enterprises develop cooperation with the Albanian state and on the other hand, our whole new approach in terms of these cooperations, not only in the field of defense, is that the state must be a partner, the state must be a shareholder, and from all these processes of economic development, the state must take its share.
I often hear that many things have been achieved, and people with a loud public voice say that time brought it. Time brings only itself! While what it brings with it is determined by the people and all these positive developments that put us today in the conditions where we can look at Albania in 2030 as a “star” in this region, have been brought about by the policy that has been put in service of time, which has given many more opportunities to those without whom there can be no development because we live in a democratic system with a free enterprise economy and which has been continuously supplied by a transformative vision for Albania.
Today we have an army museum here, I was waiting for Niko to invite me to the opening, but he had to save the opening cocktail, nevertheless, I was very pleased to hear today that he said that especially on weekends this museum has a lot of visitors and on this occasion, for those who follow us, I tell them to come and visit our new Museum of Defense, which is a new cultural and tourist attraction for Tirana without question and which is a space that will definitely be brought to life in the future with temporary exhibitions, with various activities and so on.
In the end, but not in terms of importance, I want to say that what we saw today gives us the opportunity to imagine that in a short time, an important part of the inspections we will be able to do, finally, without people on the ground, but with eyes from above thanks to the Bayyraktar drones, thanks to the coordination that the Ministry of Defense is doing and the disposition of the General Staff, where the institutions that are directly related to the most important inspections in the territory have been contacted and are preparing work protocols for a continuous and unerring supervision of the territory in terms of waste, in terms of water, in terms of agricultural land, of worked lots, of unworked lots, in terms of constructions, in terms of the law in construction and illegal constructions and thus another part of the scum of corruption, which is a product of the degree of modernization, will be removed from the daily institutional life and from the daily economic and social life of the country, as a part of much of that scum thanks to all the services that have been offered online for several years through the “e-Albania” portal. Another part of that scum will be removed through the comprehensive reform that we are doing in the procurement system, on the one hand with the creation of a national operator of the procurement service, in cooperation with well-known international agencies, and on the other hand with the new Artificial Intelligence system that is working together with Microsoft to be available to the procurement system and thus to finally remove commissions, procurement commissioners, bribery, and irresponsibility that naturally bring with them their damages, when it comes to the integrity of public funds and state finances.
I am extremely happy that today the army, the Defense sector, the restricted military zone that has always been seen as a part that guarantees us from external aggressions, it is turning into a destination that will always be more and more important for the future of this country in terms of technological development, in terms of innovation and definitely in terms of creating more and more realities where well-paid employment will be the basis of the development of those realities.
Many thanks to all the partners who were present today, whose diversity and whose profile shows what a mosaic is being created and how diverse and wide this mosaic of contributions can be in contrast to a tired former military ward, which has been transformed into an aesthetic reality and a very significant technological reality.
Compliments, Mr. Minister, with the hope that the hospitality will expand, and with the conviction that all this contribution and work that would not have been possible without the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, will bring further expansion of opportunities for the youngest and definitely opportunities for the entire country, thanks to the contributions that will come from these new realities.
