YEREVAN. – Executive director at Union of information technology enterprises(UITE) Karen Vardanyan stated that the main emphasis will be given to the development of military industrial complex during upcoming Digitec business forum in Armenia.

According to him, by the order of Armenian Defence Minister Seyran Ohanyan, a commission featuring the representatives of the Armenian Armed Forces and of UITE was established, which is already working on a solution to existing problems.

During the discussions three issues will be discussed on this topic:

-          Seeking short-term decisions (within five months, since April) to oppose Azerbaijan in this sphere. Here it is both about purchase of the new technological arms, and about modernization of those available. And according to Karen Vardanyan, the role of the IT sphere is very important in this modernization.

-          Seeking  medium-term decisions: how to create new military industry on the basis of the available achievements of the IT sphere. Karen Vardanyan expressed his opinion that "war is no longer the fight of machines, it is the fight of technologies".  And in light of this, the role of IT-sphere in defence must be changed radically. We need to understand what concrete steps should be taken in order to use the potential of the IT sphere in this direction.

-          And finally, seeking long-term strategic decisions. It is necessary to answer the question what kind of military industry we want to have 15-20 years later.

"We count on active participation of representatives of the Armenian armed forces in these discussions, and at the end of a forum we will be more focused on how to continue to improve our work in this direction ,” Karen Vardanyan said.

The chairman of UITE Alexandr Yesayan noted that the Armenian IT-companies are consolidated over the issue, and there are already a lot of suggestions and solutions that are actively discussed with the Ministry of Defence.

 "We hope that in the course of the business forum, we will be able to provide specific solutions just in the short term, which will find the application in the sphere of defense and there are such solutions today,” he said.

When asked by journalists what specific  suggestions they have, Alexandr Yesayan noted that specific design will be presented at the forum, and today it is still too soon to speak about it.

The traditional annual Digitec business forum will be held in Yerevan on June 17-18.