[January 24, 2020] The President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev addressed his speech to the Oliy Majlis, where he solemnly declared 2020 as “The Year of the Development of Science, Education and the Digital Economy.”

In his address, the President talked about the achieved results and defined future tasks, including to the Parliament of Uzbekistan for the next 5 years.

The field of ​​information technology has also received lots of important attention:

“In order to achieve sustainable development, we must deeply learn digital knowledge and information technology, that will give us the opportunity to go along the shortest path to seize comprehensive progress. In today's world, digital technology is playing a crucial role in almost all areas.

In spite of the fact, in 2019, in the International Index for the Development of Information and Communication Technologies, our country got high by 8 positions, we are still keeping very behind in this area. It is no exaggeration to say that most of our ministries and departments, enterprises are still quite far from the entirely implementing digital technologies.

In fact, we all well understand the formation of a digital economy will require appropriate infrastructure, huge resources and manpower. But, no matter how difficult it is, we must already begin this work today, otherwise the next day it will be too late. Therefore, an accelerated transition to the digital economy will become our priority for the next five years.

It is known that digital technologies not only improve the quality of products and services, reduce costs, but are also an effective tool in the fight against corruption - the most serious problem that extremely bothers me.

The widespread adoption of digital technologies contributes to the effectiveness of state and public administration, the development of the social direction, in a word, it ignites dramatic improvement in people's lives.”

Apart, Shavkat Mirziyoyev has noted the development of activities and the upcoming infrastructure of IT-Park:

“Currently, an IT-Park with modern infrastructure is being built in Tashkent. We already see the first results of its work. Such kid of entities will also be opened in Nukus, Bukhara, Namangan, Samarkand, Gulistan and Urgench cities "

To remind, following the visit of the President of Uzbekistan to IT Park on November 20, 2019, the second stage of construction was launched, thanks to it by 2022 the territory of the IT Park will get 7.8 hectares of land with a complex of buildings from 19 modern facilities.

Moreover, a range of  republican projects are being implemented at the IT Park, one of which is an online platform in the Uzbek language for free training in IT specialties - “One million Uzbek Coders”:

“In order to train highly qualified tech specialist, the “One million Uzbek Coders” project has been  launched in cooperation with our foreign partners,” stated the President.

It was launched on November 1, 2019, by the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Abdullah Aripov and the Minister for Government and Future Affairs of UAE, Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Gergavi.

The platform provides a free distance learning for the general population through a specialized online portal. All comers can already submit applications. The aim of the program is to train a generation of specialists in digital technologies, equipping with all the tools - programming skills.

In the first stage, it will cover the four most demanded specialties in the global labor market: Data Analytics, Android Development, FrontEnd Development, and FullStack Development. The general course consists of 120 hours. The result of each level will be the preparation of laboratory work and the receipt of appropriate certificates.

In addition, in his address President also announced the creation of new positions to coordinate the Digital Uzbekistan - 2030 program:

“Considering all these tasks, we need to complete creating of the Digital Uzbekistan - 2030 program within two months. In the future, to coordinate this work, on a systematic basis, individual positions of the Deputy Prime Minister, Deputy Heads Of Ministries and Departments, and  mayors in the places to be introduced. ”

One of the most important part of the President’s speech was the section on creating new jobs in the Republic of Uzbekistan. In 2018, the unemployment rate was 9.3%, in 2019 - 8.9%. In total, over 300 thousand jobs have been created in the previous year.

“Parallelly, the government should take measures to ensure the creation of 500 thousand new jobs in the framework of state programs this year,” told Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

It should be noted that in each regional center of our country, IT centers will be opened wherein the young generation will have a chance to learn fundamental skills for IT specialties for free, and  to get a job in the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) direction in the future.