As part of a special initiative, the Hackathon & Investment Forum EU–WB6 brought together young people passionate about technology and innovation, entrepreneurs, and investors from the Western Balkans and the European Union to support the region’s digital development. This event provides an opportunity for startups and creators to develop ideas and digital solutions that will directly improve services and infrastructure, opening new opportunities for innovation and investment.

During the event’s opening, Prime Minister Edi Rama emphasized the importance of creating a collaborative space for innovators and startups, offering access to state institutions and data resources that will enable the development of new solutions through artificial intelligence.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Speech: Greetings to everyone!
I would like to thank Delina for her passionate work in relation to this small, yet very vast world of innovation and the people dedicated to it. It is an effort that Delina began as Minister of Entrepreneurship, and which she will now certainly continue and take further as Minister of Economy and Innovation. I also want to thank Linda Karçanaj, the director of National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI), who is, so to speak, the flag bearer of this effort—an effort that began with a flag placed on a small boat, which National Agency for Information Society  once was, and which has now become a ship that truly honors us, motivates us, and inspires us as we see how much more we can still achieve.

I don’t want to tire you with a long speech, but I do want to tell you that we have agreed among ourselves to push this process forward by opening the doors of government to all innovators and by creating a shared space, centered around the Agency of Excellence we recently established, which will be placed at your disposal and at the disposal of all innovators.

This means that we want startups and innovators to have the opportunity to access institutions, and through that access, to gain insight into their challenges, but also to use their data, their statistics—to make use of all the material that then becomes the foundation for solutions through artificial intelligence and the creation of AI models.

I believe that by doing this, what always happens in this sector will happen again: we will learn many new things from one another and we will generate new products.

We face the challenge of creating a very powerful accelerator in support of our Minister of Artificial Intelligence—who is, in fact, artificial intelligence herself—and naturally, this accelerator will be based on you, on the human capital we have within Agency for Information Society (AKSHI), or the Agency of Excellence. With this synergy, we will strive to expand the brainpower of every central institution with artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, I’ve been told there are 161 ideas submitted. A preliminary selection has been made, and another competition will follow. In the meantime, one will be awarded with a trip to Finland.

It is a great blessing for us to live in this time when digital technology, and now artificial intelligence, gave us an opportunity we could never have dreamed of before—to reach new heights without being forced to submit to the linear progress of development. That linear progress always dictated that less developed or developing countries would remain behind the more advanced ones, because every invention first belonged to them and only later reached us.

In other words, if a new typewriter or a new computer was launched, they would get it first, and by the time it reached us, a newer model would already be on the market. Today, however, things are completely different. In fact, because our bureaucracy and structures are not as solid, sophisticated, or heavy as those in developed countries like Germany or France, it actually becomes easier for us to turn to these solutions to leap forward and move into new phases of development. And since this is exactly where the ambition for surprising breakthroughs is focused, it makes all of you incredibly important—a strategic human capital for our country.

I want to sincerely thank you for all the effort you have made so far, and I believe that not only will you continue to have our full attention, but we will also provide unwavering support to all innovators with every resource available to us. At the same time, I very much look forward to the minister organizing the first session of the council we agreed to establish—meeting once every four months to discuss: What are we doing? What more can we do? And to analyze together and dream together.

Thank you very much!