YEREVAN, OCTOBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. For Armenia there is no other way to become a competitive country but to educate young people who are fond of and have knowledge, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan stated in his greeting speech at the 4th annual ceremony of giving awards to the best IT students and pupils. The award-giving ceremony was held under the agreement approved by the former RA president Robert Kocharian and signed in 2005 between the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund and Synopsys company, a world leader in IP and software for semiconducter design and manufacturing. In the words of S. Sargsyan, the Armenian authorities view the IT sector not only as a branch of the economy but also as a sector that contributes to improving Armenia's competitiveness. It was the reason why as long ago as 2001 the RA government proclaimed IT as a priority branch of the economy. The president expressed confidence that in the future the results of award-giving will be more satisfactory with every passing year. "We should strengthen the links among science, science-intensive industry and education. We should be able to treat well internationally recognized companies so that such companies will help us educate the young generation," the president stated, expressing his gratitude to the management of Synopsys. According to Hovik Musaelian, Executive Director of Synopsys Armenia CJSC - Armenian branch of Synopsys, the chairman of the contest commission, the award-giving is exceptional by its contents and prestige as, to all appearances, such awards are granted only in Armenia, and many countries have shown interest in the experience of organizing this award-giving. Rich Goldman, Vice President for Strategic Market Development and CEO of Synopsys Armenia, said that it is the destiny of the award winners to become good engineers and benefit Armenia. He added that he witnessed what progress the previous winners of IT awards have made in their careers. The Chief Advisor to the RA President on Economic Issues Vahram Nersisiants handed the annual awards to the best IT students and pupils. It should be mentioned that the contest commission selected 20 students - award winners from 134 cadidates representing 5 universities, as well as 9 best pupils from 51 candidates representing colleges with a physico-mathematical bias from the cities of Yerevan (4 colleges), Gyumri (1 college) and Vanadzor (1 college). The first prize (360,000 drams or 1,200 dollars) was given to Narek Saribekian, a student of the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University. The prize fund made 4 million 230 thousand drams or 14.1 thousand dollars.

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