"Plug and Play", the well-known global platform for supporting Startups, based in the United States of America, arrives in Albania, positioned at Piramida, to offer young Albanian entrepreneurs an opportunity for their startups to grow, attract capital investments, pilot technology and strengthen their presence in local and global markets.
Their program is designed to provide startups with immediate access to global experience and a broad international network.
Prime Minister Edi Rama was today at the opening ceremony of "Plug & Play", which, according to him, finds in Albania the right environment to bring these innovative services to various industries, with the prospect of Albania becoming the regional center of these enterprises.
The Plug and Play platform has expanded globally to over 60 locations, across 25 industries, with more than 550 partners. To date, it has invested in over 2,000 companies with the vision of making innovation open to anyone, anywhere.
Rama's full speech:
I don't believe there are many people in this city who can raise their hand and say, "Yes, it occurred to me that in 2025, Plug&Play would be stationed in Tirana," a global platform that has produced many digital technology giants and that would choose Tirana, the capital of Albania, as its center for this part of the world, becoming an open door for all girls and boys, not only from our country, but from the entire region who have dreams and ambitions to become great in the digital world, where no one has, in any shape or form, any obstacle of a discriminatory nature.
In this world, it doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what color your skin is, what religion you belong to, or if you curse God from morning to night, what language you speak, only one thing matters, what imagination and ability you have to stand out from others.
On the other hand, of course there is one thing that is needed and the thing that is needed is access to spaces like this Plug&Play and I am very excited today, not because I have missed the events to have emotions, but because in this specific case it is truly a very heavy milestone on the path of Albania's radical transformation and on the uphill climb that we still have to climb to the top of 2030.
Today we are here, just a few hours ago we were at the opening of the doors of the Rochester Institute of Technology, also in Tirana. The day before we were at the opening of the doors of the Training Center for Audiovisual Productions, also with American partners from California, people who come from the largest audiovisual production industry in the world and also representatives of large companies HBO, Netflix, and so on that support the center.
Not many meters from here, “School 42” is getting ready to open its doors, “Ecole 42”, another extraordinary space created in France that also offers the opportunity for knowledge and understanding for all those who want to explore the infinity of the digital world. A few meters further up, but in this case you have to climb stairs, is the center of excellence for the little ones, Tumo, which welcomes many children and I take this opportunity to reiterate that it is able to welcome even more and all those children from 12 to 18 years old who want to enter the world of technology are welcome and thanks to the cooperation of the Albanian-American Foundation with the Municipality of Tirana, the courses are offered completely free of charge.
It's really nice to feel that I can continue to count in a field where we were behind everyone else. While today we have the most advanced position in digital governance in the entire region and we are at the top of the rankings in Europe as well, and this, not said by us, but brought out in all rankings because we offer 95% of public services online and practically we have performed, thanks to the new system that we have built, over 45 million services in total, which are over 45 million person-to-person contacts, there are over 45 million queues, there are over 45 million ways to get to the office where to receive the service, there are over 45 million missed opportunities for any form of bribery and gratification.
We started from scratch with a ridiculous and dysfunctional number of services, and while today we have over 3 million users, individuals or businesses, on the public services platform, we started with less than 50,000 users. Even those who were simply registered, were not receiving services.
It is a radical transformation to think that in just a few weeks, we will open the doors of a technology park that will welcome all startups or companies operating in the digital world with the most favorable legislation in this part of Europe. And now there has been a lot of interest from companies, both from our continent and from the United States, to locate in that park, which is between Tirana and Durrës and is called “Durana” Tech Park. We are also preparing and together with ADF we will give life to “Vlora Tech Space” in the center that is being completed in Vlora.
TUMO will move, be established or branch out, we are saying, not that it will leave here, but it will grow in Shkodra, Elbasan and so on.
We will have Smart Laboratories in all schools within a 2-year period. Their installation has begun and we are continuously installing the first phase, we have concluded it with the ADF and for those who do not know why the ADF has all the access, it is that we are among us here, to be transparent, it is because the government and the ADF "are part of a criminal group that robbed Butrint". So, if you are going to look on the internet for the Archaeological Park, the Butrint Amphitheater, the history, do not go there, because "there is nothing there". "Everything has been taken and taken somewhere" and thanks to this fact "we have also benefited from a lot of money that we do not know where to take it, and we are wasting it on these "plug and play" toys and what are these others".
But keep this to yourself, please, because they have put a canary behind us that sings to us every time it sees us. I am more worried about Martin and Sandri. Martin, who is a very humorous person, never laughs whenever this is mentioned, he just gets scared. There is nothing worse in life than being stalked.
Having said all this, I really hope that "Plug and Play" will release at least one unicorn here, but I know very well that if a unicorn were to emerge here, it would have the biggest horn of all, because we Albanians have two horns, so it would be one horn above the other and it would be a terrifying unicorn. It did! And there is only one premise for it to emerge that the little Albanians here don't stick their horns at each other, they only look ahead.
I want to thank Uranik! I want to thank you very much for your personal contribution to this venture to establish this center in Tirana, I know you have had some internal wars, because you had some temptations to go to some other capitals, but we have also given you the arguments to actually bring them to Tirana, so in the end, you have brought them to the city with the highest growth airport in Europe. So, from an airport that was a chicken coop at the time when that other airport in the north was the regional center, today we have an almost unicorn airport here in the Balkans.
And as we say on our side, for good and joy!
I also want to thank Katerina, what Martin said is very true. The French are the only ones who take, because they have not left a place without going, without making colonies, but when it comes to giving, they are not that outstanding and the fact that 3 million have come to us from France makes us happy, but Martin, be careful, be vigilant, because when we give three, the long-term plan is to take 30, where, this is not known, because there are no stupid colonizers to know.
Thank you very much everyone! (A2 Televizion)
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