In an article published on June 16, the Italian daily La Repubblica touches upon the new lifestyle, challenges and difficulties imposed on societies due to the spread of coronavirus.
Author Riccardo Luna notes that world leaders only talk about aid, support and protection, which, he says, are the right things, but the message that comes to us is “you are helpless.”
That’s why, the author says, he was hit by Armenian President Armen Sarkissian’s words.
“He is an ex-physicist. As a young man he was one of the developers who made the Tetris game a worldwide success, then he long served as ambassador to London and finally became the president of Armenia, a small Caucasian republic of three million inhabitants and with a lively but very small economy. What he said? He said many beautiful things that all heads of state say in these days: that this crisis is an accelerator of the future, that a digital public administration can change the way a country works and that for example distance education will increasingly be in demand, and that we should not stop tackling climate change. OK. But then he said another thing, which nobody says and whose meaning is exactly the opposite of “you are helpless”, the meaning is “you can do it, start swimming,” Riccardo Luna writes.
“In short, Armen Sarkissian said that now governments should take care of favoring the birth of new jobs rather than subsidizing dying industries. Startups, but not only. New companies. Get busy. Move on. Sweep the clouds away,” the author continues.
In an earlier interview with Sifter, a website supported by the Financial Times, Armen Sarkissian talked tech startups, reinventing the world and his idea for a club of small nations.
