The Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, Ana Brnabic, stated at a gathering dedicated to digitalization and the IT sector, which was held in New York, that since she became Prime Minister, she is most proud of Serbia's success in the field of digitalization.                           

Brnabic, who is on two-day visit to the United States, said that when she was elected Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government in August 2016, she wanted to do everything to change the public administration and what bothered her as a citizen.            

She stated that, when she took office as Prime Minister, she knew what her priorities were and that first of all, digitalization needed to be raised to a higher level, that the education reform was supposed to begin, as well as work on strengthening the economy.             

I believed in a country that believes in its people, because the Serbian people are creative.From 1 June 2017, we started working as an e-Govenment, i.e. we started exchanging data electronically, said the Prime Minister.               

According to her, our citizens no longer had to go to, say, the Tax Administration, and since then, the public administration has exchanged 50 million documents, which means that citizens did not have to go from office to office for 50 million papers.        

Brnabic pointed out that she is proud of what has been done in the field of education since she became the head of the Government, specifying that in September 2017, programming was introduced as a compulsory subject in primary schools.                  

Nobody believed that we could do that, but we cooperated ith the private sector and some social rganizations and we succeeded. At the moment, we are far ahead of numerous countries in Europe and the world, said the Prime Minister.                

The Prime Minister pointed out that she was most proud when the cornerstone was laid for the science and technology park in southern Serbia, niting that so far, our country has four science and technology parks.              

She pointed out that Serbia has since become one of the most successful countries n the world in the field of technology, and that according to some parameters, it is among the ten countries in the world, or among the five, assessing that this is proof that the country can change quickly.            

Answering the question about vaccination, the Prime Minister emphasized that our country has neer seen it as a geopolitical issue, but as a health issue.           

Accordint to her, Serbia talked with producers from both the East and West and was amog the first European countries to sign agreements with the company Pfizzer-BioNTech and Sinopharm.            

Unfortunately, many countries have viewed this issue as geopolitical. It did not matter to us, as long as the vaccines were safe, the Prime Minister emphasized and added that this was not the end of Serbia's success, because good organization was also needed.              

Brnabic explained that the organization is another important thing in vaccination, because it is a logistically very difficult process, adding that, with the help of digitalization, success has been achieved and that everything we did in the previous years has paid off.            

She stated that Serbia quickly estabilished a system through which citizens could express interest in vaccination against the coronavirus and choos which vaccine they wanted to receive, as well as to bi informed by a message when to go and get vaccinated.             

Now I can log in on my phone, to see how many people have received the vaccine, how many more have registered, so that the efrects  of digitalization are obvious. Ee have made everything very efficient and easy for our citizens, the Prime Minister explained.                  

Answering the question of what she can tell other countries of the world about how to progress faster, Brnabic said that it is important to invest as much as possible in digitalization and education.          

You need to teach children how to think, not what to think. Not all children will become IT experts, but what they can learn is an algorithmic way of thinking and how to make decisions, she said.                 

The Prime Minister mentioned investing in high-speed internet and providing infrastructure for start-ups as an important thing for progress, because more and more economies will be based on start-ups and innovations, emphasizing that people should be helped to start companies and implement their ideas.        

Speaking about social networks, she pointed out that fake news has become the biggest problem on these networks and that it will remain so for some time.               

This is the biggest challenge I face as Prime Minister, especially during the corona virus pandemic, she said, adding that social networks are also a great opportunity for politicians to communicate with citizens.

Source: www.srbija.gov.rs

Photo: www.srbija.gov.rs