President Meets Ministers to Discuss Modern Technologies

Bratislava, 3 June (TASR) - President Peter Pellegrini met several representatives of the government at a round-table discussion on Tuesday to speak about the future of modern technologies in Slovakia, TASR learnt from the President's Office's communications department on the same day. The head of state said that Slovakia has no ambition to be a world leader in developing artificial intelligence. He sees the country's role in putting new technologies into practice, but he believes that Slovakia is lagging behind in this area as well. "Slovakia is predestined to test the most modern technologies here, to implement pilot projects using the latest things that exist in the world," said the president, adding that it is implementation that will show what obstacles legislation can put on this path. Pellegrini considers the meeting to be important because of its specific format. The invitation was accepted by Vice-premier for the Recovery Plan and Knowledge-based Economy Peter Kmec, and Ministers of the Interior (Matus Sutaj Estok), Health (Kamil Sasko) and Education (Tomas Drucker) (all Voice-SD) plus representatives of the Economy Ministry and entrepreneurs. He stated that he has no ambition to replace the government, but wants to lend a helping hand. "Every government is so overwhelmed with operational work that they run the country from election to election, and no one has the energy, ambition and desire to give our country a bigger vision or to try to leapfrog it in its development somewhere further on," he said. The president thinks that the time has come to do something unique also in the education and health-care sectors that will make Slovakia an interesting place. am/df