Organizers of Armenia’s premier international high-tech event, DigiTech Expo 2012, say the technological exhibition commencing on Friday will become a real ‘Armenian Technology Festival’ presenting the current intellectual edge of the nation.

This motto for the eighth annual event this coming weekend is bringing together as many as 130 local and foreign companies (representing such countries as South Korea, Singapore, Russia, Georgia, Germany, Italy and the United States).

The exhibition organizer, Executive Director of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises (UITE) Karen Vardanyan told journalists on Thursday that a 30-40 percent growth in the number of visitors (more than 20,000 visitors) was expected at this year’s expo hosted by a newly opened Yerevan Expo Exhibition Complex at the Scientific-Research Institute of Mathematical Machines (Mergelyan Institute) on October 5-7.

Gayane Dallakyan, acting manager of the Enterprise Development and Market Competitiveness (EDMC) program of the United States Agency for International Development, the general partner of the exhibition, says that the program supports the holding of the exhibition with a view to supporting IT industry associations and newly established companies in presenting their software solutions, thereby promoting dialogue between IT and other sectors.

“The exhibition will be full of very good and innovative proposals, visitors will be leaving it after finding new fields of cooperation, with new ideas, vacancies will be filled and people will think of new technological solutions,” says Dallakyan.

DigiTech organizers say a display called ‘The World of Engineering’ for innovative engineering solutions, as well as DigiLife seminars, an ArmRobotics show featuring the robots that took part in the open championship of Armenia and numerous other events will run alongside the main event.

Grigor Barseghyan, director of the Microsoft Armenia Company that supports the exhibition, describes DigiTech as the best platform for the presentation of the intellectual potential of Armenians.

“Information technologies are a unique tool that allows one to increase productivity very quickly, and for our country that lacks vast natural resources the intellectual potential is the most important thing. And this untapped intellectual potential gets its expression in the IT sector,” says Barseghyan, adding that DigiTech is also a unique opportunity for Microsoft to show its latest software packages and solutions, among which will also be the Windows 8 operating system.

Barseghyan also says that as part of the current DigiTech 2012 expo Microsoft Armenia is going to present its plans for an IT academy at the State Engineering University of Armenia. The graduates of this academy that he says is going to be opened soon will enjoy the status of corporation-certified international specialists.