In 2009, the organizers of the Armenian New Technology Award wanted to start with the most resounding name possible and offered the award to Bill Gates. However, he immediately warned that there is no need to rely on his coming to Armenia. This became an important lesson for the organizers. simply sending the medal to the world leader and declaring him the winner was not enough. Since then, one of the main conditions of the award is that the laureate of the RA State Award for Global Investment in High Technologies must personally come to Armenia and receive the award here. Director of "Synopsys Armenia", as well as coordinator of the award's executive board and international election committee, Hovik Musayelyan told about this in a conversation with journalists. For 17 years, this award has been received by the leaders and founders of Intel, Apple, Cisco, Adobe, IBM and other technological giants, as well as developers of processors, robotics, sensor technologies and the Internet. In 2026, the winner of the award will be the American entrepreneur Kem Ghaffarian, the founder and executive chairman of the companies X Energy, Intuitive Machines, Space and Quantum Space. The history of this award is interesting not only with the list of laureates. From the beginning, its organizers set themselves the task of making the world's technological leaders personally come to Armenia and become here not just prize winners, but a part of the country's technological environment. They started with Bill Gates and realized what was missing As Hovik Musayelyan told, the idea of the annual international technology award was born at Synopsys in 2009. At that moment, the idea itself seemed to many to be difficult to implement. There were major awards in various fields in the world, first of all, the Nobel Prize, but, according to Musayelyan, there was no similar annual award intended for global technological leaders. The organizers decided to set a high bar at once. They wanted to see Bill Gates as the first laureate and approached him with that offer. Gates responded with a letter in which he thanked for the award, but actually informed that he was not planning to come to Armenia. This became a fundamental moment for the organizers. If they just named Gates the first laureate and then sent him the medal, as Musayelyan explained, the award itself would not change much for Armenia. The country could say that its award went to one of the most famous people in the global technology industry, but that would still not create a connection between the laureate and the country itself. That is why a new rule was added to the concept. the candidate must be ready to come to Armenia and receive the award in person. And the first laureate to do so was Intel's president, Craig Barrett. In 2010, he came to Armenia with his wife. Musayelyan remembers his visit as a major event, which in its scale and level of attention was comparable to official state visits. Steve Wozniak called it the "Nobel Prize of IT" In 2011, Steve Wozniak, one of the co-founders of Apple, received the award. According to Musayelyan, his visit aroused great interest. young people from neighboring countries were arriving in Yerevan to see Wozniak. However, another thing became especially important for the organizers. at the award ceremony, Wozniak held up the award and stated that there is no Nobel Prize in IT, so he considers this award to be the Nobel Prize of IT. For the organizers, these words became a unique symbol of the status with which they wanted to endow the award. In the following years, the list of laureates continued to grow. In 2012, Federico Fagin, a member of the microprocessor development team, received the award. In 2013, Hitachi President Syoichi Makimoto. In 2014, Mario Madzola, the technical manager of Cisco, became a laureate. In 2015, the award was given to Yevgeny Kaspersky, and in 2016, to Louis Pouzin, one of the pioneers of Internet development. Other laureates included iPod creator Tony Fadell, National Instruments president James Truchard, robotics pioneer Takemo Kanade, Synopsys co-founder Chifung Chung, IBM senior vice president Leon Stock, Adobe president Shantano� � Narayen, Indian tech entrepreneur Narayana Murthy and sensor technology specialist Yosiaki Hagiwara. In 2025, Vincent Roche, president of Analog Devices, received the award. According to Musayelyan, the general principle remains unchanged. we are talking about people whose work has led to large-scale changes in the global technological sphere. Why does Armenia need such visits? For the organizers, the award is not only a way to celebrate the merit of an exceptional person. The Minister of High-tech Industry and Artificial Intelligence of Armenia Davit Tadevosyan considered increasing Armenia's visibility on the international technological map as one of the main tasks of the award. According to him, it shows the country not only as a state that produces and exports technologies, but also as a participant in the global technological process. Another important task is to give young people the opportunity to communicate directly with those people who had a decisive role in the development of their fields. Not through articles or interviews, but in person, and to get insight from them about the trends and future directions of technology development. Tadevosyan also emphasized another principle. the value of innovation is determined not only by the technology itself, but also by the positive changes it brings to people's lives. Armen Avetisovyan, CEO of Viva, formulated this idea with a personal example. According to him, behind every major achievement - a space device, a satellite, a new technology or a complete industry - there is a person who ever believed in his own idea and dared to take the first step. That is why, in his opinion, the presence of such people in Armenia is also important as an example for children, young people and adults. seeing the achievements of world leaders, a person should have the opportunity to think: "I can, I want, I believe." If even one person dares to take his own bold step thanks to such an example, then, in Avetisovyan's opinion, such meetings have meaning only for that reason. From tech legends to space The winner of 2026 was Kem Ghaffaryan from the USA. According to Musayelyan, Ghaffaryan is the founder and executive chairman of X Energy, Intuitive Machines, Space and Quantum Space companies. He started his entrepreneurial activity in 1994 by founding Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies. The company has become the second largest contractor in the field of engineering services for NASA, providing appropriate support to the agency. At this stage, the presentation of the new laureate within the framework of the press conference was just beginning, but already the biography presented by the organizers continues the general line of the award of recent years, to highlight people whose activities It is not related to one single technology, but to the creation and development of complete trends. Over the course of 17 years, the award has gone from an idea, which many considered difficult to implement, to an annual event for which international technology leaders come to Armenia. And, perhaps, this is where its main meaning lies. For a small country to have the name of a global technology leader on its list of winners is symbolic. But it is much more important that together with the award, that person appears in Armenia, meets with the local technological community and becomes a part of the country's history, if only for a few days. In this sense, the Armenian award tries to do what the ordinary award cannot do. not just to celebrate the global achievement, but to physically connect its author with Armenia and give an opportunity to see this level of technology to those who are just starting their own path.