Greece auctioned projects worth 2.3 billion euros for major digital projects

“Three and a half years later, the numbers speak for themselves. More than 220 major projects have been auctioned for a total amount of 2.3 billion euros, more than 400 million in aid, more than 700 million in PPP and within the next six months we will have another 600 million in tenders”. This was stated by the Minister of State and Digital Governance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, among others, in his speech at the Association of Informatics & Communications Companies of Greece – SEPE’s Digital Economy Forum, underlining the importance of the Recovery Fund.

The Recovery Fund

Mr. Pierrakakis emphasized: “We started doing what is described as a gap analysis, that is, what is the gap per Ministry, per service. How many fundamental systems are missing and how much money do we have to cover this investment? You realize that before the Recovery Fund the needs were many times the possibilities and therefore extremely violent choices should have been made between the versions of the necessary. Then came the Recovery Fund, the corona virus and it allowed us to finance all of ehat was necessary and to enter the realm of what was desired.”

The challenges

Referring to the challenges for the future he emphasized that these are many: the first challenge is to complete the Recovery Fund, which is a “Marshall Plan” for the country. To auction all the projects within set schedules and this will be done in the coming months.

“But I would say more broadly this Fund, this project reminds of what happened in the country after the Second World War and the Civil War at a time when there were no roads, roads were built and where there were no ports, ports were built. Digital infrastructures are now being built everywhere where digital infrastructures did not exist or are being renewed or expanded. So this must be done and it will be done. And from there on we must not miss any trains. “The secret clamor of approaching events” says the poet. We must not fear the clamor of events to come. You either plan the future or live with it,” he emphasized.

The great battle of the coming years will be to do all this plus one more thing which is absolutely strategic: skills. Education systems everywhere need to be redesigned. They were set up in terms of a life expectancy of 60 years and a three-phase life: education, work, retirement and a career. In the previous generation for a bachelor’s degree, in my generation for a master’s degree, in my children’s generation it will be skills. Life expectancy will reach one hundred years, as it increases by one year every four years, with the exception of the small bracket of Covid-19.