Kyiv, 3 November 2022
First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska became a special guest of Web Summit 2022 – the largest European technology conference, which takes place in Portugal every year and is dedicated to the topic of modern breakthrough technologies in the IT industry. The speech of the President’s wife on the main stage of the summit marked its opening.
The First Lady told the participants about how Russia has put technology at the service of terror since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“On the Russian side, IT specialists are engaged to carry out terrorist attacks on Ukrainian cities. Previously, they worked in private IT companies. That’s what I’m talking about: there’s a frontline going through your sphere right now, too. The arena of struggle between evil and good. Between the aggressor and the ones who simply defend their home,” she said.
Unlike the aggressor, Ukraine wants to use all possible technologies to save people. Therefore, according to the First Lady, the state is strengthening cyber security, ensuring the stability of all digital systems of both the public and private sectors. Hence, those present at the summit can be extremely useful to our country in its technological resistance, the President’s wife emphasized.
She also spoke about the main areas of activity of her charitable foundation and how anyone, not only specialists in the IT sector, can contribute to the recovery of Ukraine.
“I believe in technologies that save, not destroy. I believe that such technologies are the future. Because otherwise there is simply no future in the whole world. You are the powerful intellectual force that moves the world. The potential and technology that can help, not destroy are in your hands. And it is with Ukraine and right now that you can move the world in the right direction,” Olena Zelenska emphasized.
The First Lady added that technology should also be aimed at the recovery of people: what people have created should work for their benefit.
“Every Ukrainian man and woman who feels the need for psychological support and improvement of their mental state should be able to receive such a service. It should be convenient and ubiquitous, even if it’s a mobile app with self-help techniques. In general, spreading techniques for supporting yourself and others, in particular digitally, is one of the tasks of the National Mental Health Program, which we are currently working on in partnership with the World Health Organization,” the President’s wife said.