- Dear friends, I'm happy to invite to the stage of our open lesson the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin!
Vladimir Putin: "Good afternoon, hello. Today's event is called an open lesson but it's not a lesson for me and not a sermon or some kind of lecture for you. I believe that for all of us and for me particularly it's an opportunity to meet you, your peers from many regions of the country, to become exposed to your ideas and to discover how you're planning to build your lives. For you, it's an opportunity to show your worth to make a name. I'm sure that millions are watching the live stream of this event and many more will see the recording.
Judging from the previous year, we had another open lesson a year ago, one million people were watching the online stream. This time, we expect six million. The previous lesson has ten million views. I believe, this one will get exponentially more, at least... ten multiplied by six — 60 million views. That's the approximate scale. That's why I assume that your care not only about being heard by me but about being heard by the people who work in the industries you're interested in. It's great that something interests you. That's what counts. It's extremely important to make the first step of your big, efficient, and, I really hope, happy, journey.
Our host mentioned the rapidly changing world. It's become kind of a cliche lately but it's a living cliche because the speed of those changes is increasing. I've said it talking to other audiences but I believe it's my duty to repeat it here. The world is experiencing complex tectonic transformations of a large-scale nature. The changes are tectonic indeed. What does that mean? New technologies. We're living at the age of a technological revolution. A new technological framework is being built. What does that mean for the entire world and for us? The changes are global indeed. They apply solely to technologies. Because changes in technologies are immediately followed by other changes. I'll explain and try to illustrate what I mean. For example, we're entering the age of a digital revolution, a digital economy. That's first. Secondly, it provides the basis for the development of AI. And that creates new opportunities in the self-driving vehicle industry. New discoveries in the field of biology and genetics create new opportunities for medicine and increase life expectancy. It's increasing in Russia, faster than in the majority of countries by the way and across the entire world even in the countries whose economy is at the early stages of its development.
What's the ultimate result? The result is the new living conditions. Here's a specific example. More and more people are beginning to work part-time and remotely. They simply work on the Internet. And we must ensure their rights. So far, this field is almost unregulated by the labor legislation. The implementation of digital technologies will definitely relieve a lot of employees of their duties. Where are they to go? We're talking about hundreds of thousands, millions of people who will lose their traditional jobs. We must think in advance of how to protect their rights. We must think in advance of where will the government direct those people and where will they work. We must think in advance about their retraining and re-education.
Our country is enormous it has the biggest territory in the world. We have innumerable amounts of natural resources. We have other so-called natural competitive advantages. Due to the fact that we have a large territory and various competitive advantages, there are issues we must pay particular attention to. Our population is the largest in Europe, 146 million people. We're followed by Germany, I believe, with 80 million. The difference is great. But we're far from being leaders in this world. There are a lot of people living on the American continent. The US population is about 350 million. There are large states in Latin America. And don't even start about Asia, where more than a billion people live. You know, it's something that matters. It matters because the population is used to calculate the productivity of the economy. The general productivity of the economy gives us the purchasing power parity which is an important aspect both per capita and generally because it allows the government to prioritize critical areas.
But what does that new technological revolution mean for us? For us, it means a possibility to preserve our leadership in the areas where we've long been the leader and to obtain new skills necessary for further development. It reduces the risks in connection with the fact that we don't have the largest population. If we have brains and are able to use them appropriately, it means that we'll preserve our leadership in such areas as space exploration, nuclear energy, materials science and engineering, and many others. And we'll become the leader in new areas. We won't just catch up with others in that technological revolution, we'll be one of the leaders where we've always been the leader and obtain new skills to become the leader in other areas. But this will happen only if people of your age are correctly and timely oriented with the help of your teachers and realize what they should do.
The main thing is to find your path in life. It's the first step towards success. If one's keen about something, he'll achieve it. Of course, it largely depends on your teachers. I want to bow low before them and draw your attention to that profession. It's a very important profession. It deserves respect and gratitude. I'd like that in the course of our today's conversation, this is a conversation, exchange of information, I'll be able to know what are you interested in and you... I'd like to finish my introductory statement with the thing I started it with. I'd like you to be able to present your suggestions and ideas to the general public and experts in those areas you're going to work in. We're allocating more and more money to support the youth's activities. This year, we allocated about five billion rubles ($75 million). This is a substantial amount of money. It's much more than in the previous years. Of course, it's not enough for you to able to implement all of your projects. This is the means of government support which makes it possible for you to assert yourselves and make your first step. I wish your first step to be successful.
I wish you all the best".
