In 2009, the organizers of a new Armenian technology award wanted to start with the biggest possible name and offered the prize to Bill Gates. He, however, immediately warned them not to count on his coming to Armenia. This became an important lesson for the organizers: simply sending a medal to a global leader and declaring him a laureate was not enough. Since then, one of the main conditions of the award has been that the recipient of Armenia’s State Award for Global Contribution to High Technologies must personally come to Armenia and receive the prize there.

This was stated in a conversation with journalists by Hovik Musayelyan, director of Synopsys Armenia and coordinator of the executive council of the award and the international selection committee.

Over 17 years, this award has been received by the heads and founders of Intel, Apple, Cisco, Adobe, IBM, and other technology giants, as well as developers of processors, robotics, sensor technologies, and the internet. In 2026, the award will go to American entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian, founder and executive chairman of X Energy, Intuitive Machines, Space, and Quantum Space.

The story of this award is interesting not only because of the list of laureates. From the very beginning, its organizers set themselves the goal of ensuring that global technology leaders would come to Armenia in person — and become here not merely recipients of an award, but part of the country’s technological environment.

They Started with Bill Gates — and Realized What Was Missing

As Hovik Musayelyan explained, the idea of an annual international technology award emerged at Synopsys in 2009. At the time, the idea itself seemed difficult for many to implement. There were major awards in various fields around the world, above all the Nobel Prize, but according to Musayelyan, there was no similar annual award specifically for global technology leaders.

The organizers decided to set a high bar from the start. They wanted Bill Gates to be the first laureate and approached him with the proposal. Gates replied with a letter in which he thanked them for the award but essentially said that he did not plan to come to Armenia.

For the organizers, this proved to be a matter of principle. If they simply named Gates the first laureate and then sent him a medal, Musayelyan explained, the award itself would do little for Armenia. The country could say that its prize had gone to one of the best-known people in the global technology industry, but that still would 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 personally receive the award.

And the first laureate to do so was Intel President Craig Barrett. In 2010, he came to Armenia with his wife. Musayelyan recalls his visit as a major event, comparable in scale and level of attention to official state visits.

Steve Wozniak Called It the “Nobel Prize in IT”

In 2011, the award was given to Steve Wozniak, one of Apple’s co-founders. According to Musayelyan, his visit sparked great interest: young people came to Yerevan from neighboring countries to see Wozniak.

But something else became especially important for the organizers: at the award ceremony, Wozniak raised the prize and declared that there was no Nobel Prize in the field of IT, and therefore he considered this award to be the Nobel Prize in IT.

For the organizers, these words became a kind of symbol of the status they wanted to give the award.

In the following years, the list of laureates continued to grow. In 2012, the award went to Federico Faggin, a member of the microprocessor development team. In 2013, it went to Hitachi President Shoichi Makinoto. In 2014, the laureate was Cisco technical leader Mario Mazzola. In 2015, the award was given to Eugene Kaspersky, and in 2016 to one of the pioneers of internet development, Louis Pouzin.

Among the subsequent laureates were Tony Fadell, one of the creators of the iPod; National Instruments President James Truchard; robotics pioneer Takeo Kanade; Synopsys co-founder Chi-Foon Chan; IBM Senior Vice President Leon Stok; Adobe President Shantanu Narayen; Indian technology entrepreneur Narayana Murthy; and sensor technology specialist Yoshiaki Hagiwara.

In 2025, the award was given to Analog Devices President Vincent Roche.

According to Musayelyan, the overall principle remains unchanged: these are people whose work has led to large-scale changes in the global technology sphere.

Why Armenia Needs Such Visits

For the organizers, the award is not only a way to honor an outstanding person.

Armenia’s Minister of High-Tech Industry and Artificial Intelligence, Davit Tadevosyan, said that one of the award’s main objectives is to increase Armenia’s visibility on the international technology map. According to him, it presents the country not only as a state that produces and exports technology, 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 who shaped the development of their industries. Not through articles or interviews, but in person — and to gain from them an understanding of trends and future directions in technological development.

Tadevosyan also emphasized another principle: the value of an innovation is determined not only by the technology itself, but also by the positive changes it brings to people’s lives.

Viva CEO Armen Avetisovyan expressed this idea through a personal example. According to him, behind every major achievement — a spacecraft, a satellite, a new technology, or an entire industry — stands a person who once believed in their own idea and decided to take the first step.

That is why, he believes, the presence of such people in Armenia is also important as an example for children, young people, and adults: seeing the achievements of global leaders, a person should have the opportunity to think, “I can too, I want to as well, I believe too.”

If even one person, thanks to such an example, decides to take their own bold step, Avetisovyan believes that such meetings are worthwhile for that reason alone.

From Technology Legends to Space

The 2026 laureate was Kam Ghaffarian from the United States.

As Musayelyan reported, Ghaffarian is the founder and executive chairman of X Energy, Intuitive Machines, Space, and Quantum Space. He began his entrepreneurial career in 1994 by founding Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies. The company became NASA’s second-largest engineering services contractor, providing the agency with relevant support.

At this stage, the introduction of the new laureate during the press conference was only just beginning, yet the biography presented by the organizers already continues the award’s broader line in recent years: honoring people whose activities are connected not with a single separate technology, but with the creation and development of entire fields.

Over 17 years, the award has gone from an idea that many considered difficult to implement to an annual event that brings international technology leaders to Armenia.

And perhaps this is precisely its main meaning. For a small country, having the name of a global technology leader on the list of its laureates is symbolic. But far more important is that together with the award, this person ends up in Armenia, meets the local technology community, and becomes part of the country’s history, even if only for a few days.

In this sense, the Armenian award is trying to do what an ordinary prize cannot: not simply recognize a global achievement, but physically connect its author with Armenia and give those who are only just beginning their own path the chance to see this level of technology.