Rustam Karimjonov
Deputy Minister of Digital Technologies, Uzbekistan
Rustam Karimjonov is Deputy Minister of Digital Technologies where he is responsible for setting and executing the direction of technology education, IT export at the Ministry, along with and improving teacher training and the quality of education in rural areas. During the pandemic, under his supervision, more than 5000 school children including children from rural regions received free access to online courses by Coursera. Under his supervision, a massive governmental level project GIGA in cooperation with UNICEF was undertaken, leading to 99 percent of state schools being connected to the high-speed Internet. More than 5000 schools were equipped with modern computer classes. During his service he managed and coordinated meetings with more than 100 foreign and international IT companies and negotiated their expansion into Uzbekistan. He closely works with universities to prepare first-class IT specialists. He has been awarded the O'zbekiston belgisi (Sign of Uzbekistan) medal, which is the highest state award for outstanding achievements in public service.