"Anything is possible": Zelenskyy delivers a speech about "Ukrainian goal" at Stanford
Photo: OPU
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke at Stanford University
The Office of the President reported this.
At the beginning of his speech, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine could be described in three words: anything is possible.
"Anything is possible. However, for this, at least, I needed to become the President of Ukraine. What does it say that the president is a guy from a simple family, from an ordinary industrial city in eastern Ukraine? That's right. Anything is possible," he said.
According to Zelenskyy, when his wife gave birth to their first child, the distance between Kryvyi Rih and Kyiv could be covered in almost 10 hours. He added that if during the birth of the first child he spent 10 hours on the road, then after the birth of the second, he spent 20 hours on various documents.
"I dreamed of changing that," Zelenskyy said.
"Ukrainians have often proved to humanity that anything is possible. That it's possible to create the first helicopter, the artificial satellite of the Earth, the world's largest plane, and WhatsApp. Once in WhatsApp, I wrote to my friend that we as a country have created nothing like the first helicopter. "An artificial satellite of the Earth and the world's largest aircraft. We really wanted to change that. It turns out that the only option was to become president and bring other people to power, and as we remember, anything is possible," Zelenskyy said.
He added that Ukraine was currently building thousands of kilometers of roads and hundreds of bridges. Now Ukraine is rebuilding its own planes, helicopters, tanks, and navy. Zelenskyy stressed that despite the counteraction with one of the largest armies in the world and the occupation of part of its territory, Ukraine is building a democratic, free state.
"One of the most famous speeches made at Stanford is the speech by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Apple started in a garage with seemingly crazy ideas and Ukraine has a similar situation," Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy noted that his team, as well as Steve Jobs' team, was told that what they wanted was impossible.
"Now I have the creation of Jobs and Apple, iPhone, in my hands. It's his heart. It beats with each vibration during a call or SMS. And our Ukrainian creation, the state in a smartphone, is now in it. And today 26 million Ukrainians can apply for a document when a child is born online on a smartphone, use other digital documents, and open a business in 7 to 15 minutes. Ukraine has become the first country in the world to have a digital passport," the president said.
He added that Ukraine's goal for the coming years was one hundred percent of online public services.
Zelenskyy also noted that Ukraine would definitely return its citizens, as well as the occupied Crimea and Donbas.
"The American dream is known all over the world. But we lost a lot of time, we don't have time to dream. We don't have a Ukrainian dream, we have a Ukrainian goal. And of course, it's not just digitalization," he said.
