Vahan V. Yeghiazaryan, President, Zargatsum (Development) social movement
The European Union’s EU4Digital Initiative currently embraces four key programs: EU4Digital Facility, EaPConnect, EU4Digital Cyber, and EU4Digital Broadband. EaPConnect, a €10 million program aims to bring together research and education communities from EU and Eastern partner countries and to reduce the digital divide. The project will extend network infrastructure to scale up scientific exchange across borders, offer new services to enhance international R&E cooperation, strengthen national research and education networks (NRENs) in R&E ecosystems, and build knowledge, skills, and collaborative working through events, training, and other initiatives.
StrategEast has interviewed experts from the EaP countries. Here are the answers from the expert on Armenia.
Does IT education in your country require further improvement? Do you think this program can bring tangible results for strengthening IT education in your country? Can the community of IT specialists be considered not only a professional association but also an important element of civil society in your country?
Armenia was one of the main “Silicon Valleys” of the USSR. 25% of the population of Soviet Armenia worked in innovative industries. During the dramatic 1990s Armenian innovation and IT potential has collapsed and at the beginning of the 21st century Armenian IT industry encounter less than 100k specialists. Last 20 years the IT industry in Armenia has developed rapidly and has a lot of success stories like the establishment of PicsArt and so on but at the same time there are 3 main problems.
First of all, there is a huge gap between the educational system and the needs of Armenian IT companies. Almost all Armenian IT companies face problems when looking for good specialists. The second biggest problem is the number of IT start-ups emerging every year. This indicator is low and shows that Armenian IT industry doesn’t have enough qualified representatives from the new generation of Armenian technological entrepreneurs and this is a very worrying issue. The third one is the problem of sustainable growth of the businesses. We can see a lot of Armenian IT companies which have been developed from start-ups to successful small companies, but after that, there is a problem of further developing business and reaching medium level. The reasons for this problem indicate the need for a special education program for business developers and CEOs of this kind of company. All these problems cannot be solved by the professional community of IT specialists only but should be solved by civil society, especially by youth and entrepreneurial NGOs that can involve and organize educational programs for the new generation of future programmers, business developers, and entrepreneurs who can build a new type of Armenian economy.
Our organization – Zargatsum (Development) social movement has extensive experience in organizing educational forums for young Armenian specialists, especially in the field of e-commerce, and based on this experience we can definitely say that Armenian youth is very interested in programming and technical business development. Thus, the lack of such kinds of projects only hampers the development of this industry in Armenia.
Armenia holds a unique position between the EAEU and EU, North and South, East and West and has all opportunities to enclose its huge potential and restore the name of the Silicon Valley in the region.
