“At the Silicon Valley, we are no longer asked, where are you from but what are you doing that the whole world is talking about it,” – said Bagrat Yengibaryan, Director of Enterprise Incubator Foundation, today at the Information Technology (IT) International Forum organized at the “Congress” hotel. He urged establishing Techno parks in the marzes to keep Armenia’s potential in the IT sector inside the country. According to him, “We have wonderful children in the cities and villages of Armenia, and to keep them from going to Yerevan, it is necessary to establish conditions for then in the marzes. In addition, the international organizations can also to use this potential.”
Mr. Yengibaryan said that the best example of it are the technological centers in Gyumri and Kapan. He also highlighted the government decision to tax franchise the start-up IT companies. Mr. Yengibaryan said that if after the franchise it was expected to open up 40 new companies, then this number is almost doubled. The attendees to the conference were explained why Armenia was chosen as the conference venue. According to Karen Vardanyan, Executive Director of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises, “Most importantly is that we have noticed over these years is the adaptation ability, in other words, the Armenian man is able to communicate both with his Indian, American and European customer in the same day, and despite various cultural peculiarities, he is able to be culturally adaptive and ensure business processes with his human characteristic features. Secondly, it is the technological adaptation. You would see very few countries that a person jumps from micro-electronic sphere to cloud technologies and from web design to industrial automatics.” The organizers of the event thanked the RA Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan for his attendance and expressed hope to discuss the issues together but Mr. Abrahamyan left after his speech. He walked to the government building from the “Congress” hotel. Mr. Prime Minister assured that Armenia has a number of competitive advantages in this area, “High-knowledge-endowed staff, low operating costs … , the legal framework in line with international standards for the intellectual property protection.”
Since the Prime Minister did not manage to listen to the concerns of the heads of the companies that were to be voiced during the meeting, Aravot.am asked the organizer of the conference Anna Arakelyan about the problems that the head of the companies highlight. Mrs. Arakelyan urged not to be depressed with the fact that the best professionals of Armenia are leaving, saying that they are going outside to become stronger and show greater assistance to their homeland. She said, “We have finished personnel who just need a little advice on international quality and offer projects of international quality…. We would like to openly show that we have the talent, do not cross over it, do not ignore it, a little support and guidance and we will achieve a lot of goals.” Mrs. Arakelyan noted that there is no cooperation between the businessmen and the best intern-students, “The best student standing in the middle does not know where to go and how to advance. Both sides are good but they are in the middle and must emerge to advance.”
Lusine BUDAGHYAN
