Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan received members of the Board of TUMO Center for Creative Technologies Bekor Papazian, Rev Lebaredean, Alex Serobyan and TUMO Executive Director Marie Lou Papazian to discuss prospects for further development information and high technologies in Armenia.
Greeting the guests, the Prime Minister welcomed the Armenian Diaspora’s readiness to promote Armenia’s development following the velvet revolution and appreciated TUMO Board members’ willingness to contribute to the IT sector, in particular. Nikol Pashinyan noted that TUMO can become the brand of Armenia on the global scale, considering the increased interest of visiting foreign high-ranking officials for our country’s technology education model.
“TUMO’s current achievements are impressive, but there is still much to do, and we see huge potential for recording ever new achievements in this field. The Government stands ready to uphold this process as much as possible,” the Prime Minister said.
The TUMO Board members noted that the revolution in Armenia was a great inspiration for the Diaspora, and there is great desire, enthusiasm and willingness to support the fatherland to succeed in democratic reforms and bolster economic development. They presented the recommendations developed jointly with other Board members – Alexis Ohanyan and Raffi Krikorian – on IT development and cooperation, i.e. on assisting Armenia with the establishment of business ties with leading IT companies (in particular, those from Silicon Valley), strategic and operational issues, joint work on attracting investments, developing innovative ideas, organizing annual workshops for exchanging ideas about strategy and progress analysis. Prime Minister Pushinyan welcomed the ideas and suggested institutionalizing them by setting up an IT Support Council.
“The development of information and high technologies is among the Government’s priorities, given its great potential. We are prepared to closely cooperate with the stakeholders in order to ensure sustained development of information and high technologies which, in turn, will lead to economic progress, in general, as well as to effective introduction of digital technologies in the system of public administration and in electoral processes. Finally, it will help enhance Armenia’s security,” the Premier pointed out.
The meeting next focused on the aforementioned IT Support Council’s future activities, its operational format, human constituent and other issues of topical interest. Prime Minister Pashinyan suggested developing a roadmap for further action and building an online platform to provide for all stakeholders’ permanent communication.