How Armenia is attempting to construct a Silicon Valley within the Caucasus | EUROtoday

In Armenia tech schooling begins early.

In a typical three-storey state faculty within the suburbs of Yerevan, the Armenian capital, nine-year previous Slavik is demonstrating his invention – a field with three LED lights.

“He has learned how to control it, and the programming language. You can see the code is written by him,” says Maria, the 21-year-old tech coach main the category.

Next to them, 14-year-old Eric and Narek are exhibiting their good greenhouse mannequin that screens temperature and controls followers routinely by means of a cellular app.

Other kids are enthusiastically showcasing their innovations: video games, robots, apps and good house tasks.

Eleven-year-old Arakel is holding his cardboard mannequin of a home with a retractable clothesline.

“I have made my mother’s work easy, one part of the device is set on the roof, and another is a motor,” he says. “When it rains the line goes under the roof to keep the clothes dry.”

These younger inventors have been attending engineering lab lessons the place they be taught programming, robotics, coding, 3D modelling and extra.

The programme began in 2014, and is named Armath, which interprets into English as “root”. Today there are 650 Armath labs in colleges throughout Armenia.

The initiative was established by a enterprise organisation referred to as the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE), which represents greater than 200 high-tech Armenian firms.

“The vision is that we want to see Armenia becoming a tech centre powerhouse that delivers utmost values to Armenia and to the world,” says Sarkis Karapetyan, the chief govt of UATE.

In his spacious, open-plan workplace in Yerevan he says that there at the moment are round 4,000 tech firms in Armenia.

Armath is a part of the UATE’s schooling and workforce growth programme. Mr Karapetyan says the programme is probably the most profitable public-private partnership within the nation.

“We raise capital expenditure from the private sector, we go to the schools and establish Armath labs, we donate the equipment,” he says. “And the government, the education ministry gives us a budget of $2m (£1.5m) annually to pay the salaries of the coaches.”

There at the moment are greater than 600 coaches, and 17,000 energetic college students.

“The goal is to have 5,000 of the most talented kids decide to become engineers every year,” says Mr Karapetyan.

Armenia is a landlocked nation of two.7 million individuals, the smallest within the South Caucasus area, and its borders with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey have been shut for many years on account of unresolved territorial disputes.

Unlike its neighbours, Armenia doesn’t have pure assets or entry to the ocean. But all through the Soviet period it had been a centre of arithmetic and laptop science.

In 1956 the Yerevan Scientific Research Institute of Mathematical Machines was established in Armenia and by 1960 it had developed two first era computer systems.

Today, the nation is tapping into its legacy with the ambition to rework itself into the tech powerhouse of the Caucasus.

And there was some success already. Picsart, a AI-powered picture and video modifying web site and app, was launched in Armenia in 2011. Today the corporate of the identical title, which has twin headquarters in Yerevan and Miami, is valued at $1.5bn.

Krisp, which makes audio-processing software program, and Service Titan, which gives enterprise software program, are different Armenian success tales.

Meanwhile, an annual report says that Armenia is the most effective nation within the Caucuses area during which to launch an organization, placing it in 57th place globally. This compares with Georgia in seventieth place, and Azerbaijan in eightieth.

A crucial think about boosting Armenia’s tech growth is the nation’s international diaspora – some 75% of the world’s estimated Armenians, and other people of Armenian descent, stay elsewhere.

This worldwide group gives vital connections, particularly within the US tech business. In the US there are as many as 1.6 million individuals of Armenian ancestry, centred on California.

Samvel Khachikyan, is director of applications at SmartGate, a enterprise capital agency based mostly in each California and Armenia that focuses on tech investments.

He says that if you happen to have a look at the highest 500 firms within the US, “for sure you’ll find at least one or two Armenians” within the boardroom or one administration degree under.

Mr Khachikyan explains how his firm helps Armenian entrepreneurs arrange operations within the US.

“Imagine an Armenian start-up, two young people deciding to go to the US to try to operate there, they have no connections, no knowledge about the culture how it works.

“It’s gonna be onerous, very onerous. We are serving to them, it is just like the launch of the rocket, the primary couple of seconds is the toughest.”

SmartGate takes Armenian founders to Silicon Valley and Los Angeles for intensive networking with top US companies and investors.

But many Armenian start-ups first test their products in their home market.

Irina Ghazaryan, is the founder of an app called Dr Yan that is changing how Armenians access healthcare by enabling them to more easily book appointments with doctors.

Ms Ghazaryan was previously working in product and web design when, helped by the fact she comes from a family of doctors, she identified a gap in the market. “Patients could not discover the proper medical doctors, and medical doctors had been affected by infinite calls.”

The app operates on a subscription model, with doctors paying to be listed on the platform, and there are plans to expand.

“We are rising no less than 25% income month by month,” adds Ms Ghazaryan. “We are nearly break-even in Armenia and that offers us energy to begin increasing to different markets, like Uzbekistan.”

Armenia’s tech ecosystem received an unexpected boost in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Thousands of Russian IT specialists left their country, and many chose to settle in Armenia.

Meanwhile, US chipmaking giant Nvidia moved its Russian office to Armenia.

Vasily is a Russian IT consultant who relocated to Armenia in 2023. “Armenia was probably the most pleasant to individuals from Russia with the intention to assist them transfer, adapt and so forth,” he says.

He estimates that that the Russian IT community in Armenia now totals 5,000 to 8,000 people. This influx has said to have filled crucial skill gaps in Armenia’s tech sector, in areas such as data processing, cybersecurity, and financial technologies.

Yet Vasily says that Armenia can be expensive and the country needs to reduce the tax burden on IT firms if it wants them to stay in the country.

However, overall optimism remains high about Armenia’s tech future. Samvel Khachikyan expects the sector to boom. He points to Service Titan, which floated on the New York Stock Exchange last December, and is now worth more than $10bn.