Author: Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS

Banking in the Cloud: Armenian Fintech Start-Up Highway Raises $2 million

Emil Lazarian
Oct 27 2021
Navid Ladani 

Photo: Highway Founders

Highway, a Yerevan-based fintech start-up, has announced the closing of a seed funding round of $2M. The company, which specializes in building a cloud-native composable core banking platform, enables client banks to enhance their digital capacities and transform from legacy systems. The funding round was led by private investors.

Founded by Armenian entrepreneur Davit Baloyan, Highway aims to tap into the massive embedded finance market, which is expected to grow to $7.2 trillion by 2030 according to a forecast by embedded finance expert Simon Torrance. Baloyan is an experienced banking executive with a focus on digital banking and has successfully launched digital products in Armenia before, including point of sale lending and QR payments system. He was joined by four other co-founders at Highway, with the goal to grow the company into a large international player in the fintech industry.

“We are happy to close this funding round which will allow us to continue growing our team in Armenia and focus on expanding our business in our target markets. We see a huge opportunity for growth globally as many incumbent banks today are stuck with their legacy core banking platforms and are missing out on the game to new challenger players. We are here to empower and help banks to build more innovative and customer-friendly products,” Baloyan said.

By positioning itself in the niche of core banking infrastructure, the company is eager to secure its place in the growing fintech landscape. “The reason is that embedded finance enables any brand or merchant to rapidly and at low cost integrate innovative financial services into new propositions and customer experiences. If you are a bank, this means that you can set up new business in a new market very quickly. However, this kind of action requires a totally different core banking system compared to the traditional systems,” said Baloyan. “We are building our core system with exactly this aim – to support embedded finance, to support open banking, to support banking as a service. We are a “highway” for banking services, for everyone from everywhere,” he continued.

Highway’s team is currently based in Armenia, where the company has focused its hiring. By the end of 2022, the management plans to grow its team to about 50 members, all in Armenia. “We are very proud of our team in Yerevan and see that the talent market still has much more potential to grow here,” Baloyan remarked.

Avetis Ovakimyan, Chief Product Officer and co-founder, described the main advantage of their solution to be the fact that it is built by bankers for bankers. With a 10-year background in risk and finance functions across different markets, Ovakimyan believes that next-gen cloud-based core banking systems have the full potential to become alternatives to traditional core banking systems. In terms of reliability, traditional/legacy core banking systems have done their job perfectly and we have rarely seen any major failures over the last couple of decades. However, with the advent of digital banking, cloud, and APIs, banks have seen a significant shift in the way banking products and partnerships are constructed. “This is exactly where we step in,” said Ovakimyan.

Arthur Hakobyan, the firm’s CTO with 15+ years of experience in IT joined Highway in April 2021 as a co-founder. He proposed that the technology that most banks are using today is obsolete, the architecture is monolithic, complex, and convoluted, and requires highly specialized engineering teams in every area. Any small change entails endless effort and brings headaches to clients. 

“One of the key goals we have at Highway is to make a platform which is service independent and self-contained. It must be extremely easy to select and utilize each component. We have a “Lego brick” development approach to building services using top technologies to decompose an application into smaller services instead of heavy applications. Using the latest technologies and standards will allow Highway’s clients to get products, integrate APIs and launch new services without any difficulties and minimum time,” he said.

https://www.benzinga.com/fintech/21/10/23639151/banking-in-the-cloud-armenian-fintech-start-up-highway-raises-2-million

"With Honour" faction can discuss with Nikol Pashinyan only the text of his resignation – Hayk Mamijanyan

Emil Lazarian
Panorama, Armenia
Oct 27 2021

“There is only one topic the opposition “With Honour” faction at the National Assembly can discuss with Nikol Pashinyan and that is the text of his resignation,” the member of the opposition bloc Hayk Mamijanyan stated on Wednesday. Mamijanyan’s statement came during the Q/A session at parliament attended by Pashinyan and the cabinet members. 

“In all other cases the Government and its leader are accountable to the National Assembly. There will be different inquiry committees, discussions of various formats can take place at the parliament. I will find another opportunity to raise my questions since I consider pointless to ask question in this atmosphere,” Mamijanyan said in response to the stir among the deputies that followed his remarks. 

HyeTech showcase brings 43 Armenian-led startups to Yerevan

Emil Lazarian
Public Radio of Armenia
Oct 26 2021
, 14:18

 2 minutes read

The HyeTech Showcase is the first-ever startup networking conference of its kind held in Armenia. It brings together 43 cutting-edge startups with operations in 27 countries around the world. The HyeTech network, which was founded in 2011 in Silicon Valley, has grown into a powerful community of technology entrepreneurs, leveraging the strengths and expertise of Armenians around the world.

These technology startups, all founded or led by Armenian entrepreneurs, are meeting to find new solutions to the needs of the fast-growing technology sector in Armenia. Raising more than US $1.5 billion of direct investment, this funding is now being deployed on growth, expansion and hiring.

Additionally, these world-class companies have committed to building deep technology and valuable intellectual property in Armenia.

“We are using our international network of Armenians to connect and grow our ventures,” said

Nerses Ohanyan, the founder of HyeTech. “Networking within this community is very powerful.”

Ohanyan says Armenia has a unique advantage in creating products and developing technologies that address major global needs.

“We can iterate and learn from each other faster, because we’re testing things on a small scale in a tight and collaborative community,” he said. The tight-knit community of the global Armenian tech sector has proven to be an advantage in connecting people and ideas.

Creating access and scaling talent in the tech sector by focusing on attracting, developing and managing talent globally is the major theme of the conference. The lessons learned across dozens of fast-growing startups can be leveraged to enable the entire ecosystem to be more efficient. One of the initiatives is to build a tech bridge to India. This bridge will connect the Armenian tech ecosystem with top technical and business talent in India and accelerate the growth of products and services developed in Armenia and its global ecosystem.

Lara Setrakian, journalist, entrepreneur, impact investor and partner at Fresco Capital, will be hosting a panel with H. E. Ms. Lynne Tracy, US Ambassador to Armenia; H. E. Ms. Andrea Wiktorin, Ambassador and Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia and H. E. Mr. Kishan Dan Dewal, Ambassador of India to Armenia. Together they will discuss trends for harnessing human capital around the world and ideas for the Armenian technology ecosystem, all in order to better enable and connect talent centers worldwide.

The Armenian tech ecosystem also sees a need for developing talent especially through investments in scientific research, including Machine Learning, Biotechnology and Space research. Deep technology drives disruption and is necessary to build the next set of successful technology ventures. Prime example of this is SkyRoot from India that is fueling Space technology and working with India’s Space Research Organization.

Pawan Chandana Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO at SkyRoot will be sharing his experience on building high growth, research-driven startups on the Keynote Panel of HyeTech Showcase 2021: Talent Matters. The panel also includes Vahe Kuzoyan, Co-Founder and President of ServiceTitan, and Tigran Sloyan, Co-Founder and CEO of CodeSignal.

Gituzh is also featured, which aims to promote greater investment into research and science across Armenia, and highlights the critical business need to create powerful connections for talent, IP exchange, innovation and disruptive technology development.

The HyeTech Showcase takes place over two days, held in Yerevan on October 27 and Gyumri on October 28 as part of DigiWeek 21.

Istanbul changes name of street named after famous Armenian engineer again

Emil Lazarian
News.am, Armenia
Oct 26 2021
23:40, 26.10.2021

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has changed the name of the street named after famous Armenian engineer Hovhannes Dadyan in Bakirkoy again.

According to the Turkish Medyascope, since 2008, the Municipality of Bakirkoy has been referring to the street as Dadyan Street, but after a while, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is changing the name again.

The residents of Bakirkoy stressed that they are in favor of naming the street after Dadyan since he was a famous engineer in the Ottoman Empire and did a lot for the country.

Hovhannes Dadyan was born in 1799. In his prime, he started making gunpowder, became a famous engineer and held major positions in the Ottoman army. He also built the St. Mary’s Church and Dadyan School, which still exist on Dadyan Street, a street that Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is constantly changing.

Azerbaijanis steal dozens of cattle from Artsakh resident

Emil Lazarian
Panorama, Armenia
Oct 27 2021

The Artsakh Investigative Committee opened a criminal case over the theft of dozens of cattle from an Artsakh resident by Azerbaijanis.

In a statement on Wednesday, the law enforcement agency said that on October 3, a group of Azerbaijanis conspired and stole more than 30 cows and 13 calves from a resident of the town of Chartar of the Martuni region, causing him 12,3 million drams in material damage.

The preliminary investigation is underway.

Australian MP calls to condemn Azerbaijan’s belligerent actions and war crimes

Emil Lazarian
Public Radio of Armenia
Oct 25 2021
, 13:18

 2 minutes read

Australia’s former Defense Minister, the Hon. Joel Fitzgibbon MP has risen in the Parliament’s Federation Chamber calling on Australia to publicly condemn Azerbaijan’s belligerent actions and war crimes on the first anniversary of the 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) War, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia.

The Federal Member for Hunter, who is Co-Convenor of the Armenia-Australia Inter-Parliamentary Union (Friendship Group/Caucus) and a member of the Australian Friends of Artsakh network, made his important comments as part of an address in Australia’s Parliament on 25th October 2021.

Fitzgibbon highlighted the efforts undertaken by Armenian-Australians to raise awareness about Azerbaijan’s Turkish-backed aggression and called on Australia to take action.

“Armenian-Australians have joined the diaspora around the world in calling for the international community to call out Azerbaijan to stop their belligerent activities. Australia should do just that,” Fitzgibbon said.

“A number of countries, including France, the USA and bodies such as the European Parliament have rightly publicly condemned Azerbaijan’s deliberate violations of international law,” he added.

“We should join with the many across the globe by making our opinions about the situation in Artsakh well-known and by recognising the right of self-determination for the people of Artsakh.”

The three-minute statement began with Fitzgibbon reflecting on Azerbaijan’s indiscriminate attacks on the indigenous Armenian homeland, which began on 27th September 2020.

“The Azerbaijani invasion resulted in the death of around 5000 young Armenian men, Azerbaijani forces destroyed civilian infrastructure, including hundreds of schools and places of worship. More than 100,000 civilians have been displaced,” Fitzgibbon said, while going on to acknowledge the devastating effects and trauma the 44-day war has had on the Armenian-Australian community.

“The Armenian-Australian community has been in an overwhelming state of devastation, shock and despair, as they have witnessed their homeland desecrated at the hands of Azerbaijani forces, including paid Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries.”

“This conflict is a test for the robustness of our international architecture and the rule-based order we all rely so much upon. We must pass the test,” Fitzgibbon concluded.

The Armenian National Committee of Australia’s (ANC-AU) Executive Director, Haig Kayserian thanked Fitzgibbon for his remarks.

“As Australia’s former Defence Minister, Mr. Joel Fitzgibbon is an ally for peace and his comments speak volumes of the atrocities being faced by Armenians in the homeland,” Kayserian said.

“We thank Mr Fitzgibbon for putting the concerns of Armenian-Australians on the public record in our nation’s Parliament, as we do what we can as a community to support our brothers and sisters in the Republics of Artsakh and Armenia.”

Turkish president presents Azerbaijani counterpart with Anadolu Agency book on Karabakh victory

Emil Lazarian
Middle East Monitor
Oct 26 2021
at 8:34 pm | 
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) presents the book “Karabakh Victory” prepared by Anadolu Agency, to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (L2) in Zangilan, Azerbaijan on [Resul Rehimov/Anadolu Agencyy]
at 8:34 pm

Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Tuesday, presented his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, a landmark new Anadolu Agency book on last fall’s liberation of Nagorno-Karabakh, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Using the agency’s award-winning photography, the book recounts last year’s Second Karabakh War between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and how the former was victorious.

The first part of the book explores the war’s historic roots, while the second part presents Anadolu Agency news and photos documenting the 44-day conflict.

The third part features articles on the repercussions of the Karabakh victory, both regionally and internationally.

The book’s introduction was written by Erdogan and its preface by Serdar Karagoz, the agency’s chairman and director-general.

“The hallowed Karabakh Victory is a badge of honor that proves to the whole world that Turkey and Azerbaijan’s understanding of ‘one nation, two states’ is still alive in the 21st century,” wrote Erdogan in his introduction.

“On 27 September 2020, the Turkish nation and state stood by their Azerbaijani brothers and sisters against the attacks of the occupying forces of Armenia with all their means, and will continue to do so,” he continued.

The Turkish president also commemorated “all the martyrs who sacrificed their lives to liberate Karabakh and the occupied Azerbaijani lands” and wished recovery to veterans of the conflict.

“I once again congratulate the President of Azerbaijan, my brother, Ilham Aliyev, for his military, political and diplomatic success, and sincerely congratulate the Azerbaijani people for their honorable stance,” he added.

Congratulating Anadolu Agency on the book, he said it “leaves a mark on the future.”

READ: Turkey to import natural gas from Azerbaijan

“I would like to express my gratitude to Anadolu Agency’s management and employees who made this work possible,” he wrote.

In the book’s preface, Karagoz stressed the agency’s hard work, with self-sacrifice, courage, and professionalism, to tell the world about the Karabakh conflict, day by day, with unforgettable photos, even as many global news outlets neglected the war.

“We hope that this work will remain for future generations as a glorious document of the Azerbaijan-Turkey friendship and brotherhood. Karabakh is Azerbaijan,” he noted.

Karagoz also commemorated Azerbaijani soldiers who lost their lives during the liberation of occupied lands.

Among the Turkish officials accompanying Erdogan on his one-day working visit to Azerbaijan at Aliyev’s invitation, were Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, National Defense Minister, Hulusi Akar, Environment and Urbanization Minister, Murat Kurum, Transport and Infrastructure Minister, Adil Karaismailoglu, Communications Director, Fahrettin Altun, and presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin.

Erdogan also attended the inauguration of the Fuzuli International Airport and the groundbreaking ceremony of a highway in the same city.

Relations between the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan and seven adjacent regions.

New clashes erupted on 27 September 2020, with the Armenian army launching repeated attacks on civilians and Azerbaijani forces and also violating several humanitarian cease-fire agreements.

During the 44-day conflict, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and some 300 settlements and villages that were occupied by Armenia for nearly three decades.

The fighting ended on 10 November 2020, after the two countries signed an agreement brokered by Russia.

Why Does Israel Support Azerbaijan in Hostilities with Armenia?

Emil Lazarian
   Oct 25 2021

Published

 20 hours ago 

on

 

By

 Bill McEwen, News Director

Israel was one of the first countries to recognize Azerbaijan following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

That support, which includes substantial military aid such as Stinger missiles and Harop drones, hasn’t wavered. Not even when Azerbaijan engaged in two wars with Armenia over disputed territory in Nagorno-Karabakh.

GV Wire asked retired Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ettinger in a recent interview why his country didn’t instead support Armenia, whose citizens — like those in Israel — have been the victims of genocide. Israel, of course, has never officially recognized the Armenian Genocide.

Ettinger said that it is in Israel’s best interests and the best interests of peace in the region to back Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, intelligence analysts note that Azerbaijan, which is 97% Muslim, is a large supplier of Israeli oil and that Azerbaijan’s border with Iran is strategically important to Israel.

Watch: Why Does Israel Stand With Azerbaijan, not Armenia?

Nagorno-Karabakh is within Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since the end of a separatist war in 1994. Armenia, which also formed after the break-up of the Soviet Union, is 99% Christian.

A second war was waged by Azerbaijan and Armenia there last year that resulted in more than 6,500 deaths. That conflict ended when Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a Russia-brokered cease-fire agreement that granted Azerbaijan control over parts of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as adjacent territories occupied by Armenians.

Armenian officials told a United Nations court earlier this month that “Azerbaijan continues to espouse and actively promote ethnic hatred against Armenians.”

For an in-depth analysis of the relationships involving Israel, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, and Russia, read this piece by Daniel Edelstein.

Music: Armenian soprano Mané Galoyan wins second prize at Operalia 2021 world opera competition

Emil Lazarian
Public Radio of Armenia
Oct 25 2021
, 23:10

 1 minute read

Armenian soprano Mané Galoyan won the second prize at the Operalia 2021 world opera competition. Galoyan shared the second award with tenors Bekhzod Davronov (Uzbekistan) and Jonah Hoskins (USA).

Russia mezzo-soprano Victoria Karkacheva and tenor Ivan Ayon-Rivas of Peru became the winners of this year’s competition.

Operalia was founded in 1993 by Plácido Domingo to discover and help launch the careers of the most promising young opera singers of today.

Operalia’s goal is to attract singers between the ages of eighteen and thirty-two, of all voice types from and all over the world, to have them audition and be heard by a panel of distinguished international personalities, in the most prestigious and competitive showcase in the world.

Mane Galoyan was also awarded the Pepita Embil Prize of Zarzuela and the Rolex Prize of the Audience.

Ms. Galoyan is a graduate of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, and holds two degrees from the Yerevan State Komitas Conservatory in Armenia, where she was named the 2013 winner of the President of the Republic of Armenia Youth Prize. She is based in Berlin with her husband, conductor Roberto Kalb.

Mané Galoyan is the winner of numerous international competitions, including First Prize in the 27th Eleanor McCollum Competition and Concert of Arias with Houston Grand Opera, Third Prize in the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition, Fourth Prize in the 6th International Vocal Competition China in Ningbo, Third Prize in the 2017 Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition, a 2014 prize in the Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition, and First Prize in the Bibigul Tulegenova International Singing Competition in Kazakhstan.

Iranian Ambassador describes charging Iranian trucks in Armenia by Azerbaijan as ‘unacceptable move’

Emil Lazarian
Panorama, Armenia
Oct 25 2021

Iran’s ambassador to Yerevan decried Azerbaijan’s unacceptable move to receive toll from Iranian trucks on a road passing through pockets of Azerbaijan-controlled territory in southern Armenia, saying the road charging runs counter to a ceasefire deal. In an interview with Tasnim news agency in Yerevan, Iran’s Ambassador Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri said it is unfortunate that the Iranian trucks using the Goris-Kapan Road have been required to pay toll.

According to the trilateral negotiations among Russia, Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, which resulted in a ceasefire deal between Yerevan and Baku following the most recent war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the situation in the transit route in southern Armenia was supposed to remain unchanged until the completion of a new route, the Iranian envoy said.

He explained that the transit route has been used during the past three decades. “The Iranian trucks pay toll on arrival in Armenia, and they are not expected to pay toll a hundred kilometers ahead as well. We expected that they (Azerbaijan Republic) would stop it (road charging) until the preparation of the additional road and that no problem would arise.”

In a meeting with his Armenian counterpart, held in Tehran in early October, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian unveiled plans for a new road map leading to the expansion of relations with Armenia at the “strategic level”.

He said Iran and Armenia have outlined a new project to revive the transit of commodities and routes for the trucks traveling between the two neighbors, saying the plan will be carried out immediately.