Category: 2017

Education: Erasmus+ engineering and innovation summer school for students kicks off in Armenia

Tambiyan Samvel
Aravot, Armenia

Last week, Armenian students with technical backgrounds gathered at the country’s National Engineering Laboratories for a summer school on engineering and innovation, supported by the Erasmus+ project in Armenia.

The summer school will last until 4 August and will have a multi- and cross-disciplinary thematic approach, to meet the challenges and opportunities related to modern, innovative engineering.

The one month programme will consist of a series of shared lectures and seminars, as well as separate, subject-specific workshops, the sharing of successful student experiences, site visits, industry tours and an engineering challenge project, said the Erasmus+ office in Armenia.

The aim of the summer school is to give students knowledge and skills in innovative engineering, and provide an extended overview of the realisation of a product’s life cycle from idea to innovative product.


Code-teaching app developed in Armenia wins Grand Prize in Facebook’s FbStart contest

Maral Takmazian
Public Radio of Armenia

13:06, 11 Jul 2017
Siranush Ghazanchyan

A code-teaching application developed in Armenia has been named the winner of the FbStart program, TechCrunch reports.

Facebook has announced its “FbStart Apps of the Year”, which is an event which recognizes the most successful apps from the global FbStart program. This year’s Grand Prize winner is SoloLearn (iOS/Android) which is a free mobile-first app for anyone who wants to learn how to code.

SoloLearn’s CEO and Co-founder Davit Kocharyan came up with the idea for the app in his native Armenia, where most of their team is based, to teach coding to the local population.

The app’s idea is to educate members through game mechanics, peer-to-peer sharing, and user-generated content. SoloLearn community members compete in head-to-head challenges and unlock hidden lessons. It offers 12 free courses, including _javascript_, Swift, Python, C++, and HTML/CSS.

Yeva Hyusyan, CEO and Co-founder of SoloLearn told Mike Butcher of the TechCrunch the app had hit two major milestones. She said the first is that it’s turned into the “friendliest” community of peer learners. “You get an answer from your peers in our Q&A forum within minutes; we have over half a million public codes on SoloLearn today that are used as a great peer-to-peer learning tool; tens of thousands interactive peer-to-peer challenges are completed daily,” she said.

The second is that users are generating a lot of the content themselves.

The app has also gotten more traction, with now 5+ million profiled learners; 1.5M quizzes completed daily; 3 codes are compiled every second; and over 1,000 answers are published every day. Some 40% of users are based in India, 25% in the US, and the rest is across Europe.

Developers participated in FbStart for the chance to win up to $100,000 in prizes to help scale their business. The event got 900 submissions from 87 countries.

In addition to SoloLearn, the other “Apps of the Year” were :

EMEA: Mondly [iOS/Android] – “A language learning platform that’s the first company to launch a VR experience for learning languages (featuring speech recognition and chatbot technology).”

Asia-Pacific: Maya [iOS/Android] – “A free app that makes it easy for women around the world to track their periods, monitor related symptoms, set health reminders, track pregnancy and connect with health experts. Has 7 million downloads in 190 countries.”

Latin America: ReservaTurno [iOS/Android] – “A mobile app to book beauty appointments on the go.”

Social Good: Golden [iOS/Android] – “A global platform that helps people find local volunteer opportunities based on the activities they prefer to do for fun rather than skills-based requirements.”

Sports: Karabakh president receives Vic Darchinyan

Jagharian Tania
news.am, Armenia

Karabakh president receives Vic Darchinyan
19:00, 11.07.2017

STEPANAKERT. – President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakyan received world-famous boxer Vakhtang Darchinyan.

A range of issues related to the development of sports in Artsakh was  discussed during the meeting.

Bako Sahakyan highlighted Vakhtang Darchinyan’s contribution to the development of Armenian sports and his active involvement in various pan-Armenian programs.

The President awarded Vakhtang Darchinyan “Mesrop Mashtots” order for significant achievements in the international sports.

RA Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan participated in “Diaspora in front of new horizons. at the meeting entitled “Self-understanding of Diaspora Armenians”.

Torgomian Varazdat 
Please find the attached press release of the Ministry of Diaspora.
Sincerely,
Media and PR Department
(+374 10) 585601, internal 805


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Swedish MPs file genocide complaint against Turkey’s Erdogan

Babken Chilingarian
Public Radio of Armenia

16:51, 11 Jul 2017
A small group of Swedish lawmakers have filed a legal complaint accusing Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, reports AFP.

The complaint signed by five lawmakers from the Left and Green parties is the first of its kind in Sweden against a head of state, writes AFP.

The suit relates to the conflict in Turkey’s Kurdish majority south-east, which has been battered by renewed fighting between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces since a fragile truce collapsed in 2015.

“We are five lawmakers handing in a complaint… (requesting) punishment for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes,” Annika Lillemets, an MP for the Green party, told a news conference in Stockholm.

The complaint, filed to the Swedish International Public Prosecution Offices, names Erdogan and several ministers including Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

A Swedish law adopted in 2014 allows the country’s courts to judge cases of alleged crimes against humanity regardless of where they have been committed or by whom.

The law stipulates that “anyone, who in order to completely or patially destroy a national or ethnic group of people” kills, causes serious pain or injury is “guilty of genocide”.

The Public Prosecution Offices said it would now decide whether to initiate a preliminary investigation, adding that “it may take a while”.

If prosecutors decide to launch an investigation, Erdogan could risk an arrest warrant in Sweden, the lawmakers said.

CSTO member states launch three-day military drills in Armenia

Aram Torosian
PanARMENIAN.Net, Armenia



– 16:14 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – The CSTO member states’ special forces have launched three-day military drills in Armenia, the CSTO press service said in a statement on Tuesday, July 11.

“Training with the heads of CSTO member states’ interior ministries (police) special units, allocated to the organization’s Collective Rapid Reaction Force, was launched on July 11 under the supervision of CSTO Deputy Secretary General Valery Semerikov,” Spuntik reports.

According to the statement, police officers from Russia, Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, as well as national guard officers from Russia and Kazakhstan, are taking part.

The drills, providing the participants with the opportunity to work on special operations scenarios and exchange experience in training methods, are set to last for three days on the base of the Police Educational Complex of the Republic of Armenia.

The CSTO was established on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty, signed by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member states on May 15, 1992. Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan are the current CSTO members. Former member state Uzbekistan announced the suspension of its CSTO membership in 2012.

Poyry wins Armenia hydropower project

Jagharian Tania
Power Engineering International



07/11/2017
By Kelvin Ross
Editor

Pöyry has been awarded an engineering and consultancy contract by Energy Invest Holding for the headworks rehabilitation project at the Dzora hydropower plant in Armenia. 

The plant on the Dzoraget river has been operating since 1932. Pöyry will prepare an inventory of the observed damages to the concrete structures and hydromechanical equipment. It will also assess the reduced operability or the expectable durability of the hydro-scheme based on a risk analysis and clarify the geological/geotechnical potential causes for the damages in view of designing proper countermeasures. 

“Delivering clean, renewable energy projects in this region further strengthens Pöyry’s position as one of the world’s leading hydropower engineering consultancies” said Richard Pinnock, president of Pöyry’s Energy Business Group.

Pöyry is involved in hydropower projects with a total installed capacity of over 100 GW worldwide.

Energy Invest Holding has four hydropower assets in Armenia as well as ArevEk, the first solar power plant in Armenia. With up to 1 MW capacity it being built at the highest elevation near the Makravan district of Hrazdan city. The first phase of construction is due to be completed this year.

Armenia’s justice minister receives Venice Commission representatives

Baghdasarian Karlen
Panorama, Armenia

Justice Minister of Armenia Davit Harutyunyan on Tuesday received the representatives of the Venice Commission (the European Commission for Democracy through Law), the press service of the Justice Ministry told Panorama.am.

The minister highly appreciated the high-quality professional assistance provided by the Commission for the development of Armenia’s constitutional laws, meantime highlighting the usefulness of such meetings.

During the meeting, the interlocutors discussed a number of provisions of Armenia’s new draft Judicial Code.

President Sargsyan: Armenia is ready to deepen the interstate relations with Iceland

Edgar Tavakalian
Panorama, Armenia

Newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Iceland to the Republic of Armenia Sigríður Bergling Ásgeirsdottir (residence in Moscow) handed today her credentials to President Serzh Sargsyan, the press service of the President’s Office reports.

Congratulating the Ambassador on assuming office, the President of Armenia wished her every success in her diplomatic mission in our country. Noting that despite the fact that the Armenian-Icelandic interstate relations had been on the rise for the past 20 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the President underscored that the cooperation potential was not fully used during that period. In this context, he said Armenia ready to deepen the interstate relations with Iceland, looking forth to the newly-appointed Ambassador’s active stance in this matter.

Ambassador Sigríður Bergling Ásgeirsdottir assured that she would do her best to build on the Armenian-Icelandic bilateral ties. She said to have already held several meetings and discussions in Yerevan to this end, which convinced her that there is specific potential for successful cooperation in trade, economy and the humanitarian sphere, and efforts need to be made to tap the existing potentialities. According to the Ambassador, prospective cooperation may be developed between the universities of Iceland and Armenia, along with the exchange of experience in the IT sector and tourism.

The interlocutors concurred in that Armenia and Iceland can also develop mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of energy, especially in renewable energy, since Iceland boasts long experience and considerable achievements in this field.

The President of Armenia and Ambassador Sigríður Bergling Ásgeirsdottir attached importance to the strengthening of inter-parliamentary ties, which may go a long way towards promoting interstate relationship.

The parties took the opportunity to look at regional issues and challenges, including the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.

The Valley’s Armenia: Visiting Yerevan’s Vernissage

Nahapetian Zhanna
Your Central Valley

The Valley’s Armenia: Visiting Yerevan’s Vernissage

By: Stefani Booroojian

Posted: Jul 10, 2017 08:23 PM PDT

Updated: Jul 11, 2017 08:38 AM PDT

FRESNO, Calif. –    Every Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine, Yerevan, Armenia’s Vernissage– outdoor market– is open.  Ceramics, chess sets, jewelry, and art– on display and on sale.

 Like a magnet drawing in tourists and locals alike.   Paula Der Matoian is one of the locals. She was born and raised in Fresno, but now calls Armenia’s capital city her home.  “I came just as an adventure.  I thought it would be interesting to come here to work, to see the country.  I had the opportunity to do it and I thought, ‘Ok, why not?’,” she says.

   That was 16 and a half years ago.  A true adventure that she thought would only last 6 months–  leaving the comforts of home for a place she had only previously visited.   And could not even speak the language.   “Still don’t really speak the language.” (Stef) ” I just don’t see how that could be.”  ” I speak my own version of it.   So it’s broken Armenian, broken Armenian with English words,” Der Matoian says.

   Paula underestimates her communication skills.  She helped me do some shopping.  But more importantly, she serves as the Director of Internet for  the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadsin:  the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church.  A role given to her by the Catholicos of all Armenians, His Holiness Karekin the second.  “When I got here, his holiness said that he wanted a website, I came with no plans in mind.  He said he wanted a website and he gave me a staff to work with and he said, ‘Just figure it out’,” explains Der Matoian.

   Paula and her staff manage the website and all social media platforms — including Instagram which was just added.  She’s found a home away from home in a place with a story that she says is hard to walk away from .  “And what I found was a subway, and a life, and a city that was vibrant and breathing.  And had character to it  and that was so interesting to me because it was dynamic,” she says.

   Dynamic, but full of challenges. Armenia’s independence is in its infancy.  Just 25 years, after nearly 70 years of soviet rule. Paula takes pride that she is among the diaspora that has returned.  She recently served as a volunteer observer in April’s Parliamentary elections.  “After living here for so many years I decided I have a vested interest in what goes on in the political process.   And one way, one of the easiest ways for me to do that was to volunteer and be a monitor for the elections,” explains Der Matoian.

   It’s a simpler life, she says, with fewer choices at the grocery store, and a lack of urgency about being on time, or deadlines at work.  “I used to say I’ll stay here until I get kicked out.  And they’re not going to do that.  Well that depends on how much trouble I get into with the language,” says Der Matoian.

   The magnet that once drew her in, is holding strong.