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THE HUFFINGTON POST: NEW ENTREPRENEURIAL INITIATIVE BRINGS TINY ARMENIA TO FOREFRONT OF WORLD IT INDUSTRY
09:28 ~U 15.10.13
ONEArmenia and its latest venture, the Shift::Tech initiative bring
tectonic change to Armenia, one project at a time.
Ad executive and entrepreneur Patrick Sarkissian founded ONEArmenia
in 2012 in order to take advantage of that country's remarkable brain
power and cultural strength and to help to save a young generation
of Armenians from the corruption and negativity prevalent in all
post-Soviet Republics. Armenians, who have been around for some three
thousand years, are wont to go on about their sometimes glorious
past and the many great entrepreneurs and artists that they have
produced over the centuries. But the collapse of the USSR, a war with
Azerbaijian, a frightening Earthquake and blockade by Turkey have left
many in the Republic of Armenia morose. Emigration has surpassed one
million (out of four million) souls. Corruption is rampant.
"Enough looking backwards!" might be an apt motto for Sarkissian and
his colleagues at ONEArmenia. In a remarkably short period of time,
Sarkissian has brought together like-minded entrepreneurs and cultural
workers including hospitality entrepreneur James Tufenkian who produces
gorgeous oriental carpets and has opened a chain of top-rated hotels
across the country. The idea behind
ONEArmenia is to use crowd sourcing and crowdfunding--modern
fundraising tools--in order to raise money for much-needed projects
in the humanitarian, environmental and tech fields. Each project
donation is completely vetted to produce zero percent corruption--a
most attractive feature to potential investors, young and old.
Of the organization's many projects, its Shift:: Culture has been
particularly enticing. The project received submissions from all over
the globe, both within Armeniua and from its far-flung diaspora. The
winner, the Epsidon Theater Group, took an old Armenian story by
the great writer Nar-Dos called "He and I" and transformed it into
a vibrant, contemporary rock opera. The project was so successful
and the enthusiasm for it so great that Sarkissian then launched
ONEArmenia's current undertaking SHIFT:: Tech. As the "shift" in both
titles suggest, the idea is to shift traditional ways of thinking both
in and outside Armenia about the Republic and the possibilities it
affords. "Armenia is a country with 99% literacy and 36% unemployment,"
Sarkissian explains: "I wanted to bring attention to Armenia's highly
successful IT sector which has already produced hundreds of millions
of exits (export dollars)."
Shift:: Tech is an open call to develop a mobile app in Armenia
for the world market. Armenia is already considered a high-tech hub
for the former CIS countries and the Caucasus. In fact the world's
premiere, full-featured mobile photo editor, Picsart, Inc., for
example, was founded there and already has over 77 million users. It
was developed and produced in one of the many small offices which
now dot the country's capital Yerevan, which are reminiscent of
Silicon Valley's early days when people put together giants like
Apple inside small crowded garages and the like. Armenia's booming
IT sector, considered to be virtually corruption-free, accounts
for no less than 20% of the country's annual GDP. Not surprisingly,
start-ups are popping up all over the country. Says David Bequette,
OneArmenia's in-country director: Armenia's potential is not up for
debate...it doesn't need to look any farther than the Internet for
an environment where the talents of its young engineers, programmers,
designers and software developers can truly take flight."
SHIFT:: Tech's winning entry will be voted on by a peer review
committee that includes some industry powerhouses, including Alexis
Ohanian, Co-Founder of Reddit and Hipmunk, Matthew Brimer, co-founder
of General Assembly and Yoav Kutner, the Co-Founder of Magento and
Oro CRM. "SHIFT:: Tech offers enough support for the winning team of
developers to focus their time and efforts exclusively on an app idea
and make it a reality by building a functioning, viable product for
a big global marketplace", said Nigel Sharp, founder of LionSharp
Solutions--a leading creative technology start-up: "Awareness of
the technology possibilities will improve and hopefully inspire
more people to utilize Armenia's impressive engineering and mobile
development capabilities."
The First Place winner will be given the opportunity to work with
Social Objects, a leading mobile app development start-up in Yerevan,
in order to turn their abstract idea into a unique and important
contribution to the software sphere and to society as a whole. In
addition to having a world-class development team build their app,
part of the $25,000 in-kind grant will go to marketing and taking
the app to market. Following official OneArmenia policy, a portion
of profits from the project will be reinvested to help fund another
key OneArmenia sector --namely its community projects. It's a win-win
proposition, no matter which way you look at it.
http://www.tert.am/en/news/2013/10/15/new-armenia/
From: Baghdasarian
09:28 ~U 15.10.13
ONEArmenia and its latest venture, the Shift::Tech initiative bring
tectonic change to Armenia, one project at a time.
Ad executive and entrepreneur Patrick Sarkissian founded ONEArmenia
in 2012 in order to take advantage of that country's remarkable brain
power and cultural strength and to help to save a young generation
of Armenians from the corruption and negativity prevalent in all
post-Soviet Republics. Armenians, who have been around for some three
thousand years, are wont to go on about their sometimes glorious
past and the many great entrepreneurs and artists that they have
produced over the centuries. But the collapse of the USSR, a war with
Azerbaijian, a frightening Earthquake and blockade by Turkey have left
many in the Republic of Armenia morose. Emigration has surpassed one
million (out of four million) souls. Corruption is rampant.
"Enough looking backwards!" might be an apt motto for Sarkissian and
his colleagues at ONEArmenia. In a remarkably short period of time,
Sarkissian has brought together like-minded entrepreneurs and cultural
workers including hospitality entrepreneur James Tufenkian who produces
gorgeous oriental carpets and has opened a chain of top-rated hotels
across the country. The idea behind
ONEArmenia is to use crowd sourcing and crowdfunding--modern
fundraising tools--in order to raise money for much-needed projects
in the humanitarian, environmental and tech fields. Each project
donation is completely vetted to produce zero percent corruption--a
most attractive feature to potential investors, young and old.
Of the organization's many projects, its Shift:: Culture has been
particularly enticing. The project received submissions from all over
the globe, both within Armeniua and from its far-flung diaspora. The
winner, the Epsidon Theater Group, took an old Armenian story by
the great writer Nar-Dos called "He and I" and transformed it into
a vibrant, contemporary rock opera. The project was so successful
and the enthusiasm for it so great that Sarkissian then launched
ONEArmenia's current undertaking SHIFT:: Tech. As the "shift" in both
titles suggest, the idea is to shift traditional ways of thinking both
in and outside Armenia about the Republic and the possibilities it
affords. "Armenia is a country with 99% literacy and 36% unemployment,"
Sarkissian explains: "I wanted to bring attention to Armenia's highly
successful IT sector which has already produced hundreds of millions
of exits (export dollars)."
Shift:: Tech is an open call to develop a mobile app in Armenia
for the world market. Armenia is already considered a high-tech hub
for the former CIS countries and the Caucasus. In fact the world's
premiere, full-featured mobile photo editor, Picsart, Inc., for
example, was founded there and already has over 77 million users. It
was developed and produced in one of the many small offices which
now dot the country's capital Yerevan, which are reminiscent of
Silicon Valley's early days when people put together giants like
Apple inside small crowded garages and the like. Armenia's booming
IT sector, considered to be virtually corruption-free, accounts
for no less than 20% of the country's annual GDP. Not surprisingly,
start-ups are popping up all over the country. Says David Bequette,
OneArmenia's in-country director: Armenia's potential is not up for
debate...it doesn't need to look any farther than the Internet for
an environment where the talents of its young engineers, programmers,
designers and software developers can truly take flight."
SHIFT:: Tech's winning entry will be voted on by a peer review
committee that includes some industry powerhouses, including Alexis
Ohanian, Co-Founder of Reddit and Hipmunk, Matthew Brimer, co-founder
of General Assembly and Yoav Kutner, the Co-Founder of Magento and
Oro CRM. "SHIFT:: Tech offers enough support for the winning team of
developers to focus their time and efforts exclusively on an app idea
and make it a reality by building a functioning, viable product for
a big global marketplace", said Nigel Sharp, founder of LionSharp
Solutions--a leading creative technology start-up: "Awareness of
the technology possibilities will improve and hopefully inspire
more people to utilize Armenia's impressive engineering and mobile
development capabilities."
The First Place winner will be given the opportunity to work with
Social Objects, a leading mobile app development start-up in Yerevan,
in order to turn their abstract idea into a unique and important
contribution to the software sphere and to society as a whole. In
addition to having a world-class development team build their app,
part of the $25,000 in-kind grant will go to marketing and taking
the app to market. Following official OneArmenia policy, a portion
of profits from the project will be reinvested to help fund another
key OneArmenia sector --namely its community projects. It's a win-win
proposition, no matter which way you look at it.
http://www.tert.am/en/news/2013/10/15/new-armenia/
From: Baghdasarian