EVN Disrupt

Hayk Chobanyan, the executive director of the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE), joins us to discuss several of the organization’s initiatives, including the upcoming Digitec conference and Armath Engineering Laboratories. Hayk also shared with us his thoughts on how the country’s tech sector needs to be positioned globally in order to attract more companies to Armenia.

Gevorg Soghomonyan is the co-founder and CEO of AimStack, an open-source machine learning experiment tracker. Gevorg shared with us how AimStack tackles the problem of tracking and visualizing ML metadata. We also spoke about his thoughts on the current MLOps landscape and where it is heading. Lastly, Gevorg shared his experience in building a company around an open-source project.

Al Eisaian is a serial entrepreneur who has been involved in growing Armenia’s tech ecosystem for more than two decades. In this episode of EVN Disrupt he shares with us the insights he’s gained throughout his long career. We also spoke about his current role as CEO of Cognaize, an AI start-up that helps companies extract insights from unstructured data.

Unum is a deep-tech company focused on designing next-generation AI models and novel database technologies. Ashot Vardanyan, the founder and CEO of the company joins us to speak about his unorthodox journey of becoming a computer scientist and entrepreneur in the deep tech space. We also speak about the current trends in machine learning and what the future holds for the technology.

Viktoria Khechumyan, the CEO of nooor, joins us to discuss the evolution of Armenia’s blockchain ecosystem over the past few years. Nooor is a consulting company that advises on topics related to blockchain technology, including idea validation and talent recruitment. They’ve been involved in developing the blockchain ecosystem in Armenia from the early days. Viktoria also shared her thoughts on current trends in blockchain, and what the coming years hold for the technology.

What goes into evaluating a start-up idea? What metrics can you monitor to know whether or not your product has a high probability of succeeding in the market? These are the answers that Prelaunch.com is looking to answer. Narek Vardanyan, the co-founder and CEO of the company joins us to discuss how their platform provides entrepreneurs with insights on the market demand for their product, allowing them to make adjustments before launching in order to ensure the highest probability of success.

Raffi Kassarjian, CEO of Sensyan and advisor to the CEO of the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises, joins us to recap the major events that took place in Armenia’s tech sector over the last year. We spoke about the state of the global tech sector and how it relates to Armenia’s context, particularly the slowdown of venture capital financing and how start-ups are thinking about their run rates. Raffi also shared his thoughts on the influx of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian tech talent to the country this year, and the arrival of several global tech companies. Lastly, we spoke about the impact of the appreciation of the Armenian dram and its impact on the industry.

SpaceTech denMACH is a Danish space engineering company building solutions at the intersection of IoT (Internet of Things) and satellite communications. The CEO, Sheila Christiansen, and the CTO, Alexandru Csete, join us to discuss how their work is impacting the logistics, smart agriculture and education spaces. Sheila and Alexandru also shared with us their perspective on what approach smaller countries should take to develop their space industries.

Leonid Kirakosyan, a partner at McKinsey & Company, joins us to discuss the importance of digital transformation and making Armenia a more attractive destination for strategic investment. We also spoke about how Armenia’s tech industry can have a larger impact on the economy and what it will take to turn the country into a globally competitive innovation hub, including addressing the talent needs of the ecosystem.

Earlier this year, the Armenian Government announced a new subsidy program to help attract top talent to the country. The program will subsidize anywhere from 20%-70% of the salaries of graduates from top 400 universities or people who have 10 years of work experience at leading global companies. The program was developed jointly by the Investment Council of Armenia and the Ministry of Economy. Hovsep Patvakanian, head of the Investment Council, joins us to discuss the impact he hopes this program will have, and what other legislative proposals they are currently working on. Hovsep also shared with us his take on Armenia’s economic growth in 2022.