Tag: ecosystem

Sergei Kungurov, Head of Core Product Foundation at Miro, joins us to discuss the company's first year in Armenia since relocating from Russia. As the popular collaborative whiteboarding tool continues to expand its reach (currently serving 50 million users), Sergei shares his insights on product development at scale.

Dr. Anu Noorma, the director general of the Estonian Research Council, joins us to discuss the development of Estonia’s scientific and innovation ecosystems over the last 30 years. We also spoke about the importance of communicating the need for public funding of science research to society. Lastly, Dr. Noorma shared her thoughts on how to make innovation more inclusive, so that its positive impacts are felt across all of society.

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.

BigStory VC, a founder-led venture capital fund, promises to be the first of its kind, as Armenia’s start-up ecosystem continues to grow and its members attain success.

This week on EVN Disrupt, Stepan Aslanyan, the co-founder and CEO of Hexact, joins us to discuss the problems they are working on solving by building no-code business intelligence tools. We also discussed Stepan’s long business career in Armenia and his thoughts on the country’s business culture.

Zareh Zurabyan, the head of the Americas division at eLabNext, a European biotech company, joins us to discuss problems the biotech industry is currently working to solve. Zareh describes who the different players in biotech ecosystems are and what trends he is seeing in the industry in 2022. We also discussed his efforts to mentor Armenian start-ups and his thoughts on Armenia’s biotech scene.

Karen Gyulbudaghyan, the founding partner at Strategic Values Ventures, a strategic advisory firm for global startups, joins us this week to discuss what it takes to build a successful start-up ecosystem. We also spoke about the impact of the Berkeley Skydeck start-up accelerator program, and the Armenian start-ups that have successfully gone through the program.

HyeTech, a gathering of Armenian professionals who share technical, business and entrepreneurship expertise, is a case study in the value that networking organizations create for both their members and the ecosystem they operate in.

We are at an exciting inflection point for Armenia’s tech sector, as the potential for rapid growth and new activity in the coming years is high, writes Njdeh Satourian.

When we think about climate change, Armenia may not be the first country that comes to mind. But in fact, Armenia is among the countries in Europe and Central Asia that is most vulnerable to climate change.

The Amulsar gold mine, owned and operated by Lydian Armenia, is one of the most controversial projects in recent years in Armenia. Over the past weekend, activists from Yerevan and elsewhere traveled to the province of Vayots Dzor to raise awareness about the potential danger the mine poses to the environment.