Monday, Global IT Forum Starts In Armenia • Emil Danielyan Armenia -- A panel discussion is held during the World Congress on Information Technology in Yerevan, October 7, 2019. More than 2,000 technology professionals, business executives and government officials from around the world are taking part in the latest World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) that began its work in Yerevan on Monday. The three-day forum is held under the aegis of World Information Technology and Services Alliance, a global consortium of national IT associations. It will feature more than a dozen keynote speakers and over 80 prominent panelists. The participants include senior executives of tech giants like Google, Siemens and Ericsson as well as Armenian-American celebrities such as reality TV star Kim Kardashian, the Reddit social media platform’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian and rock musician Serj Tankian. Armenia -- A sign at the entrance to the main venue of the World Congress on Information Technology in Yerevan, October 7, 2019. Kardashian arrived in Yerevan early on Monday together with her children and sister Kourtney. Organizers have said that she will speak, both as a “special keynote speaker” and panelist, about “how decentralized technologies have democratized the worlds of entertainment, media, and journalism.” Armenia is using the WCIT conference to promote its burgeoning IT industry that employs some 15,000 engineers and generates more than 6 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian touted the industry’s achievements and tax breaks granted to it by the current and former Armenian governments in his speech at the opening session of the conference. “As a result, the IT sector grew nearly fivefold over the past seven years, boasting a sustained 20-25 percent annual growth,” he said. “Hosting such a major event is a great honor and pleasure for us, because it is a great opportunity to talk to you and to the international community about our strategy to make Armenia a high-tech country,” declared Pashinian. Armenia -- An exhibition is held as part of the World Congress on Information Technology in Yerevan, October 7, 2019. “I hope that this truly memorable event will change a lot in the technology world’s relations with the Republic of Armenia,” he added. The Armenian tech sector is dominated by local subsidiaries of U.S. corporations as well as a growing number of homegrown firms. Some of them, notably the U.S. software giant VMware, are among the sponsors of the 2019 WCIT. VMware’s chief operating officer, Rajiv Ramaswami, met with Pashinian later in the day. He noted that the number of IT engineers working at his company’s Armenian branch has increased more than tenfold, to 200, since it was opened in 2010. “We are very happy to invest in human talent which is available in Armenia,” Pashinian’s press office quoted Ramaswami as saying. “We have only one request to you: please increase human talent, invest in technology education.” Armenia -- The Armenian branch of the U.S. software firm VMware takes part in the annual Digitec Expo in Yerevan, October 6, 2018. A shortage of skilled personnel is widely seen as the main challenge facing the local IT sector. Industry executives have long complained about the inadequate quality of education at IT departments of Armenian universities. Many of their students require additional training after graduation. In a bid to alleviate the problem, an Armenian organizer of the WCIT, the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE), has opened over the past decade over 284 engineering labs in schools across the country. They offer schoolchildren extracurricular robotics and computer programming courses mostly financed by the government. The Armenian Education Ministry announced last week a sharp rise in government funding for the UATE which will be used for doubling the number of those labs by the end of this year. Global IT Forum Starts In Armenia • Emil Danielyan Armenia -- A panel discussion is held during the World Congress on Information Technology in Yerevan, October 7, 2019. More than 2,000 technology professionals, business executives and government officials from around the world are taking part in the latest World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) that began its work in Yerevan on Monday. The three-day forum is held under the aegis of World Information Technology and Services Alliance, a global consortium of national IT associations. It will feature more than a dozen keynote speakers and over 80 prominent panelists. The participants include senior executives of tech giants like Google, Siemens and Ericsson as well as Armenian-American celebrities such as reality TV star Kim Kardashian, the Reddit social media platform’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian and rock musician Serj Tankian. Armenia -- A sign at the entrance to the main venue of the World Congress on Information Technology in Yerevan, October 7, 2019. Kardashian arrived in Yerevan early on Monday together with her children and sister Kourtney. Organizers have said that she will speak, both as a “special keynote speaker” and panelist, about “how decentralized technologies have democratized the worlds of entertainment, media, and journalism.” Armenia is using the WCIT conference to promote its burgeoning IT industry that employs some 15,000 engineers and generates more than 6 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian touted the industry’s achievements and tax breaks granted to it by the current and former Armenian governments in his speech at the opening session of the conference. “As a result, the IT sector grew nearly fivefold over the past seven years, boasting a sustained 20-25 percent annual growth,” he said. “Hosting such a major event is a great honor and pleasure for us, because it is a great opportunity to talk to you and to the international community about our strategy to make Armenia a high-tech country,” declared Pashinian. Armenia -- An exhibition is held as part of the World Congress on Information Technology in Yerevan, October 7, 2019. “I hope that this truly memorable event will change a lot in the technology world’s relations with the Republic of Armenia,” he added. The Armenian tech sector is dominated by local subsidiaries of U.S. corporations as well as a growing number of homegrown firms. Some of them, notably the U.S. software giant VMware, are among the sponsors of the 2019 WCIT. VMware’s chief operating officer, Rajiv Ramaswami, met with Pashinian later in the day. He noted that the number of IT engineers working at his company’s Armenian branch has increased more than tenfold, to 200, since it was opened in 2010. “We are very happy to invest in human talent which is available in Armenia,” Pashinian’s press office quoted Ramaswami as saying. “We have only one request to you: please increase human talent, invest in technology education.” Armenia -- The Armenian branch of the U.S. software firm VMware takes part in the annual Digitec Expo in Yerevan, October 6, 2018. A shortage of skilled personnel is widely seen as the main challenge facing the local IT sector. Industry executives have long complained about the inadequate quality of education at IT departments of Armenian universities. Many of their students require additional training after graduation. In a bid to alleviate the problem, an Armenian organizer of the WCIT, the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE), has opened over the past decade over 284 engineering labs in schools across the country. They offer schoolchildren extracurricular robotics and computer programming courses mostly financed by the government. The Armenian Education Ministry announced last week a sharp rise in government funding for the UATE which will be used for doubling the number of those labs by the end of this year. Trial Judge Denies Bias Against Kocharian • Naira Bulghadarian Armenia -- Judge Anna Danibekian presides over the trial of former President Robert Kocharian and three other former officials, Yerevan, October 7, 2019. The judge presiding over the trial of Robert Kocharian dismissed on Monday his lawyers’ claims that she is biased against the Armenia’s arrested former president and must therefore recuse herself from the case. The lawyers voiced the demands after the district court judge, Anna Danibekian, twice refused to release Kocharian from custody last month. Danibekian took over the trial from another judge, Davit Grigorian, who ordered Kocharian’s release in May. Grigorian was controversially charged with forgery and suspended in July. The lawyers petitioned Danibekian to free Kocharian and drop coup charges brought against him after Armenia’s Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional on September 4 a legal provision used by investigators against their client. Danibekian ruled on September 17 that the Constitutional Court’s decision does not apply to the former president. Three days later she also refused to grant him bail. “You have a negative biased attitude towards Kocharian,” one of the defense lawyers, Hayk Alumian, told Danibekian on Monday. Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian (R) talks to his lawyer Hayk Alumian during his trial, Yerevan, October 7, 2019. Alumian accused her of deliberately and illegally delaying decisions on petitions submitted by Kocharian’s legal team in August. He also alleged serious procedural violations in judicial authorities’ decision to assign the case to Danibekian. They knew that she will not rule in the ex-president’s favor, claimed Alumian and other defense lawyers. The trial prosecutors defended the judge, saying that she is impartial and did not breach any laws or legal procedures. After a short deliberation, Danibekian rejected the lawyers’ latest demands. The coup charges leveled against Kocharian and three other former senior Armenian officials stem from the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan which left eight opposition protesters and two police personnel dead. The prosecutors say that Kocharian illegally used Armenian army units against protesters demanding the rerun of a disputed presidential election. They also accuse him of large-scale bribery. Kocharian, who ruled Armenia from 1998-2008, rejects the accusations as politically motivated. The three other defendants also deny any wrongdoing. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org