13:56,
YEREVAN, 14 JULY, ARMENPRESS. This year, at the FemInno conference organized for the second time, women will be united under the theme "Sustainable development. Heading to Metaverse".
"After the first year, we managed to create a much stronger and broader program than last year. This year's topic is "Sustainable development. Heading to Metaverse". The idea of the metaverse in Armenia is new: there is not much discussion around virtual reality. But there are quite serious technological developments around it, and we decided to bring up the topic of the metaverse, not only to help emphasize the participation of women, which is important to us but also explore a new interesting direction" mentioned in a conversation with "Armenpress" Seda Papoyan, the founder of the conference.
This year, speakers from Uruguay, Kyrgyzstan, UAE, the USA, the Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Georgia, and several European countries will be delivering speeches at the conference. According to Papoyan, the geography they cover helps them achieve one of their most important goals: to bring attention to Armenia through people who had no prior connection with Armenia.
"Last year, being the first, we confirmed that there is a need for such a conference in Armenia to appreciate, highlight and encourage the participation of women in the field of innovation, particularly in business, technology, and science.
For the first-year conference, we set a benchmark and wanted to achieve it, and we understood that we had reactions surpassing that benchmark, which helped us to become stronger and continue our work with more confidence, to again encourage the participation of women in the field of science and technology, and also to highlight their role," noted Papoyan.
This year, such people as the vice president of NVIDIA Rev Lebaredian, the world-known fintech leader Henri Arslanian, and the head of global business development of Viber Petya Kamburova will be joining the conference, who, according to the conference organizers, make Armenia visible on the map of the technological world.
"All the speakers, apart from sharing their professional experience and abilities, also emphasize the mission that we have initiated. We also highlight male speakers, whose list is gradually expanding. By joining, they encourage the role of women in this field," said Papoyan.
According to Papoyan, all of the speeches are educational. On the main stage, they have at least 20 speeches. This year, 3 stages were distinguished, one of them being the Armenia stage, where the language is Armenian, and they also have workshops.
"We have an exhibition section, an education zone, a zone for tech companies with the opportunity of raising brand awareness and hiring new talents. One of the important zones this year is the zone showcasing female-founded businesses. We aim to show and support their development and promotion. We will also have interesting workshops, from making dolls to working with pottery," said Papoyan.
This year again, they cooperate with a number of international organizations, and the Sona Mnatsakanyan scholarship for female talents also continues.
"We started the scholarship last year and had exciting results. We were able to help 10 girls advance their ideas and educational plans in the field of science, technology, and green energy. With the same format and content, the competition was also announced this year. The competition will be concluded on the last day of the conference from the stage. We hope Sona's mother will join us to present the awards to the girls and convey the important mission of continuing Sona's work. The fundraising for the competition is still open. It is important for people to join and support the scholarship so that the triumph of new talents in Armenia continues," said Papoyan.
According to the founder, anyone who wants to participate in the conference will have the opportunity. She assured that interest in the conference has increased this year.
"We noticed an apparent improvement compared to last year. It's easier for men to pronounce our name, it's easier for them to decide to join our initiative, and many colleagues themselves express their desire to join our mission and be part of the conference, which already speaks about the fact that we were able to create an interesting environment. They also realize that this direction is important," said the founder of the conference.
The event organizers intend to bring this conference created in Armenia to international platforms.
"On October 26, the first FemInno satellite will be held in San Francisco. As a community-unifying phenomenon, we have decided to take this conference to places where technologies are important, developments around technologies are active, and where there are Armenians. With the help of FemInno, we are going to form a new growing network around the potential of Armenian women, where not only Armenian women will be involved," Seda Papoyan, the founder of the initiative, said.
She also reminded me of the afterparty concert after the conference. Gor Sujyan and Mikayel Voskanyan & friends will complete the evening for the conference participants and those who want to participate in the concert. Summing up, Papoyan emphasized that they are not trying to create counter discrimination at all; on the contrary, thanks to FemInno, they are creating a new opportunity to celebrate women's participation in innovation together with men.
Karine Terteryan