The Noyan Tapan Highlights weekly, Yerevan,
no. 46, 8 December 2008.
Among Top Six in the World. About an Achievement of Armenian Scientists
By Haroutiun Khachatrian
It was an ordinary laboratory in the basement of the Physics
Department of Yerevan State University. The university has dozens of
such laboratories whose shelves are filled with unnoticeable devices
that seem to have remained unchanged since the Soviet time. When I was
in the lab, there were only three people there, Samvel Gevorgian, the
head of the lab, a modest man with an almost shy smile, and two young
scientific workers of his small group … Two items on the table, the
prizes the group had recently won, were the only unusual thing. The
silver cup with an inscription "2008 Global Security Challenge
Finalist" immediately caught the eye.
Global Security Challenge was a competition in science and technology
organized by famous London Business School and NUC Enterprise Company
(U.S.) in July-November of this year. Its goal was described as
follows:
"Global Security Challenge (GSC) runs the leading international
business plan competition to find and select the most promising
security technology start-ups in the world. The mission of the GSC is
to stimulate technological innovations that make airports, cities and
enterprises safer without encroaching on civil liberties."
The winner was to receive half a million dollars. About two thousand
companies, research groups and individuals took part in the
competition. In order to reach the final stage, each participant was
to win a regional competition at first. Armenia was included in the
so-called Asian Group, in which some 800 works participated – from
countries ranging from Japan and Australia to those of the former
USSR. On September 26 the work of Samvel Gevorgian’s group was
recognized as one of the five that won in the indicated group and it
reached the Grand final, to be held in London on November 13 (besides
the Asian Group, there were also European an American groups). So, on
that day, six works were recognized as Global Security Challenge
Finalists, actually, winners of the competition. The above mentioned
half a million dollars was given to only one work which, in the
opinion of many, was not the best one. In particular, an unofficial
vote of the experts present at the competition evaluated the Armenian
work among the top three, better than the American work that received
the monetary prize.
What was done
The brief and dry words of the description of the scientific work say
that the Armenian scientists developed an ultra-high sensitivity
Seismic Detection Subsystem that can also be used in many other fields
where very small and very slow movements must be detected, for
example, products for high precision instruments and tools, or so
called absolute position sensor products. The key to achieving all
this is an instrument small enough to be held in the palm. It is hard
to imagine by casting an unaccustomed glance that several coils of a
black wire wound on a square metal represent the indicated
revolutionary innovation officially called a "single-layer flat or
domed pick-up coil with high Q-factors". Samvel Gevorgian showed me
two graphs – seismograms made in this basement room on two different
days. On one day the oscillations were much higher than on the other
day. However, it does not mean that an earthquake occurred that day.
The Day of Strong Oscillations was a usual working day, whereas the
Day of Weak Oscillations was a holiday. The seismograph just recorded
the concussions caused by passing cars and even human footsteps. This
device with a fantastic sensitivity can record position changes as
small as one nanometre, that is, million times smaller than a
millimetre. Even more important is that, different from devices no in
use, the Gevorgian’s coil can recognize also very slow movement, It is
difficult to believe, but the device is sensitive to movement of the
Moon, it reacts to (and registers) the rise of the Moon like the ocean
water during tide!
It is obvious that such a high-sensitivity device can be used not only
in seismology. It was acknowledged at the Global Security Challenge
Competition that the device can be applied in various spheres, from
medicine to the fields where an unexpected danger not perceptible to
the human eye and ear may emerge.
"We were told in London: "It does not matter that you did not receive
this half a million dollars. Instead you have won recognition and
attracted interest. This can bring much more money," Samvel Gevorgian
said. According to him, negotiations on the sale of the technology are
now underway with representatives of four countries, and negotiations
with one of them – a Singaporean firm, have come quite close to
bringing results.
Science and economy
Now I should mention Samvel Gevorgian’s words which may seem unusual
to many. In his words, the fact that the invention of his group will
bring money soon is first of all satisfying because he will be able to
allocate resources for new studies and inventions. "We have a great
wealth – our qualified specialists. Very often they are more skilful
than their colleagues in other countries but they demand less payment.
The very restricted funds provided by the state are never sufficient
for science".
We can add that, in particular, funds provided by the Armenian state
are quite insufficient. The question of why this government, which has
proclaimed creation of a knowledge-based economy as a priority,
allocates 0.6% of GDP to science while at least 2% is considered
normal (according to Samvel Gevorgian, 2% would not be enough either)
is a subject of a separate conversation. Let’s see how this group
managed to achieve such a result with limited resources. Two persons:
Harutyun Karapetyan and Levon Torose should be mentioned in this
connection.
Harutyun Karapetyan heads the National Foundation of Science and
Advanced Technologies (NFSAT), a non-state organization engaged in the
introduction of modern methods of science financing in Armenia for ten
years. These methods envisage an independent peer review of the
projects; it was not applied in the USSR and is not used effectively
in Armenia so far. Karapetyan noted with pride that their Foundation
has provided grants to the group of Samvel Gevorgian several times,
thanks to which the group managed to complete the development of its
single-layer flat coil.
The NFSAT’s grant called Commercialization of Products/Results Support
Program deserves special mention. In this case the grant was provided
not for implementation of purely scientific work but for
commercialization of the work done. It was also an unprecedented case
in the history of Armenian science.
How this concrete scientific work became a commercial product is a
long story. Suffice it to say that in the above mentioned Global
Security Challenge Competition, the bid was submitted not by the
laboratory of Dr Samvel Gevorgian but by a commercial enterprise,
Precision Sensors/Instrumentation Development & Production Co. (PSI).
Samvel Gevorgian, though one of the founders of that enterprise, is an
advisor at it, and the manager is the third man who plays an important
role in this work – Levon Torose. U.S-based Levon Torose is known as a
benefactor in Armenia and Artsakh. He worked at a big U.S. company for
many years and knows well what is needed in order to pass from science
to production and commerce.
At this point our story ends. It can be called a success story in
Armenia, even though it is quite far from a real success story by
Western standards. Its participants believe that the cause of
transforming scientific results of Armenian thought into money, and
thus ensuring the country’s progress and preventing the brain drain is
quite real and promising.