Author: Lena Karagyozian

Expecting complete and immediate normalization between Turkey and Armenia is not realistic. In fact, negotiations require serious efforts to launch the peace process.

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FAST 

Apr 27, 2023, 08:57 ET

FAST Set to Host Advance Armenia Gala in Los Angeles to Help Accelerate Funding Toward: the ADVANCE Research Grants and Generation AI

LOS ANGELES,  /PRNewswire/ — The Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST), is excited to announce its 2023 Advance Armenia Gala which will be held on May 11, 2023, at The Landmark in Mission Hills, CA. This annual event is focused on amplifying FAST's Advance Armenia campaign to drive support and engagement for programs that enable FAST's mission: to foster and accelerate the advancement of science and technological innovation for Armenia and beyond. Funds raised will encourage progress in two key programs of the foundation: the ADVANCE Research Grants and Generation AI High School project.

"I am delighted to host our second Advance Armenia Gala in Los Angeles," says Dr. Armen Orujyan, CEO of FAST and renowned innovation architect. "In Los Angeles, the Armenian community has shown tremendous support towards FAST's mission to drive innovation in the scientific ecosystem through far-reaching and cutting-edge education and research. By working together, we will achieve remarkable results." 

In 2020, FAST established the ADVANCE Research Grants. The program funds research teams under the leadership of distinguished international scientists that are working on producing globally competitive research. The successful inaugural Advance Armenia Gala in 2022 raised $1.4 million for the ADVANCE Research Grants, attracting additional resources for scaling up the program. It opened the space for distinguished scientists from all over the world (International Principal Investigator, PI) to undertake innovative and groundbreaking research projects in Armenia by forming and leading new groups of local researchers. In 2022, the program was scaled thanks to the generous contributions of the FAST supporters.

Another exciting project fostered by FAST is the implementation of Generation AI aiming to create the educational and career pipeline for the AI researchers and innovators. With a focus on enhancing math and computer science competencies and introducing AI curriculum, Generation AI will prepare and motivate high school students to pursue rewarding careers in this rapidly growing field. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, a pilot program of the Generation AI High School project will commence this fall at select Armenian public high schools. This groundbreaking program represents a significant step forward in fostering the next generation of AI researchers and innovators for advancing technological innovation in Armenia.

The Los Angeles gala will unite diasporans and other global citizens passionate about supporting the betterment of Armenia and its future. In addition to an inspiring program, the evening will include welcoming remarks from the FAST Co-Founder, Dr. Noubar Afeyan and a presentation by FAST's Chair of Board of Advisors Dr. Mary Papazian and Vice President of Strategic Programming Suzanna Shamakhyan. Dr. Afeyan will also host the keynote speaker Dr. Ardem Patapoutian, 2021 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Scripps Research and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

This year FAST expands research impact in Armenia with ADVANCE Research Grants. Additionally, it takes unprecedented strides in AI education in Armenian high schools to build a sustainable pipeline of scientists.

About FAST 

FAST aims to support Armenia's transformation into a science-driven innovative country by 2041 through scientific discovery and innovation. Our long-term vision is Armenia's transformation into a top ten Global Innovator nation and top five in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. FAST has designed and structured numerous programs and initiatives to become independent parts of the STI ecosystem, ensuring their continuing sustainability. 

FAST programs (1) help transform and augment Armenia's educational model by enhancing students, educators, and early-career scientists' skills that prepare them for future scientific work. (2) Armenian researchers are granted with more opportunities and vital funding for fellowships, research in key innovation sectors, and collaboration between local and international experts. (3) Commercialization projects identify and nurture promising entrepreneurs, early-stage startups, and tech ventures to bring cutting-edge, commercially viable, and globally competitive solutions to life.

FAST has designed and structured numerous programs and initiatives to become independent parts of the innovation ecosystem, thereby ensuring their continuing sustainability. Since 2017 FAST has implemented over 25 programs which impacted more than 9000 beneficiaries. 

For more information, please visit our website: www.fast.foundation.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-foundation-for-armenian-science-and-technology-fast-building-innovations-in-scientific-research-and-education-301809294.html

The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.

Last December, during a meeting of Princeton’s Armenian Society, I received shocking news: I discovered that I have a distant cousin on campus. A Turkish student, who has chosen to remain anonymous, revealed to me that our shared ancestry, uncovered by a genetics test and a shared cousin, can be traced back to Malatya, Turkey, where my great-grandfather and his extensive family once lived. My great-grandfather, Stepan, his younger sister, Hripsime, and his two other lost siblings were the only four of 86 to survive an attempt at mass genocide. My deceased relatives were among the 1.5 million Armenians who fell victim to the Ottoman sanction orders of forced deportations and genocide.

More than 100 years later, the denial of the Armenian genocide continues. Princeton’s Department of Near Eastern Studies (NES) has some faculty that do not explicitly acknowledge the genocide. Princeton needs to choose a better path.

As a descendant of Armenian Genocide survivors, I carry the weight of generational trauma. It’s been 108 years since my ancestors witnessed and endured the brutal rape and mutilation of their families, were stripped of all their possessions, and forced to march hundreds of miles through the scorching Syrian Desert. Even today, genocide is an ever-present reality in my life, made more evident by the discovery of a long-lost cousin of mine on campus. To me, this reunion is a constant reminder that just over a century ago, there was an attempt to wipe my people off the face of the earth.

And today, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War has awakened the same fear Armenians faced a century ago. Some call the ongoing Azerbaijani blockade of the Armenian enclave, where 120,000 people remain without essential living supplies, another attempt at mass ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

Despite the overwhelming evidence by world-renowned researchers and scholars like the Turkish scholars Taner Akçam and Raphael Lemkin (who coined the word “genocide” in 1944, citing the Armenian case as a primary example), Turkey continues to deny the atrocities that were sanctioned under the Young Turks. Yet, as of 2023, governments and parliaments of 34 countries — including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, and the United States — have formally recognized the Armenian Genocide. 

As students, we may not have the power to change the policies of foreign governments, but we can ensure that denialist rhetoric does not infiltrate Princeton’s campus and curriculum. And unfortunately, as an Armenian student at Princeton, I do not feel comfortable taking classes in the Near Eastern Department, knowing that some faculty continue to reject the idea that the mass deportations of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 were a centrally planned and executed genocide. It baffles me that faculty members at one of the world’s leading universities deny the validity of a traumatic historical event that eradicated almost my entire family and millions of Armenians in the early 20th century. 

Princeton’s Near Eastern Department is notorious among Armenians. In 1996, a New York Times article exposed links between large payments of the Turkish Government and the appointment of Professor Emeritus Heath Lowry, a genocide denialist, as the Chair of Princeton’s Near Eastern Department. Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis, another notable historian of Turkey and Middle Eastern Studies, and a peer of Lowry at Princeton’s Near Eastern Department, refused to call the atrocities a genocide — he said there was a lack of evidence in the Ottoman archives. Lewis was also censured by a civil proceeding in the French Court for “failing in his duty of objectivity and prudence” in regard to an interview he gave to Le Monde, where he denied all evidence that the Ottomans’ slaughter of the Armenians constituted genocide.

However, most scholars across the country such as Richard G. Hovhannisian and Israel Charny, rely on the ample supply of primary sources documenting the atrocities, such as Ambassador Henry Morgenthau’s diary entries, eyewitnesses and personal testimonies, U.S. and French Archives, and German Foreign Office correspondence as their among many other sources as their primary sources of evidence. Akçam published the groundbreaking book “Killing Orders,” analyzing Talaat Pasha, Minister of Interior and later Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, and Ottoman officer Naim Efendi’s correspondence outlining the killing orders issued by Talaat. His sources draw upon archival material from Krikor Gergerian’s collection of Ottoman government documents.

Despite decades of research and analysis on this issue and several countries’ recognition, including the United States, current faculty, such as Michael Reynolds in Princeton’s NES Department, contest evidence proving the large-scale deportations and massacres were a genocide decreed by CUP leaders. Even Šükrü Hanioğlu, another scholar and Chair of Princeton’s NES Department, who has not explicitly recognized the extent of the horror has avoided the use of the word “genocide.” Hanioğlu has called the deportations of the Armenians “the most tragic event of the war,” and in another instance, in his book published in 2011, he described America’s anti-Turkish stance as “sympathy for the sufferings of the Ottoman Armenians” (90). While calling the events “tragic” and a “suffering,” Hanioğlu has not labeled the events as a systematic genocide. 

As a leading academic institution, Princeton is responsible for fostering an environment of intellectual honesty and scholarly rigor. This means acknowledging the historical facts, and recognizing what the International Association of Genocide Scholars and Center for International Truth and Justice have cited and recognized as genocide. Denying the Armenian Genocide undermines the integrity of the academic community and is a disservice to the victims and their descendants.  

By formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Princeton can set an example for other institutions and individuals. It can demonstrate its commitment to academic freedom and intellectual honesty, and show solidarity with the Armenian community and other past (Jews, Cambodian, Kurds, Rawandans, Bosnia/Kosovo) and present-day (Rohingya, Uyghurs, Ukraine, Darfur) victims of mass ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

As an Armenian student at Princeton, I ask that the NES Department takes concrete steps to address this issue. This includes offering courses that accurately reflect the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, ensuring that faculty members do not minimize the atrocity, and inviting scholars specializing in Armenian studies to teach at Princeton.

Recognizing the Armenian Genocide is not just a moral imperative but also an intellectual one, we can only learn from history and build a better future by acknowledging the truth. As a community, we must work towards creating an environment that values truth and justice, and we must ensure that the horrors of the past are never repeated and that denial of such an atrocity does not set a precedent for the enabling of other genocides. I strongly urge the NES Department and Princeton University to take action and create a safe environment where intellectual honesty — rather than denialist conspiracy — is upheld.

Katya Hovnanian-Alexanian is a sophomore from Yerevan, Armenia, and Red Bank, N.J. She can be reached at [email protected].

Azerbaijan said on Sunday it had established a checkpoint on the only land route to the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a step that was followed by claims of border shootings by both Azeri and Armenian forces.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but its 120,000 inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians and it broke away from Baku in a war in the early 1990s.

Azerbaijan said it had established a checkpoint on the road leading to Karabakh, a step it said was essential due to what it cast as Armenia's use of the road to transport weapons.

Azerbaijan "took appropriate measures to establish control at the starting point of the road," the foreign ministry said.

"Providing border security, as well as ensuring safe traffic on the road, is the prerogative of the government of Azerbaijan, and an essential prerequisite for national security, state sovereignty and the rule of law."

Armenian officials said Azerbaijan was installing what they cast as an illegal checkpoint at the Hakari bridge in the Lachin corridor, the only road across Azerbaijan that links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pictures of the bridge posted on social media by Azeri officials showed one side of it blocked by vehicles and soldiers.

Armenia's defense ministry said a soldier named Artyom Poghosyan was killed at around 0750 GMT when Azeri forces opened fire on an Armenian position in Sotk, an Armenian village east of Lake Sevan. Azerbaijan denied it killed the soldier.

Azerbaijan then claimed that Armenian soldiers fired on Azeri units at around 1110 GMT in the Lachin district, a claim Armenia denied.

In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around the enclave after a second war that ended in a Russian-brokered ceasefire upheld by Russian peacekeepers.

Azeri civilians identifying themselves as environmental activists have been facing off since Dec. 12 with Russian peacekeepers on the Lachin corridor.

Armenia says the protesters are government-backed agitators who are effectively blockading Karabakh. Azerbaijan denies blockading the road, saying that some convoys and aid are allowed through.

In recent months Armenia has repeatedly called on Moscow to do more to support the peace and ensure unfettered access between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabak through the Lachin Corridor.