ICT field overview

We want to tell you that Armenia is one of the leading information technology nations among the neighboring CIS and Middle East countries. The growth of the present day IT industry in Armenia can be traced back to the Soviet era during which time Armenia was a key science, R&D, and high-tech manufacturing center of the former USSR. At the peak of its growth in 1987, the science and technology sector in Armenia employed, according to various estimates, around 100,000 specialists. Independence in 1991 opened up new opportunities for the industry and particularly for entrepreneurs and IT professionals. The focus of the industry shifted from major manufacturing operations to the software and services segment, which has witnessed substantial growth during the period from 1998-2006. Today, Armenian IT industry is one of the most dynamic and promising sectors of the economy. In 2006, the share of the sector in Armenia's GDP was 1.3%, which is comparable to that of India (1.4%) and Germany (1.3%)1.

In recent years, the sector has witnessed a major inflow of foreign investors who have located in Armenia to capitalize on the young and highly qualified workforce. Around 63% of the industry's output is exported to over 20 countries, mainly USA, Europe, and CIS. The major specializations include embedded software and semiconductor design, custom software development and outsourcing, financial applications, multimedia design, Internet applications, web development, MIS and system integration. In particular, Armenia has outstanding achievements in semiconductor design software and IP solutions. Foreign companies specialized in chip design place their R&D facilities in Armenia to benefit from the talented and creative workforce pool and highly competitive wage rates.

Synopsys Inc. Selects Armenia as Company’s Major Offshore Development Office

Cost effective market environment; stable, democratic and market oriented overnment; development of IT industry as a key economic objective; strong tradition of the engineering excellence; and availability of skilled and talented engineers and software developers – these are the main competitive advantages that attracted Synopsys Inc. (USA) to select Armenia as company’s major offshore development office.
Synopsys, Inc., a world leader in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software for semiconductor design with $1.1 billion in revenues and 5100 employees worldwide, established its presence in Armenia in 2004, shortly after Armenia’s declaration of IT as a priority sector. Since then, Synopsys Armenia CJSC has become one of the largest Synopsys sites outside of the United States providing R&D and product support in the areas of EDA, Design for Manufacturing and development of semiconductor IP. Currently, the company employs more than five hundred qualified Armenian engineers, and is serving as the industry’s flagship and one of largest IT employers in Armenia.
“Armenia is a country with great potential. Successfully passing through the transitional stage Armenia regains its position among those nations, who value the intellectual property the most”, notes Dr. Chi-Foon Chan, the President and Chief Operating Officer of Synopsys Inc. “It’s already four years we are present in Armenia and we clearly see the outstanding developments in the IT sector. We've been following the Synopsys Armenia’s steady progress during these years and can now say it was a successful endeavor with a bright future in the region's burgeoning electronics industry”.
To support its growth, the company is also heavily investing in IT education, and is engaged in a number of pioneering and successful cooperation programs with major Armenian and regional universities, such as Yerevan State University, State Engineering University of Armenia, American University of Armenia, Russian-Armenian State University, and the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology. These programs are executed through the Synopsys Armenia Educational Department.
Remarking on the Synopsys Armenia Educational Department students’ achievements and impressive technical knowledge, Dr. Aart de Geus, Chief Executive Officer of Synopsys said, “I am impressed when I meet the students that are interns at Synopsys Armenia and see how talented and eager they are to work in this field. We respect and share your goal to be technology leaders in a free-enterprise, democratic society. That is why Synopsys has invested more in educational programs here, and built a larger business base here, than any other foreign high-tech company.”
To supplement these activities, the company undertakes unparalleled efforts in consistently promoting public interest towards the industry through sponsorship of RA Presidential Awards for the best students in the IT sector, professional contests among young specialists and students, via mass media, charity, volunteer activities and by supporting its value as a good corporate citizen.

First Armenian IT Company Receiving IT Mark Certification

For those who are interested in IT development in Armenia we want to tell that Sourcio, one of Armenia’s leading IT consulting companies, provides IT consulting and support for business web applications and on-demand healthcare solutions. It is the first IT Company in Armenia to receive IT Mark certification from the European Software Institute. The founder of Sourcio stated, “The IT Mark certification provides Sourcio excellent opportunity to gain market recognition and market differentiator for IT capability. It will help to improve our business performance in terms of productivity and process management, raise the image of the company and help us gain the confidence of our existing and potential business partners”.
Sourcio’s success was made possible through USAID-funded Competitive Armenian Private Sector (CAPS) Project support for a holistic approach to improving quality standards in Armenia’s IT sector. As a result of CAPS efforts, an agreement was reached with SRA International and the USAID-funded Regional Competitiveness Initiative (RCI) to implement a pilot IT Mark program in Armenia with the ultimate goal of increasing the competitiveness of Armenian IT enterprises.
“IT Mark”-IT Mark was developed by European Software Institute (ESI) and aims to provide software businesses with the means to enhance their business information, security management and software development processes and gain recognition for their level of capabilities through the IT Mark appraisal process.
Following the signing of the program agreement, two “IT Mark Overview” seminars were organized in Yerevan in June 2007 aimed at building initial awareness on IT Mark and CMMI among local companies. A SEI-authorized “Introduction to CMMI” course was then organized in Yerevan, aimed at creating local capacity for CMMI implementation. 20 representatives from 7 companies participated in the course. The last IT Mark Appraisers training was organized in Sofia, Bulgaria, in July 2007 to coach the Candidate IT Mark Appraisers on the IT Mark methodology components and the IT Mark appraisal process.
The final stage of the pilot program involved conducting appraisals of the four Armenian IT companies participating in the IT Mark pilot program. By successfully satisfying the IT Mark appraisal requirements, Sourcio became the first company in Armenia to be awarded the IT Mark certification.
“Sourcio will continue its efforts towards improving our business management and software development processes and will go forward to obtain next level certification”, Mr. Avoyan stated.

United Nations Global Innovation Forum for IT Development in Armenia

Addressing the 8 UN Millennium Development Goals, the Forum was organized by the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development in partnership with the UN e-Leaders Committee, Athgo International, and the Armenian Ministry of Economy on 21-24 October 2008. Approximately 300 people, including an important number of university students from Armenia and abroad attended the forum and we were among the participants.
About the Forum
The Global Innovation Forum IT Development provided a platform for the participants to advance their causes toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals through ICT. Area experts from the private and public sectors and selected young participants (18-35 years old) showcased their successful ICT practices and highlight new innovations and business models that successfully address the development needs in different societies.
The Forum was set to encourage young people to get engaged in, and develop and propose new ICT initiatives that advance local communities.
First, the Forum concentrated on the basic tools that facilitate the creation of innovative solutions. Consequently, the forum focused on ways to improve educational opportunities and quality through ICT, specifically focusing on building ICT skills among young people. The second part of the forum highlighted some of the best practices in the areas of ICT access and connectivity, with a special attention on the impact of appropriate local content to ensure sustainable development.
Proposed questions to discuss were in the field of education, innovation and development.The major concerns were how to encourage human capital investment in ICT, how to ensure that ICT education did not become obsolete in a world where technology changes constantly, how do we bring the richness of Web 2.0 to LDCs in a cost effective way, how to increase absorption capacity, especially in LDCs where other development challenges had yet to be resolved and how to improve access and connectivity in areas where infrastructure had been damaged by disaster.

UNDP promotes IT development in Armenia

UNDP is the UN's global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We operate in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners.

UNDP in support of Armenia has initiated a number of initiatives over the past three years intended to utilize additional development benefits offered by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to promote democratic governance and Information Society (IS) through the accelerated progress toward e-governance. UNDP has accomplished these purposes by developing and implementing a second generation of ICTD projects focused on the demonstration of convincing results of how ICTs can be used for public good by expanding affordable access to the Internet through Freenet and PIAPs’ services; creating the Armenian language Web domain; integrating e-governance into the public sector management at central and regional levels through e-GSTA and e-Visa; advocating enabling Information Society and telecommunication policies; developing and putting into practice effective partnerships with private sector through ArCa e-Payment; encouraging peer-to-peer online networking among professionals and population groups; expanding the use of the Armenian language on the Internet and widen the Armenian Web content; improving external assistance management system in the government via online instruments.
The key fields of IT in Armenia are projected to be the development of are: Telecommunication, eGovernment, eCitizen, eHealth, X-Road, ID-Card.
The major focus today is accessibility, connectivity and local content. There are also discussions about innovative financing for new initiatives highlighting the benefits that ICT brings to the educational sector such as: access to global databases for new ideas and existing best practices, group project collaborations, teacher training through simulations and education system management.

Basic figures of IT branch in Armenia

According to the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development of the Republic of Armenia, the dominating figures of the IT branch are the following:

• about 120 enterprises actively work within the branch;
• general number dealing with the branch makes more than 4000 people;
• average annual salary of programmers makes 3600-7200 US dollars;
• annual volume of production is estimated about 55-60 million US dollars approximately 98% of which is exported;
• share of IT branch of the gross domestic product makes 1.7%;
• volume of production annually grows approximately by 12%.
  

Why develop IT in Armenia?

Armenia today is a landlocked country, and according to its geopolitical situation, the development of IT is of utmost importance. Because of the lack of natural recourses, Armenia should appreciate its human recourse and invest in a field that would use human capital to the best of its capacities: IT is such a field. Developing IT in Armenia has the following advantages: research potential corresponds to the world standards in the field of informatics, physics and mathematics; there are highly skilled experts; labor force is cheap; the branch favors state support; Armenian communities are present in Europe and Northern America. IT also promotes creation of workplaces. In Armenia, employment in the IT sector reaches more than 4000 experts, among them computer programmers and computer scientists-engineers (67%), system analysts (6.57%) and experts of computer equipment (20%), teachers of IT in IT educational institutions (6.5%). Taking into account also the experts involved in other branches of economy, the employment reaches up to 6000 person (Article title: “Information Technologies,” 2007).
As it has already been mentioned, the development of IT is also advantageous in terms of export. The IT branch of Armenia annually exports production and services for approximately 58 million US dollars to more than 20 countries of the world. Most of the production and services is exported to the USA and Canada, with Russia and the countries of CIS ranking as the second place. Factors hampering export value growth are; the deficient awareness of the international business community about Armenia and Armenian IT branch; remoteness of Armenia from basic IT markets (at the present only 10 domestic companies have provided partial representation abroad).

Welcome to our Blog !

What is IT?

Information technology (IT) is the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware. IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit and retrieve information, securely.

Why we need IT blog?

-to provide information about IT development in Armenia

-to promote the development of system thinking in the field of IT

-to encourage innovative thinking in the era of New Economy, characterized by quick development of Information Technology and Globalization
-to involve the stakeholders be aware of the new IT horizons

-to strengthen the communication among people interested in IT

-to introduce IT innovations and promote the development of knowledge and skills in correspondence with modern labor market requirements.

Information Technologies in Armenia

Last decade Information Technologies was one of the rapidly developing branches of Armenia. In the Republic of Armenia, the companies dealing with high technologies, especially in information technologies, have started their activity since 1996. Acting companies almost cover the whole spectrum of all the activities of Information technologies sphere. Moreover, the production technological level of domestic companies fits with the level of similar production of the foreign companies. On December 28, 2000, the Government of the RA proclaimed the industry of Information Technologies as one of priority branches of the RA economy, and then the adoption of the Concept of the development of the industry of information technologies followed. The most common specializations of the IT branch in Armenia are web-design and programming, software maintenance, Internet-services and electronic trade. The number of foreign companies working in Armenia is 24. More than half of these companies are of American origin. The most part of foreign affiliates has been established by the direct participation of Diaspora.