“We have a serious mental capacity and we need a jump,” says the general director of “Synopsis Armenia”, Hovik Musaelyan. Over the period of several years the IT sector of Armenia has developed. However, experts believe that the development rates could be higher. According to the executive director of ITF, Garegin Chugaszyan the potential of our country has 10 times larger opportunity to grow. He believes that Armenia’s IT companies are 20-30 years forward other enterprises with their business activity.
According to the government decision of 2000, IT sector was announced dominant growth of the economy. Many people believe that it was only an announcement. Of course the Incubator Foundation of Companies and the IT Development Support Center (ITDSC) were established but according to the director of the Union of IT companies, Karen Vardanyan thinks that it was only done to have a rest from the actions of the state. It’s time to develop a serious program to implement the plans. This was the main objective of the discussion organized at the Pressing Club and moderated by Karen Vardanyan. He adverted the attention of the participants on two important points – what to do to make the state the partner of the companies of the IT sector and how to build this cooperation.
“For example, I’d prefer that shoe production was a dominant branch of Armenia’s economy because people have already started to understand the shoe business. But we still need time to understand higher technologies. If we are the ones who understand this business we should ask the state not to interfere,” said the general director of Arminco, Andranik Alexanyan. In his opinion the state can only support the sector by opening a Ministry and their objective must be to pay taxes. Alexanyan raised a question – what should the state do not to hinder the development of IT. “Are you sure that you’d be able to do what you want to when you open a Ministry?” asked the head of the IT development department of the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, Zhenya Azizyan. He mentioned that time is needed to increase people’s awareness of this sector. “How can we help you? What is our objective?” asked Vardanyan.
“At present the state doesn’t have official analysis of any situation. The reason is not only it doesn’t want it. The reason is that we are not able to create a contact with the companies of the sector. And if am not aware of the situation I cannot support that. Our ministry monitors different sectors. When it’s the turn of the IT a statistical problem comes out. Exact data are needed for state support. At present we base on private surveys. I imitate the information, which I need but it’s not enough for me. The NSS also has a problem with us because all we do is demand. I cannot control everything myself. You must tell my what you problems and objectives are and I should try to help you by reporting to my management,” answered the head of the department of the Ministry. The director of the information agency “Nork”, Haik Chobanyan asked him how he envisions the solution of the statistical data. “I want to cooperate with you to discuss those problems. I don’t even have your contacts,” said the representative of the Ministry. Chobanyan on the other hand mentioned that since the state spends money on IT sector it can also solve the statistical issues.
According to Vardanyan’s conviction, the same issue existed in Egypt. How did they solve it? “They have a Ministry of IT, the locomotive of which is the IT Development Agency. Although it’s a state body and it’s funded by state money about 60-70% of the specialists are representatives of the private sector. In collaboration with the state they develop an action plan. Here ITDA is not a business body. It’s an advisory one,” said Vardanyan. Azizyan pledged that during her visits to different countries numerous issues of cooperation were raised. Chobanyan asked why they haven’t ever gathered like this in the Ministry and discuss the troublesome issues. The moderator mentioned that Azizyan has only recently been appointed on her position.
Alexanyan once again mentioned the thesis that the state shouldn’t interfere into the IT sector development. “Recently the state invented a law, according to which all the ones, who have a network, must have license, which costs 2 million AMD instead of 100.000. I have grounds to say that it would be better if the state stayed away from the development of the sector. Statesmen may go to any country and boast that we have good specialists and professional of the IT sector. All this is due to the faact that the state hasn’t interfered into this sector for over 10 years. Now the state comes to the “khash” table and says give me some too. And we ask the stte, what have you done for me, for my office and business to get “khash”? About 7 years ago we were struggling for four days at the customs to import one computer,” said the director of Arminco. He thinks that regardless of state participation they will keep developing their business. That’s why it’s necessary to start from the low level – from schools – raise the salary of teachers for working on the computers. “Now do you or don’t you want the state to interfere?” asked Azizyan.
“Let the state direct all its recourses to the schools. The private sector will solve the rest. I offer the state to give 80 USD out of 100 USD to the schools and spend the 20 to maintain a system, which will develop the rules of the game,” answered Alexanyan.
Musaelyan agreed with Alexanyan regarding raising the level of the RA education. He mentioned that the IT companies don’t hire specialist, who graduated from the engineering university but who have not been trained. “It means that not all the graduates are hired by private companies. Our companies spent a lot of money the training of those specialists but it’ not our business but the state’s. No company of the world ever spends so much money on the education of specialists. But today we provide neither number nor quality of educated specialists. But the universities also have their problems – absence of professional professors of the sector,” thinks Musaelyan. In his opinion there is no need to establish IT Ministry because IT is not a branch. It’s a system. He believes that the role of the state must first of all be based on education. “If you tell others that we have 10000 students and it’s necessary to educate them for 3-4 years no one will ever be interested in us in the world. However there are advantages due to which the companies came to Armenia. Armenians are more credible, learn things easily and the education system is good,” said Musaelyan.
According to vice-director of “ISMA” and senior lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Armenia Suren Manukyan, Armenian professors lack experience and the opportunity to be informed about international requirements because they don’t have orders.
“If the government makes it so professors receive not 50 but 200 dollars by working in the science field and provide that opportunity by creating orders, then the professor will enlist students, P.H.D. students and get some result. Only then will the university become a real university,” mentioned S. Manukyan.
“You’re only talking about the IT field, but Armenia has the problem with the professional staff not corresponding to the international level in all fields,” said Azizyan. K. Vardanyan remarked that if Armenia thinks that the IT development must really be a locomotive for the economy as a whole, then the first step should be to raise the level of education in this field.
“We have to prove to the government with facts that the IT development, which needs educational and this or that factor, is not only important for the development of the given field, but also other economic fields as well. We can all talk about this. But we need serious documental proofs of that in order to create legal grounds and help it progress,” said the ministry representative.
According to G. Chugaszyan, there are certain frameworks tied to the IT policy in Armenia. For example, the state education policy is one course, while the taxing, investment and innovation policies are another. According to G. Chugaszyan, they are not looked at as a whole in Armenia. Chugaszyan believes that it is necessary to compare and contrast the policies of other countries to see how they developed the IT field.
“It’s not mandatory for the ministries to elaborate the policies. They can be elaborated in separate centers and then propose them to the corresponding structures in order for the latter to implement them. If there is no such structure, then we have the issue of creating it. How do other countries carry out that policy? What kind of structures are there? In one country there is a ministry (like in Azerbaijan), in another country an agency (like in Sri Lanka), whereas somewhere else, in Estonia for example, the ministry has founded a department which everyone is subject to,” said G. Chugaszyan. However, he places political will as the basis of all this. “What can we do to form that will, to create an activities’ program?” asked K. Vardanyan. G. Chugaszyan suggests checking to make sure what the IT field offers because there is an issue concerning the lack of information about the field in Armenia. According to G. Chugaszyan, the state has other means besides financial. For example, instead of making investments for university education, the state can free the private companies of paying taxes in order to carry out that function.
“You have to demand government involvement. If we say that the government shouldn’t interfere, that is being more protective because the more you say no to intervention, the more the government gets involved and does it in a bad way at that. We have to say to the government ‘if you are going to get involved, you have to get involved this way’. In reality, the best protection is attack. Another issue: how strong do you have to be for others to go along with you? No matter who or whichever party comes to power, we have to know what to say and how to say it. If we have those two preconditions, then the third is God-it will either work out or not. In other words, the first two depend on us. I think that it would be better for us to speak out before the elections because the political activists are listening to comments,” said G. Chugaszyan.
General Director of “UniComp” Armen Baldryan doesn’t agree with having political will be dominant.
“We must first of all convince the government that the IT field is financially beneficial. Political will is convincing the Turks to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Economics works with other mechanisms. Let’s simply prove to the government that Armenia will benefit by helping us develop the IT field (regardless of the ruling political party). But for that we must deal with certain people who are responsible for this field,” said Baldryan. Zh. Azizyan believes that we must convince the future authorities that there is a need to have the IT field so that they will be able to convince the rest in case of getting positions.
President of the “Economy and Values” research center Manuk Hergnyan informed the debaters that the center is currently conducting research on the IT field. “In particular, I can say that when the state invests in preparing one student, it gets so much profit during the 7th year that it provides 120% annual profit. But of course, the calculations are done based on the data of 11 large companies. There is another fundamental issue facing the IT field today. The problem has to do with making reforms to the competition model because, according to us, the competition model hasn’t really been formed in Armenia. The intellectual potential has been used to solve certain issues. Foreign companies have purchased groups of programmers. There hasn’t been any product that could have been of some value in the world market, or those groups haven’t integrated in the chain of international values. I think that Armenia must make a strategic decision regarding the private sector,” said Hergnyan, adding that that requires huge amounts of investments.
According to H. Chobanyan, in reality the issue is simpler. “The government has created some models, structures that, apparently, play a role in the organizing and development of this field. But it’s clear that no model works. What are those structures doing? Is the work taken note of? Are they evaluated?” said Chobanyan. He raised a couple of questions: how does IT development in Armenia correspond to international development rates? How does it reflect Armenia’s potential for development and how organized are Armenians moving forward? Chobanyan thinks that the government plays a role here because the Armenian market is small and obviously a large part of the products must be exported. But that requires scientific potential, cheap work force and a beneficial taxing system. According to H. Chobanyan, the first two factors are weakening in Armenia and this means that the government should pay attention to the taxing policy, provide tax privileges for the IT field as it is done in many other countries.
The company director remarked that the government must not move in the opposite direction and must not pressure or fix licensing or conditions for the field correspondents. “The government also plays a big role because the government is the largest buyer of informational technologies in the domestic market. The IT component is rather large in the program of reforms in different fields. I think that in the case of showing a coordinated approach, the effectiveness of the reforms may increase by even 100 times,” said Chobanyan.
The participants of the debate also talked about the level of coordination of the IT field correspondents and the lobbying of the field. G. Chugaszyan believes that the future authorities have other interests and thus, there is a problem with attracting them to this field. Chugaszyan says that the lobbying of other fields is more than the IT field.
“Our issues are clear and we need to inform people about them. We can’t turn the strength of the individual into a collective force in order to have an influence on the decision-makers,” said general director of “Virage Logic” Varuzhan Masarajyan. The gathered joked that it wouldn’t be bad if any one of them became a representative of the legislative or executive branch of government. In that case the IT lobbying issue would partially be solved.
Azizyan remarked that if the heads of IT field companies presented him with economically precise information, he would then be able to present that with documental evidence to the directors. “Who can calculate how many investments could have been made in the country but didn’t simply because, for example, there are no tax privileges in the IT field? Those tax privileges are not only necessary for us, but also foreign potential investors. When the Turkish government was discussing how to have “Microsoft” enter Turkey, they found the simple resolution and granted zero taxing and customs privileges; the company immediately invested 4 billion dollars in Turkish schools so that “Microsoft” can use the Turk children as engineers 10 years later,” remarked H. Musayelyan. Azizyan stated that “Microsoft” came to Armenia without any taxi privileges. “It’s one thing to sign a memorandum and another thing to make huge investments within the framework of the innovation program,” said the director of “Synopsis Armenia”.
Editor-in-chief of “168 Hours” Satik Seyranyan placed emphasis on the “language” of presenting the IT field.
“There will be public demand for the IT field when the people understand the language and not perceive IT as a computer or Internet. Many businessmen don’t even know what informational technologies can offer them, how they can make their job easier. You get the impression that you brought the product to the market but you’re not saying what we need it for. The people don’t know that because you’re saying that in your language, but there are other languages to communicate in. For example, when you have something that works for the business field, talk about that,” said S. Seyranyan. In regard to the role that presses play in lobbying, Seyranyan mentioned that journalists have a hard time trying to understand the IT language and “translate” that language for readers.
“I think that the PR of the IT field has a serious flaw. They focus more on advertising, for example, what a chip is. In reality what they need to do is talk about the successes in that field and not only the successes of companies, but also individuals and students,” said Hergnyan.
Psychologist Khachik Gasparyan was also present during the debate.
“If I were a stranger and approached you on the street and said that the 35th anniversary of the Psychology and Psychiatric Medicine department of the Lomonosov University of Moscow was going to take place on February 16, what would be your opinion about me? In other words, if I give you information that doesn’t interest you, you will probably think that something is wrong with me,” he said.
“I would think that it is probably something interesting, but we are not informed about that. What I mean is that there are flaws,” replied Baldryan.
“Until we don’t have the interest at some level, these discussions will simply remain a preferred debate for certain professional groups. There are self-defense mechanisms in psychology and one of them is called elevating self-deception. When we announce that IT is a progressive field in Armenia, this is probably more of a preferable field than a real one. I have had the opportunity to live in different countries for many years and currently work at the Yerevan State Medical University, which is considered the best university of Armenia, but technologies are not advanced. There is another danger: we Armenians may lose psychological particularities in the time of globalization because globalization doesn’t care about cultural or ethno-psychological particularities. We have chosen a road, which assumes isolation tendencies. IT assumes communication with the virtual world rather than intercommunication,” said the psychologist.
K. Vardanyan asked him how IT field specialists can cooperate with government officials.
“Based on psychology, there is no formula that can be used for any government official and be successful. It is based on the approach of the individual. The only factor is to create motives for them to be interested in the field as much as possible. But if the person isn’t interested, then he won’t even listen,” said Kh. Gasparyan.
Baldryan believes that they are also to blame that only 20 of the 200 IT companies are actively participating in the activities going on in the country.
“The government pays attention to that 10%,” he said.
K. Vardanyan mentioned that they have to think not only about strengthening ties with the state, but also deepening ties between the companies. According to H. Musaelyan, the heads of IT companies are daring enough to present their point of views and issues than the representatives of other fields in Armenia. However, Baldrayan didn’t agree with that.
“When it comes to speaking out against the state, only 3-4 people actually speak out.”
“So, nobody from the other fields speaks out. We have more opportunities to interact with the authorities. As to how coordinated our opinions are and how much they are in common with the government’s approaches, that’s a different story. In that sense the IT field has an advantage,” mentioned H. Musaelylan.
The most interesting fact during the debate was that although the representatives of the IT field were saying that they are not unorganized, however they were talking rather coordinately about their issues and questions. What’s also interesting about the IT field is that the companies are united as one, which can lead to success if the state follows-up and if there is political will, not only in this field, but also the entire economy. We think that the government can elaborate a program baed on the results of this debate.