INVOLVING SCHOOL STUDENTS INTO CREATIVE ACTIVITIES                                           IN THE FIELD OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTION                                                          THROUGH INFORMATION AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIES.                                        (case of the Republic of Armenia).

As the  last IT professionals’ reports testify   Armenia has eagerly embraced the opportunities provided by the digital age,  developing into a technological hub that has proven itself capable of competing on the world stage.

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 The  holding  on October 6-9 this year the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), in which participated over 2, 500 from 70 countries, including technology professionals, business executives and government officials  together with senior executives of  such tech giants  as  Google, Siemens and Ericsson is another  proof to it.

The distinctive feature of this WCIT from the previous ones was   its freshness as the previous WCITs were attended by more mature figures but this one was much younger in terms of agenda,    participation and even the  cultural opening ceremony of the event  which opened with a historic concert as  the WCIT Orchestra (comprised of members from all 15 countries across the globe to have held the WCIT) under the tutelage of famed Armenian maestro Sergey Smbatyan played, music sheets delivered to them in real-time by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) composer – the first in history.

 As for participation, than  as it was  decided this  year  to give a chance not only to well-known IT companies, but also  to companies from Armenia’s regions and  to school students from more than 280 schools in Armenia to  take part  in  the Digi Tec Expo heldunder the motto: "Prove yourselves better than others".

 It covered  a wide range of areas - from the military industry to agriculture, medicine and manufacturing. Developments  were  presented in the following sections: integrated engineering solutions, IT installations and IT systems, software and web solutions, mobile technologies and applications, design and animation, gaming technologies and multimedia, technological solutions for business.

Among  DIGI Expo2019  were the school participants from : - secondary School No.173, who introduced  robots made of Wi-Fi  equipment, provided earlier by Beeline Armenia;
the city Vedi, Ararat region,  who presented their “army-helper” multifunctional  robot which  apart from  video recording and wiretapping had also a first aid system;
the Sebastia education center  who presented a color-differentiating robot.

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Especially should be mentioned student - participants from the  “TUMO”  Center for Creative Technologies  and  from the “ARMATH”  engineering laboratories.

 TUMO center  is a new kind of educational experience at the intersection of technology and design,  that combines  the newest technologies with local cultural heritage to provide young Armenians with a cost-free education. At TUMO, 12 to 18 year-olds from all backgrounds  are engaged into  learning targets such as animation, game development, music, writing and robotics.

The educational method applied by TUMO is highly innovative: it alternates between independent learning activities (e-learning), hands-on workshops and project labs. This hybrid educational model helps students to develop a variety of soft skills ranging from teamwork, initiative-taking and empathy, to effective communication. Out-of-the-box thinking has a central place in all activities as  learning activities practiced at  TUMO are guided by one principle above all else: “Everyone is unique.” 

The TUMO learning program is made up around 14 learning targets. Teens combine these into personal learning paths that adapt to their evolving preferences and rate of progress.

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Animation

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Game Development

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Filmmaking

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Web Development

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Music

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Writing

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Drawing

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Graphic Design

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3D Modeling

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Programming

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Currently, there are four already opened  TUMO centers in Armenia — Yerevan, Dilijan, Gyumri, Stepanakert  and   more are on the way, one of them is  in  Masis. The town of Masis, to the south of Yerevan, with its beautiful view of Mount Ararat, will be the latest addition to the TUMO family. Thanks to a partnership with the Masis Development Foundation the center will accommodate up to 1,000 students, with room for expansion. A unique aspect of TUMO Masis is it’s francophone orientation: It will add French to TUMO’s languages of instruction and will establish exchanges with instructors from France and other French-speaking countries.

The two opened  international centers are  in Paris, France and in  Beirut, Lebanon.  

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The   Tumo Centre in Paris  was opened on October 15, on the initiative of  Mayor of  Paris   Anne Hidalgo, who visited  Yerevan in January 2018 and spoke with admiration about the Tumo Center for Creative Technologies.

TUMO IN ERANCE

FA1A5697 - Grand Opening of TUMO Paris

In the Parisian "Tumo" will be trained 4000 students.  Madame Anne Hidalgo  also noted: “With the help of Tumo we provide the youth of Paris with all the tools necessary for shaping the future world”, The education at Tumo is free of charge. The syllabus has been translated into French. Nearly 1/3 of the students are from families with low income.

TUMO  IN  JAPAN

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Over the coming months the Tumo Center is opening a branch in Tokyo, Japan, according to the signed memorandum of understanding with “Gakken”, one of Japan's largest publishing and educational companies.

“TUMO is headed to the land of robots, manga and sakura!” the company’s head  said .

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“ARMATH” engineering  LABS.

The developments  of Armenian schoolchildren attending courses in engineering laboratories ArMath were also  presented  at 2019 DIGI Expo. The young engineers presented their work in the field of robotics, in particular, 3D modeling and 3D Printing.

Currently, more than 7,500 students study at its 284 ArMath labs equipped with computers, robot parts and 3D printers.. According to the last reports of IT specialists  many of the children taking Armath courses will be skilled enough to work for tech firms right after finishing school.

In a move,  aimed at supporting continued rapid growth of Armenia’s information technology (IT) sector, the Armenian government has decided to help double the number of engineering labs in public schools across the country. It was decided that nearly 50% of all schools in Armenia will have the ArMath Engineering Laboratories by yearend 2019, enabling children  when they turn 10 years old  to receive an engineering education.  

50% of all Armenian schools to have Armath labs by yearend in monumental move

What does this mean for students studying in ArMath labs? For one thing, building robots together requires teamwork and creative problem solving which often isn’t a part of their regularly scheduled classes.

Currently, many of the systems in place in our education system in Armenia (and indeed, around the world) are reliant on memorization of information which does not call for, or encourage, critical thinking. Through studying in ArMath labs, students develop skills which are not only crucial to their education but their personal and professional development as well.

They learn to code and program and build robots, all of which will help them get jobs in IT in the future, if they so choose, but, more than that, they learn how to approach a challenge from multiple angles. They understand that there isn’t necessarily one answer to a problem.

“Being able to have critical thinking, that’s what innovation is. A business starts from a problem, not from a means, or a solution,” says Mr. Poghosyan one of the founder of ArMath labs.

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Armenian technology education model presented by ArMath  is to be implemented in  the countries such as :

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On October 7, within the framework of the international exhibition DigitecExpo-2019, Armenia and India signed an Agreement on introducing the  experience of Armenian "ArMath" engineering laboratories in India. 

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On October 8, the Armenian side signed also a  memorandum of understanding with Ethiopia, under which the ArMath Engineering Laboratories,  will introduce 51 ArMath labs in Ethiopian schools.

The Afghan Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technologies also expressed the intention to cooperate with ArMath, which led to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding.

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Moreover, the number of countries such as Bangladesh, Iraq, Brazil,  Malaysia, Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Estonia and a number of other countries  as well showed great interest towards the ArMath project.

In the conclusion: all the mentioned above shows one more effective   venue  for involving school students into creative activities in the field of disaster risk reduction through information and engineering technologies.