While creativity is something people are born with, harnessing, shaping, and channeling that creativity into radically useful innovation is something that is learned. For thousands of years, Armenia has been blessed with both massively able creative minds, as well as a well-honed, time-tested approach to extracting the largest possible impact from them.
If bright minds are what you need, then look no further!
Brilliant academic thinking and work has been an integral part of the Armenian experience for thousands of years. It is expected of teachers and demanded of students. Traditionally, an Armenian family's status has been judged, not by how much money they've earned, but by how well their children have performed in school and university. We are a nation built on excelling in the life of the mind.
While there is a lot you can say about all the downsides of the Soviet experience, the Soviet educational system certainly wouldn't be included in that conversation. Regarded as perhaps one of the best educational systems that ever existed, Armenia was blessed with a world-class technical education system. Today, because of our Soviet experience, Armenia has a workforce of extremely well-educated people capable of competing with anyone, anywhere on the planet.
In Armenia chess is not merely a game, but an approach to life. Given that chess lessons are mandatory from primary school onwards, Armenians have found a great recipe for building strong character and breeding future champions. Indeed, Armenia is regards as being at the very epicentre of the modern chess-playing world.
Armenia has just launched what we aim to be the world's leading high-school level robotics curriculum. While it is still only in pilot phase in 60 schools, by 2020 it will be in every school in the country and over 50,000 budding engineers will be trained robotics developers.