The new strategy of UITE approved, the Board members and the President elected

The 17^th annual congress of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises (UITE) has been held on April 19, 2017, in Armenia Marriott hotel.  As the official press release by UITE states, the members of the UITE as well as heads of other leading companies of the ICT sector, educational institutions, governmental agencies, representatives of diplomatic and international organizations attended the Congress.

Alexandr Yesayan, the President of the UITE, mentioned in his welcome speech: "The hunger for talented people increases in the world year by year, particularly only last year the unmet demand for specialists of the IT sector amounted up to 2 million in the USA and Europe. Moreover, in certain areas, for example in big data sector (Big Data) the demand for mathematicians having the appropriate programming skills was about 400,000 only in the USA. The conclusion of all this is one: the more technologically literate people we prepare, the more involved we are in the global technology job market. All this is possible by consolidating the sector, organizing an effective internal cooperation, combining the aims of the technological private sector, the educational system, the government and public institutions, restoring Armenia as a high-tech country."

Karen Vardanyan, the Executive Director of the UITE, emphasized: 'The WCIT 2019 is expected to be hosted in Armenia. We plan to establish engineering laboratories in all the schools of the Republic of Armenia and thus to present ourselves to the world as the only country that starts the elementary engineering education at the age of 10."

Arman Atoyan, director of X-TECH and the UITE member, made a suggestion to inform the public and in particular parents about the necessity for the technological education, about success stories with support of the media and to promote public awareness raising for the IT education.

The strategic plan of the UITE is quite comprehensive, so the members of the Union have been involved in different working groups to develop a relevant concept and an action plan. The main directions of the strategy and their moderators are:

• Education and Labor Force Development: moderator: Vahagn Poghosyan, Director of ''Proximus DA''

• Armenian IT brand creation / Why Armenia: moderator: Armen Kocharyan, Director of ''VOLO''
• The State as a client: moderator: Satenik Mnatsakanyan, Director of ''Leviathan''
• Military industry: moderator: Arman Poghosyan, Director "Instigate Design”
• Defense of interests: moderator: Hayk Chobanyan, UITE Deputy Director
• Business and Entrepreneurship Development: moderator: Bagrat Yengibaryan, Director of the Enterprise Incubator Foundation
• UITE development: moderator: Karen Vardanyan, UITE Executive Director

The developed strategy is open to the public. The main users of this strategy will be the members of the Union, the acting staff, the ICT and high-tech companies, the State, educational and social institutions related to ICT.

Within the framework of the congress the UITE Executive Director Karen Vardanyan also presented the results of the activities of the UITE for the previous year, particularly for "Armath" Engineering Laboratories, training courses for trainers, DigiTec Business Forum, DigiTec Expo, ICT Leaders' Meeting, Business Innovation Forum, Summer Technological and DigiCamp camps, the UAV competition of ArmRobotics  project, Open game championship, DigiCode applied programming junior contest, “From Army to IT” project and the Real school ("Systems theory" (Cybernetics) profession).

At the end of the congress the annual closed election of the UITE president and the board members has been held. This year's election have been carried out by using electronic means. As a result of the election Alexandr Yesayan was re-elected as the UITE President. As a result for Board members election Armen Kocharyan, the director of the ''VOLO''; Arman Poghosyan, the director of the "Instigate Design"; Sophie Mehrabyan, the director of the ''Macadamian AR''; Bagrat Yengibaryan, the director of the Enterprise Incubator Foundation; Raffi Kassarjian, the director of the ''Monitis"; Hayk Yesayan, the director of the ''Ucom'';  Gevorg Safaryan, the director of the ''LimeTech''; Vahagn Poghosyan, the director of the ''Proximus DA''; Aram Salatian, the director of the ''National Instruments AM''; Armen Shahnazaryan, the director of the ''D-Link International; Artak Chopuryan, the director of the "Instigate Mobile"; Manuk Hergnyan, the director of the "Granatus Ventures''; Gor Vardanyan, the director of the ''FimeTech" have been elected as Board members, and Arsen Gevorgyan, the director of "SFL" and Armen Muradyan, the director of ''Arpinet'' have been elected as the Auditors for a period of six months each.

In addition, 80 organizations of the sector are the members of the UITE.