The third AGBU YP Europe summit took place on December 10 2017 in Paris, where the YP leaders and activists came together to summarize the last year’s accomplishments and focus on the future plans and further integration of young professionals across Europe. The summit was also an occasion for the professional development and enhancement of leadership skills, with presentations from Aret Aprahamian (Oracle) and Fabrice Asvadzadourian (Accenture Strategy).

The main topic of the keynote speech by AGBU AVC Founding President Yervant Zorian was the importance of maintaining and advancing the national identity as an infinite source of enrichment for global Armenians, and the role of the Armenian Virtual College as a means to understand and advance that identity.

According to Dr. Zorian, the global nature of the Armenian nation requires a globally accessible online platform to acquire knowledge about the common Armenian heritage (language, culture and history) and link with other Armenians around the world. The e-books and e-school of AVC provide a rich resource to nurture the Armenian identity in a fluid Diaspora. AVC works as a neural network connecting knowledge point to each other and thus creating a virtual community.

In his presentation Dr. Zorian also addressed the issues of the prosperity of our homeland. He emphasized the growing role of knowledge based economy, using the example of IT industry as the most rapidly growing sector in Armenia’s industry. The educational component, particularly STEM education, is a major requirement for dynamic economic development. The AVC capacities and unique e-learning experience obtained during the past decade could be a solid basis to build an online STEM education platform to help build a strong foundation for the knowledge based economy in Armenia.