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AVC at EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) Copenhagen 2014 06/30/2014
The AGBU Armenian Virtual College (AVC) took part in Europe’s largest general science event. The biennial pan-European EuroScience Open Forum 2014(ESOF) and the “Science in the City” festival were held jointly in Copenhagen from the 21st to 26th of June. The joint event attracted leading scientists, researchers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, innovators, and the general public from all over Europe to find out the newest discoveries and discuss new directions in technology, humanities and social sciences. During ESOF 2014, AVC had the honor of representing Armenia, with its technological innovations, together with three other organizations, namely TUMO, Dasaran.am and Instigate.The invitation to participate was received by the Danish-Armenian NGO AmStream, which aims to create an innovative pipeline of streaming opportunities between Armenia and Scandinavia in the fields of business, education, science and culture. The members of AmStream – a group of young Armenians and Danes living in Denmark with a strong vision for collaboration between Denmark and Armenia, took every opportunity to help the Armenian organizations showcase modern Armenian solutions for education via technology. Together with AVC representative Elivra Mirzoyan, several members of AmStream - among them AmStream Managing Director Tatevik Revazyan, Victor Moquist, Suren Gevorgyan, Lara Jewina, Fatima Bautista Kanan, Nazilla Amir as well asothers, actively volunteered to demonstrate AVC products and services atthe ESOF exhibition. At ESOF 2014, AVC placed the major focus on its two recent innovations – the online chess program and the interactive multimedia e-book series. Both products were acceptedwith great interest by the visitors and roused a further desireto explore and learn more about them. The participants were amazed at AVC’sunique approach of teaching chess and as they noted, while a number of online applications that teach chess are available now, none of them offer the option of teaching chess online with the help of an Online Instructor, who, for AVC, is an International Chess Master in parallel with the perfectly developed application, using a specific online teaching methodology. Individuals,as well asgroups of visitors, stood in front of the online chessboard monitor following the demonstrator’s explanation or playing and competingwith each other, testing their strategic thinking skills in playing chess. AVC’s first multimedia e-book,“The Armenian Highland”,was another impressive offering from AVC at ESOF, which helped attract a lot of attention towards Armenia.The fact that it was multiplatform and available in 7 languages, enriched with multimedia means, had a reader-friendly style,as well asrich content, were so captivating that a Russian visitor, after having looked through it, said, “Due to this e-book I learnt that such a small nation could have such a great history.This e-book serves as a powerful guide to Armenia where I will certainly go now to discover even more about the Armenian Highland.” The five-day exhibition was followed by a Satellite Event on June 26th, entitled “Reimagining Education” Satellite Event. This gathered pioneers in technology and education together in order to debate the current educational models and new learning solutions in a lively panel discussion. It aimed to present Armenia as the 'New Silicon Valley' and showcase three renowned Danish institutions as well. In addition to AVC, two Armenian organizations, namely Instigate and Tumo, took on the role of demonstrating how Armenia offers the newest educational trends with its motto of 'learning via play'. The AVC Founding President Dr.YervantZorian presented AVC at the satellite event, highlighting AVC’sunique experience during the past five years and the activities that came into making it the leading e-learning institution to provide Armenian education via advanced technologies. The satellite event was followed by the Armenian-Danish Technology & Education Reception at the Armenian Embassy in Copenhagen, which warmly hosted pioneering technologists and specialists in education from both Denmark and Armenia. ESOF 2014 in Copenhagen ended successfully with a new investment for Armenia, as well as AVC, in the area of international collaboration of technology and education.