YEREVAN. – IT in Armenia is actually getting to be known in the world, GIPHY CEO and co-founder Alex Chung said in Yerevan during WCIT 2019 forum.
Alex Chung was one of the distinguished keynote speakers and was at the “Marketplace of Ideas” panel where he was joined by Kim Kardashian, Alexis Ohanian and PicsArt CEO Hovhannes Avoyan.
“It was like a really interesting mix, I mean also local Armenians and foreign Armenians and then a Korean on stage. So, I thought the panel was really interesting. I learned a lot of things hearing Kim's perspective because she is not a technologist. I know Alexis from before we did a lot of startup things together. And I know Hovhannes. It was really interesting to see what she thought about technology and the entire social space. So, I learned a lot. I mostly just wanted to listen,” he said in an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am.
Chung said Armenia is now becoming another popular destination where everyone knows that there are many IT ideas.
“It's not only engineering, really good engineering , but also very creative, it's a very creative kind of engineer, lots of design and architecture come out of here. So, I think Armenia is one of the new spots where people are going to look for technology,” he added.
Chung said when he moved to New York about 15 years ago there were just few companies and were no conferences like WCIT.
“A couple of my friends started conference like this. They brought world people and they brought speakers, and then it became a community. I think the number one thing that WCIT can do is to start the local entrepreneur community. It's not just people coming in and listening everyone but it is about people locally meeting each other. I think it's more interesting to see everyone else who's talking to each other locally. That are going to start companies and be inspired by the speakers like Kim an Alexis. Looking at those examples and saying ‘Oh! We could do that here'. Here are some Armenians out in the the world like we should be doing a lot of that here. So, I think the future of Armenia is like really bright.”
