The delegation of 10 selected ICT startups from Armenia left for Istanbul to participate in the “StartupIstanbul” Regional Forum to be held in Istanbul on October 6-10, 2016, due to the coordination of Public Journalist Club /Armenia/ and TEPAV  (Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey) /Turkey/ within the framework of the “Exchange of Entrepreneurs” Project.  

StartupIstanbul is the leading startup event, which brings together founders, investors and executives in the region. The event is an exclusive gathering of the leading startups, internet companies, angel investors and venture capitalists from Europe, Middle East, Western Asia and the USA where startups from different countries have an opportunity to present their innovative business ideas, get advice from international experts and maintain business relations with investors. 

The delegation is led by the Public Journalism Club representatives - Seda Muradyan, Head of the Public Journalism Club, and Lusine Avagyan, Project Manager of Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process Program. The delegation is also accompanied by two journalists, Arpine Arzumanyan and Narine Daneghyan, who will cover this prominent event.

The Armenian delegation is presented in “StartupIstanbul” regional forum with the representatives of the following companies: 

1. Ashot Mashuryan, CEO, Heltun - smart home systems.

Ashot graduated from Russian-Armenian Slavonic University in 2010 as a specialist in applied mathematics and computer science. Already in the University he managed to gather a team of like-minded people to achieve his dream, with whom he created a number of robots and won the first prizes on Armenian Robotics competitions in 2009-2011. HELTUN was launched in 2011 as building automatiom (Smart Home) hardware and software developer. HELTUN’s team wants to make home automation as simple as iPad.

2. Aram Jivanyan, CEO and Co-Founder, Skycryptor – cloud data security

In 2008 Aram obtained his Bachelor's degree from Yerevan State University (YSU), Department of Informatics and Applied Mathematics, and in 2010 the Master's degree from the Research and Education Center of Information Technologies. In 2012 Aram got an Annual Educational Award of the President of the Republic of Armenia in IT Sphere, in the catogory of the best PhD Student. Currently Aram is serving as a CEO and co-founder of Skycryptor, which was founded in 2015. Skycryptor is a patented SMART data encryption, sharing and access control platform facilitating encrypted file sharing via any cloud application and keeping the files searchable after encryption. 

3. Zhorzh Seyradaryan, CEO, LiTech – innovative lighting technologies

Zhorzh obtained Master's Degree from Oxford University by completing the Research in Experimental Psychology and Law in 2012-2014. 

Having several years’ of experience in social involvement and startup competitions, he is presenting a new technology to the market of LED, lighting aimed at substantially increasing the LED light technology's efficiency. The LiTech was formed in June, 2015. The project aims to develop Agro-Tourism in Armenia and make the travelling process comfortable, interesting and advantageous for the people of limited capacities.

4. Hasmik Hovhannisyan, Founder-Author, HY pictures - interactive graphic novels

Hasmik Hovhannisyan is a film and media producer and storyteller. Hasmik has a Master's Degree of Arts in Film and Media Producing (Lund University, Sweden). She also studied documentary filmmaking as it a graduate of George Washington University Fellowship. She founded HY pictures in 2012 with a goal to tell stories that are not limited with borders and boundaries. HY pictures works in the spheres of traditional film production, as well as transmedia and new media.

5. Haykaz Bagratyan, Co-Founder, Bookoholics – mobile application for booklovers

Haykaz obtatained his Bachelor's degree  from Russian – Armenian (Slavonic) University in 2014, the faculty of Economics and the Master's Degree from American University of Armenia, Computer and Information Science in 2016. Haykaz is representing Bookoholics. This is the second startup he is working on. He is responsible for everything there, except coding.

6. Flora Babajanyan, Customer Relations Manager, Earlyone - electronic queuing management system

Flora Babajanyan obtained her Bachelor's degree from YSLU in 2016, the Department of Linguistic and French Studies and currently is doing her Masters in Synergy University, the field of Stategic Planning. Flora is working as a Customer Relations Manager in Earlyone. The application is a unique platform, through which people can book their place in the queues beforehand, secure the time when they want to be served and get their service without waiting. 

7. Hrachuhi Barseghyan, CEO, HurryApp – creative marketing tool for organizations to get new customers

Hrachuhi Barseghyan, MBA, CMCE, MA, is a highly-qualified PR and Marketing expert with over 14 years of experience across diverse industries. Being an active management consultant she creates an opportunity to run her own company called ArPR Holding. Hrachuhi and several other individuals decided to create a mobile application which combines all the benefits of quests and geo-location. In the result of hard work HurryApp was created, which is a promising tool for marketing professionals. 

8. Andranik Shahbazyan, CEO, Dress Zone – online system  for women to save and earn money through renting their dresses

Andranik started his professional career at USA Embassy, as a USDA Marketing Assistance Project (2000-2003) and was engaged in finding and promoting export markets for Armenian food products. Andranik has Masters' degree in Finance from Russian-Armenian Slavonic University and the PhD Degree from the Armenian Agricultural Academy. The latest project, he is working on is DRESSZONE (www.dresszone.am, www.dress-zone.am) which is a platform where users can rent clothes for any occasion. Dresszone will enable women in Armenia to earn money by renting out their clothes. 

9. Levon Ibranyan, Project Manager, The Fortune Cup – mobile app through which real fortune tellers read fortune on users’ coffee mug

Levon obtained a Law degree from Yerevan State University  in 2003, but after some years of law practise, realised, that he was made for something else. For some years he worked in leisure business. After some experience in hotel business he joined Sixt rent a car in 2009 and headed the operations in Armenia. Later Levon joined another international giant Hertz. He joined the Fortune Cup startup in 2016 as a project manager. The Fortune Cup is a mobile application that connects coffee drinkers with real fortune tellers. It is a unique product that currently is designed for Russian, Armenian and English speaking markets. 

10. David  Sukiasyan, Co-founder and CEO, ArmNomads – indie game development  

David obtained his Bachelor's degree from Russian-Armenian Slavonic University, faculty of Applied Mathematics and Informatics in 2012 and  MBA  from   the American University of Armenia in 2016. Together with his friends David launched ArmNomads Games in April, 2016. Currently David is serving as Co-founder and CEO at ArmNomads Games, an indie game development studio, which develops products for Apple App Store, Google Play Market, Steam and several other markets.

Before StartupIstanbul, Public Journalism Club held special trainings for the participants on “Mastering the Art of Pitching” and ''Business Negotiation Skills and Intercultural Communication''.

This year 24.646 startups applied for “StartupIstanbul” leading forum from 135 states, and only about 500 startups will participate in the event.The Armenian 10 startup companies, participating in the Exchange of Entrepreneurs project, were among those 500 startups. The project is part of the “Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalization Process” (ATNP) Program with the funding of the European Union.