ITTD project enhances business-education connection through projects designed for tech specialists

#ITTD #TUMO #GIZ

To enhance employer-student linkage, to improve tech specialists’ skills and to make those applicable for solving real problems.

Toward this goal, within the scope of the EU4Business “Innovative Tourism and Technology Development for Armenia (ITTD)” project and jointly with TUMO Labs Educational Centre and Krisp company , a six-month intensive training was delivered for the post-graduate tech students. Key directions were three - Machine Learining, AI (artificial intelligence) and Natural Language Processing.

Lately, the results of the project were summarised in the newly-opened TUMO Labs Centre, Yerevan.

The EU4Business “Innovative Tourism and Technology Development for Armenia (ITTD)” project is co-funded by the European Union and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by German Development Cooperation (GIZ).

“The linkage between students and employers has to be ensured in Armenia. One of the fundamental objectives of this undertaking was to enhance that link. Armenia has a high potential to become a centre of tech talents. For that very reason, we strive to support this particular industry through diverse initiatives,” - says Wilhelm Hugo, Team Leader of EU4Business ITTD project .

Wilhelm Hugo
photo © Mediama

The project was implemented in July-December of 2021. Ten post-graduate students from various universities of Armenia were involved in it. TUMO Labs Education Centre conducted the selection of the students, and the Armenian Company Krisp set the assignments for them to solve.

The collaboration aimed at entrusting the tech students with such advanced assignments that could have been of potential interest to the Krisp.

photo © Mediama

The students with best performance were to be given the opportunity to join Krisp team or work in any other leading company with their applicable skill set and knowledge.

“For us, it was crucial to establish a collaboration between the educational institution and the technological company thus safeguarding the university-employer connection. Any such activity should be guided primarily by the demand of the private sector.

Unfortunately, in many cases higher education in Armenia is practically non applicable. So many students graduate from universities with no capacity to find a job due to the fact that they lack skills to apply what they learned, in their workplace, or to solve real problems. In this case, the engaged students had the opportunity, with mentor’s support, to solve real problems set by Krisp technological company,” – notes Davit Kartashyan, Advisor of the EU4Business ITTD project.

photo © Mediama

Over the six months’ period, the students had been sweating on the following two projects: a project prototype, which read and analysed the text determining its emotions, and a program, which read the texts and summarised its main concept.

photo © Mediama

According to Davit, initially ten students were selected, whereas only seven of them completed the project successfully. During those six months, the students had intensive learning, working sessions and the training was completed only by those with successful results.

“The mentor of the project was Artashes Artenyan, one of the best specialists of Machine Learning, who provided guidance and directions to the students in difficult situations. As a result, the students obtained new skills in machine learning, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, while having the opportunity to work on real and complex tasks in natural language processing,” mentions Davit Kartashyan.

It should be highlighted, that one of the participants of this project, implemented by the EU4Business ITTD project jointly with TUMO Labs and Krisp, is already working in one of the leading technological companies.

Yana Shakhramanyan

Photos by Emin Aristakesyan