Top 8 IT persons and events of 2015

2015 was a saturated year for Armenian IT sector. It’s no mere chance that by late 2015, Armenia registered 20% growth in the field. Everyone made his contribution - from an informatics teacher to investors from Diaspora.

Itel.am is summing up the IT events in 2015 recalling the key persons and events  that boosted the field’s development this year motivating each other. 

April was marked with visits of tech “giants” of Armenian descent

Twitter’s former Vice President and presently Engineering Lead at Uber Advanced Technologies Center Raffi Krikorian and co-founder and executive chairman of Reddit – American social news website- Alexis Ohanyan took part in HIVE conference in Yerevan on April 25.



Within the conference in Yerevan, the Armenian tech community listened to the speeches of representatives of Google, Facebook, Prezi and Issuu.

Shadowmatic rocked in 2015

Triada Studio’s Shadowmatic entered the App Store which was followed by the game’s further breakthrough. Not only did it appeared on all the countries’ App Store Editor’s Choice section but was recognized the Best Game by Apple in 2015.

Within ArmNet Awards 2015 in Yerevan on April 4, Shadowmatic got the grand prize winning in “Innovation” as well as “Design and Usability” nominations.



Already in late April, Shadowmatic launched the Armenian version of the game besides 12 other languages. At DevGAMM 2015 Awards in Moscow on May 16, the game was recognized the winner in 2 nominations - Excellence in Visual Art and Media Choice Award:

June 8 was marked with yet another major success of Shadowmatic, Triada Studio was awarded Apple’s annual Apple Design Awards; in September, the game rocked at Free app of the week.

Already in December, Apple chose Shadowmatic as the best app of 2015 in a number of countries - Japan, China, Russia, India and others.

Armenia’s tech industry was represented at Web Summit

On November 3-5, Ireland’s capital Dublin hosted one of the most reputable tech conferences, Web Summit, and Armenian IT companies were also represented there.



Upon returning to Armenia, Teamable, ggTaxi, SFL, Truthly, Ucraft.me and Develandoo shared their impressions with Itel.am. Some of them found investors while others set contacts with venture funds and accelerators.

More companies were represented at DigiTec

This year's Digitec was marked with interesting design of pavilions and large number of represented companies - 170. Startups were especially active in this regard.

 

The 2-day technological event hosted not only Armenian companies successful on local and international markets but also international ones.

A parade of hackathons and contests

A number of major technological contests and hackathons were organized over the year.

Hackathon [YAN] Childhood 2015 was the most prominent IT contest  of the year which was held in Vanadzor on December 13-14. 70 teams (250 representatives) took part in the event.



UltraLight Startup hackathon (games and apps contest) was held at Tumo Center on March 29 with participation of 6 teams. The event was organized by AltCity, one of the major startup centers based in Beirut.

Yerevan hosted #createTogether technological event on October 5-6 bringing together representatives of tech world and innovators. It was afterwards followed by #createTogether  24-hour hackathon.

SeedStars Yerevan is also noteworthy which was held on May 28. The winner of the contest, EyeCare Plus, will take part in Seedstars World contest in Switzerland in February 2016.

Within Demo Day on April 26, startups participating in Microsoft Innovation Center’s Acceleration Program presented their products to the international IT specialists, potential investors and enterprises during 12-week acceleration program.

With support of World Bank and Armenian government, the Enterprise Incubator Foundation gave funding to 32 startups within the regularly co-funded grants contest.

Tumo Centers in Gyumri and Stepanakert opened

The year was marked with opening of 2 new Tumo Centers. In May, Tumo Center opened in Gyumri and on September 2, Stepanakert Tumo was officially launched on the Independence Day of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.



You can read Itel.am’s impressions from Gyumri Tumo here.

We’re happy to let you know that Vanadzor will have its Tumo in 2016.

Ucom bought Orange

It was stated in late July that Orange and Ucom were negotiating around purchase of 100% of Orange Armenia shares.



Itel.am talked to former Orange Armenia CEO Francis Gelibter; in September, Orange Armenia already had another owner - Ucom bought 100% of the shares of the company. Alexander Yesayan was appointed the new CEO of Orange Armenia.

Yerevan hosted ArmTech 2015 

8th ArmTech - 2015 business forum opened in Yerevan on October 12 hosting Microsoft Corporate Vice President Vahe Torossian. Guests from the U.S., Middle East, South America, Europe and post-Soviet states also took part in the forum.



“I last visited Armenia in 2008, and a lot has changed since then. It’s very impressive what achievements we had during the past decade”, Vahe Torossian noted.

Narine Daneghyan
Tatev Hovhannisyan