Questions that are work

Individual giants, or a system?

Isolated successes, or an ecosystem?

The regions, or only Yerevan?

Puzzle pieces, or a complete picture?

Stones, or a temple?

Education is strength.

But strength is not only in knowledge. Strength lies in the ability to turn knowledge into results, to turn results into an environment, and to pass that environment on to the next generation.

Lately one question often troubles me:

What do we want to build?

Successful people, or a powerful system?

Because I am convinced that every individual giant without a system is like a stone lying far from the temple, while the system itself is a temple, where the shape and place of every stone can be envisioned in advance.

The question is not only about today.

The question is about the nation of tomorrow.

The question is whether we take responsibility for those who are still children today, but tomorrow must become the pillars of our country.

Recently, at the initiative of the Leadership School, we visited the village of Koti. On the way we carefully passed certain sections that were within the enemy’s line of fire. Later I learned that children are sometimes told not to go out without their parents, or not to leave the house at all for some time.

And I kept asking myself:

Why?

Why should I be restricted on my own land?

Why should I not be able to enjoy my nature, to work, to create and to build?

If I do not master myself, others will master me.

If I do not own my land, my thinking, my knowledge, my future, then others will shape them in my place.

And here I understood that the answer to the question is not external.

The answer to the question is inner strength.

Perhaps everyone has that inner strength. Perhaps at different levels, perhaps not everyone is aware of it, but it is there.

Fig. 1. A moment from a conversation about goals and development with children from the border villages of Koti, Baghanis, Jujevan and Voskepar

That day I was listening to the teachers.

They said that the children attend TUMO, Armath and various programs, but the answer to the most important question is often missing.

- “What for?” - Yes, I go. - But what for? - Yes, I study. - But what for? - Yes, I want to become someone. - But who?

And at that moment I understood the teachers’ pain.

Not that the children do not learn.

But that sometimes all this work is like separate puzzle pieces — without a picture, without direction, without examples.

And to some extent I also understood their feeling that the work they do is ineffective.

But I saw something else in the children.

I saw temples.

Every child is a temple.

One only has to see their spirit.

To see their determination.

Fig. 2,3,4,5. The schoolyard, which is directly under enemy observation; the children sum up the impressions with which our colleagues had inspired them

And yes, in time institutional giants will emerge from among them.

But the question is this:

What for?

For whom?

Where?

Are we able to unite them within the same ecosystem?

Do we want to have a temple?

Or stones lying far from the temple?

It is not bad when a person walks the road on their own. But it is a pity when someone has already walked that road and does not share it with those who follow…

It is the ecosystem that knows the place of every stone of the temple. Where every stone has its value. Where every stone has its meaning.

And that influence is long-lasting.

I believe that Armenia can become not only an industrial center.

I believe that Armenia can become an environment.

An environment where theory becomes practice.

Where knowledge becomes results.

Where results become experience.

And experience becomes new knowledge.

Where every community preserves its uniqueness and becomes a source of strength.

I believe in an Armenia where not only Yerevan is strong, but the regions as well.

Where communities are not just settlements, but centers of strength.

Where people come not only to learn, but to create.

Only someone who has lived in the regions will realize what needs to be created and what they have felt the need for. After all, every innovation originates either from what does not exist or from what exists but is not sufficient.

And perhaps the culmination of this growth should be that one day Armenia becomes the educational and technological campus whose experience, knowledge and environment other countries will also want to have.

Where people will come not only to take something from us, but also to learn from us.

Where we will be not only consumers, but creators.

And YES, not only to benefit from the experience of others, but to become those who pass on experience.

In the end, wherever we invest our energy and our efforts, that is what we will have…

Inspired at every step not by a distant dream, but by a future that is not so far away.

Yes, it is us.

We must become the system that will allow every region to form its own distinct system within itself, preserving its own style and remaining unique.

Starting at least with ourselves as a newly born Engineering Ecosystem, leading by example, taking responsibility for those lives which will in turn become the life of a new, distinct, unique ecosystem.

We are the system that knows, and must continue to know, the place and shape of every stone and every pillar within it…

And that is precisely why our greatest responsibility lies in today’s core and in tomorrow’s life…