Firstly, I would like to express my personal admiration and pride for the devoted and enthusiastic work that each of you has done and is doing for commonwealth and better changes in our societies, because the atmosphere of mutual assistance and compassion is the main guarantee for the change. And this is what Edgeryders do.
Having the apportunity to work and participate in the events organized by the UNDP and Edgeryders Team in Armenia, I came to a very optimistic conclution, that everything is possible if there are interested people involved in. Particularly, the meeting and cooperation of different journalists, civic activists, innovators, students and entrepreneurs, the flow of their ideas and suggestions, as well as the crowdsourcing methods of singling out the most current social problems in Armenia delighted me. This gave us an opportunity to listen to each other, to understand the issues, to segregate the resources and the needs and to make some sketeches for future actions. So the first important step has been accomplished.
This was actually another great experience for me to work with a group of talented people, to enlarge my knowledge about Armenia’s current problems and situation, to find new faces and contacts, as well as to learn new ways of engaging others in the processes. I am impatiently waiting for new meetings and actions.
What I like about Edgeryders is their transparencyand the linkage of different societies in their work. I mean, when dealing with a problem you have different similar examples in front of you, and you can follow the challanges that other societies also face, it gives you better/deeper understanding of the situation and much more confidence in your future actions. What I’m expecting from Edgeryders is their continuous devotion and desire to work together and to expand their fields of activities. To engage more people in the events and to organize more face-to-face meetings. I am also eager to have some cooperative undertakings and projects with Georgia, Egypt and other countires engaged, which will definitely give more effectiveness and attraction for future participants. Maybe kind of «Knowledge exchange meetings» or traditional «seminars for futurespotters», held regularly, they will be meetings of consultation and reporting. What do you think?
Nice to meet you, @Zhanna, and thanks for your thoughts. What you describe is familiar to many of us. I hang out with a bunch of people that call it “collective intelligence”, and yes, it’s exhilarating.
We do always strive to connect more people in ever better ways, and to foster more collaboration – for example, we are considering a Futurespotters project on digital literacy and the diffusion of open source software (over pirated proprietary code), which came up in the context of Georgia but it could well involve Armenia and Egypt too. The initial writeup is here.
I am not sure about face-to-face meetings, though. They are expensive and slow, and the better ones require a lot of online interaction before they happen (to make preparations and ensure everybody makes the most of the facetime) and after (to write and share documentation so that the results achieved are available to all and don’t get forgotten). We are Internet people, we work mostly online.
That said, the Georgian futurespotters have decided to hold bi-weekly physical meetings, that then are reported on this platform for interaction with the broader Edgeryders community (their group here on Edgeryders is quite active). They had 3 so far, and it seems to be going well.
Connecting workshop talks with Tbilisi upcoming event
Hi @Zhanna, hope all is well with you and looking forward to meet again in Tbilisi, don’t forget to register officially
I was wondering if you remember the discussions on challenges perceived by Armenians - from lack of agency to start doing something for communities, and to the challenges of those already involved to inspire others to do the same…
We don’t have a session proposed by Armenian participants yet, and I was wondering if you can help by pointing me to someone involved in the Mashtotz Park movement and/or Save Theghut. We talked about those and it would be great if someone came to present one of the initiatives… can you think of someone who could do it? Perhaps you?
Or @Enli, @Lilit can you think of which initiatives should definitely be show cased and would benefit a lot from ideas of people across the world?
I(or with someone else) can speak about both initiative as I was participating and following those initiatives as a human rights initiatives in Armenia. I have some short videos that I think will be interesting for others.
I will right now register officially for the event:)
As for the activists involved in Mashtots Park and Save Theghut movements, I definitely advice several people from Armenia that were actually in the center of these two events and were among the most active ones.
Ruzanna Grigoryan, Anahit Musheghyan, Mika Trchkan Elizbaryan, Karen Harutyunyan, Mariam Teghut Sukhudyan and many many others. In fact, you can contact Anahit Musheghyan, by the way she was present at our workshop meeting in Armenia, do you remember her? I think, she will be the best choice to talk about these events in Tbilisi.
Actually I have already contacted all of the mentioned candidates earlier for inviting to the event in Yerevan, and Karen was also present at some point. Mariam didn’t reply to the invitation, Ruzanna told she was interested but then didn’t come, Mika didn’t reply to the invitation. I think it makes sense to write again but I think it’s better if someone else writes to Mariam and Mika, and I can write to Ruzanna, Karen and Anahit since they already showed interest and I am in touch with them.
@Vahagn, hey. Yesterday I talked to Anahit, she is leaving Armenia so she cannot come.  I also sent message to Mika yesterday, but he didn’t answer. Anahit told me to contact Arpine Galafyan, she was present at the workshop in Yerevan together with Karen. I think best option will be to invite Arpine:) Anyway, I have sent Noemi Arpine’s facebook account link. I don’t have her in my friend-list actually, so if you know her, maybe you can talk to her?
Contacted her and it seems its better to explain in Armenian
Hi Vahagn, i sent a FB message to Arpine and she mentioned having a hard time understanding English. Perhaps refer to my message when you contact her so she knows its about the same thing?
If this is about Arpine Galfayan, she speaks English perfectly. I suppose your Arpine is a different one. please send her FB contacts to me and I will speak with her.
I try to find on FB, doesn’t work, in the likes. I try on Edgeryders platform in admin mode - too complicated and so far no result. Please refer to the links where they have left a comment so I can get in touch, otherwise there are many people with similar names and surnames on Facbook. Thanks in advance.
