FORUM SYNOPSIS:
Professional Paths in Armenia (2 August 2006)

On Wednesday, August 2, Birthright Armenia hosted Alfred Eisaian as guest speaker for the weekly forums.  The topic was “Pathways for Professional Involvement in Armenia”.

Mr. Eisaian is CEO of Integrien, a company that specializes in providing management solutions to IT companies through innovative software products.  He earned his MBA  from Pepperdine University and a BSEE from Oklahoma State University. He is also part of the Armenian HiTech Council, and advises the American University of Armenia School of Management.  Prior to establishing Integrien, Mr.Eisaian was Senior Vice President and General Manager at LowerMyBills where he led business strategy and the growth of the company from startup to profitability in 16 months (LowerMyBills was subsequently purchased by Experian for $380 million).  Integrien has established a branch in Armenia which employs Mathematics PhDs for algorithm development.  Mr. Eisaian could have easily gone to another country to establish a branch, but saw that Armenia had the human resources to satisfy his company’s requirements.

The forum began with the introduction of Mr. Eisaian’s vision of how the Diaspora must be connected with Armenia. He introduced the concept of the Global Armenian Network, a vast network of professionals and financially successful people, and the possibility of  creating a “Virtual Armenian Empire”.   “Individuals can be powerful, yet when connected in a network, their potential is magnified many times.  We are not alone in our desire to help Armenian communities and Armenia, yet often we have these mental roadblocks to work with others for common goals.  ‘I cannot work with another Armenian’ is a common refrain that we hear, yet it is such an ill-advised notion”.  He brought up he example of the California based HiTech council which does a lot of work with a small number of interconnected and like-minded professionals.   

Mr. Eisaian also talked about the concept called “unreasonableness”.  “Think in unreasonable ways, outside the realm of the possible, and never give up on it.  Dreamers know that often their dreams are unreasonable, but they are the ones that change the world.  Armenia offers huge professional possibilities to such people.  Never tone down your dreams”.
  
Mr. Eisaian talked about the problems of today’s Armenia and was quite optimistic about their possible solutions. “When people tell me that Armenia’s main problem is the corruption I tell them to go to China and see what happens there” he said.  According to him most of the people are exaggerating the problems that Armenian has today and that it is possible to give fast and effective solutions to those problems.

The guest speaker then asked for and recorded what drives each volunteer, “what would you do if you knew you had one day to live”  and concluded from the list that even within a small group of people one can create a network which can be utilized to magnify the effort of a single volunteer.