Sam and Sylva Simonian: Tech Pioneers Advancing Armenia and AUA

Sam and Sylva Simonian are two of the most notable names trailblazing their distinctive path for advanced innovation in Armenia. In addition to their triumphant conception and creation of the TUMO Foundation’s Centers for Creative Technologies in Armenia, Artsakh and several countries abroad, they have been instrumental in establishing the Computer Science (CS) program at the American University of Armenia (AUA), generously funding its launch in 2002.

As an AUA Emeritus Trustee, Sam Simonian recalls, “In my student days, CS was not offered as a degree. I graduated in electrical engineering and had to learn programming on my own. It was clear then when the AUA CS program was first established that technology would become the essential discipline to produce entrepreneurs who can invent, start companies, employ people, create prosperity, and trade electronically without being hampered by the country’s locked borders.”