When 13-year old Erik Matinyan first joined the Programming course at the SMART Center, he had no idea that he would one day be part of the programming team for the SMART Center’s online education management platform’s (smartcitizen.am).

“At a certain point, I had difficulties with programming—some things seemed very complicated, and my interest gradually decreased,” recalls Eric. He adds that he then began figuring out codes that he used to have a hard time with on his own while on vacation and never changed his mind about becoming a programmer again.

In that regard, as per Erik, SMART is the kind of environment that gives youth from villages, like himself, the opportunity to try certain professions on for size and test out other professions too. Erik is currently also a remote student at the Vanadzor State University’s Management Department.

“At SMART I realized that management skills will help me in building a tech company and managing it well too.”

In parallel with his work at SMART, Erik will have two-hour “programmatic breaks” twice a week. His eighth and last program is musical instruments. In January, Eric will be drafted into the army.

From dreamer to coder.

The SMART Programming Team and Metaksya, the SMART Center Program Manager and Acting Director, literally work day and night on the launch of the smartcitizen.am platform.

Erik says that, along with the great responsibility, working at SMART is a good opportunity to experiment and learn new things.

Final adjustments are being made before the launch of the new educational platform.

When Erik is working, he cannot be distracted, even by the hustle and bustle of SMART’s peak hours.

The last stop on Eric’s SMART journey is the musical instruments program. Most SMART students have gotten acquainted with and learned to play musical instruments through this program.

It has now been eight years that Erik has turned the road from Debed to the SMART Center into a “road for water,” in other words, a beaten path.

Author: Knar Babayan