When 17-year-old information technology and soccer fan Yuri Mkrtumyan’s friend Robert signed up for TUMO, he knew he had to follow suit. A year after Yuri became a TUMOian, the chain reaction continued with his brother.

“I’m learning physics in school, which is why I’m most interested in TUMO’s technology track like web and game development, programming and 3D modeling, “ said Yuri, who also wants to take all of the center’s creative workshops before heading to college.

“When I’m at TUMO coding or drawing a 3D model, I see my friends running around with cameras and I think about learning photography too. I’m sure the skill will come in handy one day,” said Yuri, sounding convinced.

After every workshop, Yuri gets so interested in a new focus area, that he considers changing his choice of a future profession — again!

Because he’s taken workshops on a wide range of topics, he finds himself “on the same wavelength” with different kinds of friends. According to Yuri, every TUMO skill is like a new language and “the more languages you know, the more of a person you are,” he said, repeating a popular aphorism from school.

Recently, Yuri has been so taken with game development that this summer, he wants to get a team of his friends together to develop a game that’s good enough to submit to a competition.

FUN FACT

Yuri is a huge soccer fan! His dream is to watch a Barcelona match in person in Barcelona, Spain.

If you’ve registered to become a student at TUMO Stepanakert, you’ve met Marta Karapetyan. Not only does the infodesk veteran know the name and face of every Stepanakert TUMOian, but she’s managed to learn their hobbies, too!

“They say that I’m behind the infodesk giving out honey,” said Marta, jokingly. “There’s always a student with me; each one sharing their woes. A student comes to me to share something from their self-learning exercise or to ask my opinion about a poem they wrote. I love those moments! Interacting with them keeps me young.”

Marta, who studied to be an English-language teacher, first learned about TUMO from students she taught during an internship. “They were always talking about their experiences and what they learned at TUMO,” she said.

“When I started working at TUMO, I already knew many of the students. Also, I’ve always known that I want to work with teens. In that sense, TUMO’s structure and atmosphere is the perfect place to work, learn and develop as a professional,” explained Marta.

FUN FACT

Marta has been a dog lover since childhood, with a particular affinity for stray dogs. Until today, she can’t walk passed a homeless dog indifferently. She stops to greet it, and if she’s not in a rush, even talks to it a little.

TUMO students explored neural networks and deep learning with help from software engineer Dylan Moore! Using Python and Keras, they created their own applications to implement style transfers from one picture to another.

“What does it stand for?” That’s a question we’re often asked about the “TUMO” in TUMO Center for Creative Technologies. No, it’s not an acronym. It’s more of an inheritance.

The origin story

When the flagship TUMO center was being built, years before its 2011 opening, we often heard local teenagers walking past the construction site and talking about “going to Tumo.” We got curious and tried to find out where it was they were going. You see, our center is located at the edge of the beautiful Tumanyan Park, named, of course, after the most inventive and humorous of Armenia’s literary figures, beloved poet, writer and activist Hovhannes Tumanyan… or, as the kids were calling him, or at least his eponymous park, “Tumo.” Soon, we too were talking about “going to Tumo” when we visited the site and the name stuck. It later became the official name of the center, was capitalized, and has turned into something of a household name in Armenia.

The finger-wagging

On August 16, we unveiled the name TUMO during our widely attended and televised opening ceremony. Serj Tankian performed, hundreds of teenagers pre-registered to attend the center and, in the evening, we staged a representation of one of Tumanyan’s famous poems, “A Drop of Honey,” in which a minor event sets a disproportionate series of calamities in motion. It was in the form of a 3D animation created by one of our future workshop leaders, projected onto the façade of the TUMO building.

But not everyone approved. We soon saw, on social media and in the press, a number of people expressing their displeasure with our adoption of a nickname for Tumanyan who, they said, was too venerable to have his name abbreviated. They considered it a lack of respect. Others disagreed, claiming Tumanyan would have loved the playful interpretation of his name and the involvement of kids in the process. Eventually, the debate died off, although to this day, the occasional person reminds us that, while they might approve of the TUMO program, they don’t consider the name appropriate.

Stepanakert, Paris, Beirut and beyond

As we have expanded geographically throughout Armenia, and now internationally, the name TUMO has been delineated, prefixed and postfixed in all kinds of ways. “TUMO Paris” and “TUMO Beirut” are its latest manifestations, but we have been known to call our students “TUMOians” and our mobile workstations “TUMObiles.” A journalist even coined the word “TUMOrrow”  to capture the “school of tomorrow” aspect of the center.

Can we be certain that Hovhannes Tumanyan would have approved? Perhaps not, but we have a feeling he would have smiled at the “drop of honey” nature of the events his nickname set in motion.

Pegor Papazian
Co-founder and Head of Development of the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies

Students worked with graphic designer Tulip Hazbar to design vinyl art for albums by Pyramidz, Tmbata, and the TUMO Orchestra.

Remember Arnold Ghazaryan? He’s the TUMOian who hitchhikes to TUMO Stepanakert from Khachmach village! Arnold put his friend Gevorg, who juggles school and housework on a daily basis, at the center of his latest photo story.

Creator of BARC the Dog, illustrator Alex Lansang, guided students in the creation of their very own comic strips inspired by local breeds of cats and dogs.

Students in level three of TUMO Stepanakert’s robotics workshop used LabView to build a robot that makes tea.

This throwback is dedicated to TUMO Koghb’s first fundraiser in Los Angeles! It was made possible by friends of TUMO Grigor and Marlene Yerevanyan, DishDivvy, Dardimans California Crisps, Ararat Brandy, Tatevik Ekezian, Alene Aroustamian, Vahan Bznuni and Hilda Bogossian. Thank you for being part of the TUMO family and supporting our mission!

Help make TUMO Koghb a reality by making a donation at tumo.org/donations/

“When I was waiting to start at TUMO, I was so impatient! I memorized the names of every coach and imagined them as characters in my mind,” said Valeria.

First, Valeria chose learning targets within her comfort zone. Now, her goal is to try all of the workshops by her 18th birthday.

“Firstly, trying all of the learning targets at TUMO is a good way to choose my future profession. Secondly, I want to learn as many skills as possible,” she said.

For a long time, Valeria hosted a TV program in Stepanakert, which made her feel confident in her communication and presentation skills. At TUMO, however, she discovered that there was still so much room to grow.

“I’ve learned to express myself clearly and competently here. TUMO has given me self-confidence, inspired me to reach for more, and has even widened my circle of friends. I’ve met people from all over the world,” explained Valeriya.

Valeria is also a known TUMO promoter around Stepanakert. She is a regular passenger on city buses — her face smiling down on straphangers as part of a TUMO poster campaign on public transportation.

FACTS:
Valeria boasts about her ability to eat as much as she wants without gaining weight.