Nope, those red-headed siblings are not the Weasleys of the Harry Potter universe; they’re the Hovhikyans of TUMO: 17-year-old Nane, 15-year-old Mery, and 14-year-old Davit. You’ll find them either at TUMO Gyumri, where they attend workshops and learning labs, or at the TUMO Box in Akhuryan. Besides TUMO Gyumri and the Akhuryan box you can even see one of them, Nane, on BBC. The siblings want to become skilled professionals in whichever field they specialize in because as they put it, “this is what Armenia needs to get stronger”. We peeked into their magical routine in and outside TUMO through a little questionnaire, so buckle up!

Q: What’s your first memory of TUMO?

Mery: The registration process. At that very moment, I had already wanted to dive into the world of TUMO.
Nane: The big red room where we do self-learning activities.
Davit: The first time I ever came to TUMO was with my sisters, but they couldn’t register me because of the age barrier, so I had to wait for four months.

Q: What are your favorite learning targets at TUMO?

Mery: Drawing, music, photography, graphic design, and 3D modeling.
Nane: Music, because I think it’s not only my hobby but also my passion, as I am a teenager, and it’s typical for people of my age.
Davit: Robotics and web development.

Q: What were the most notable learning labs you attended at TUMO?

Mery: “Ethnoculture” and “Soundtracks for Fairy Tales” where I created a soundtrack for an Armenian fairy tales, “The Swallow”.
Nane: “Ethnoculture,” where I composed an Argentinian tango, “Soundtracks for Fairy Tales” and Tom Auger’s “Art through Generative AI.”
Davit: The robotics ones.

Q: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned at TUMO?

Mery: Be more self-assertive.
Nane: Trusting myself.
Davit: It helped me decide what I want to do in the future.

^{Davit Hovhikyan’s website}

Q: What do you do outside of TUMO?

Mery: Music, drawing, and dance.
Nane: I love math and English.
Davit: Programming and developing websites. I also like participating in various contests, like the school competition ‘Koreez’ where I came out first.

Q: What do you plan to do in the future?

Mery: I have many goals for the future, which are more tangible now, thanks to TUMO.
Nane: I want to become a programmer.
Davit: I plan to become a programmer and start my own programming company.

Q: What’s one fun fact about yourself?

Mery: I sew clothes and knit dolls.
Nane: I never fail to smile.
Davit: I always like to be right and it doesn’t really matter what it’s about.

And one general answer to the question below:

Q: If you could say one thing to convince the teens of Akhuryan to join TUMO, what would you say?

A: TUMO will give you the opportunity to explore fields which can become your occupation in the future. Also, the fact that now kids can complete their self-learning activities at the box and go to the hub in Gyumri only for the workshops is already motivating enough.

We don’t know what the future is going to be like for the Hovhikyan siblings but we know for sure that it’s going to be magical. So, let’s wait and see.

What do you think of when you hear the word “Boxk?” (boghk is the Armenian word for radish) You probably think “vegetable,” right? You’re probably also wondering what that has to do with the young lad pictured above.

This is 14-year-old Artyom, and “Boghk” is the name of his animation YouTube channel, which he has been running for one year now.

Artyom lives in the city of Ijevan and has been attending TUMO Dilijan for two and a half years. From the age of six, Artyom’s parents had started to notice his interest in creating images.

He would take a piece of paper and colored pencils and start bringing his favorite cartoon characters to life. Once they heard about TUMO, they immediately decided to register Artyom.   

“When I first got to TUMO Dilijan, I had already managed to become familiar with TUMO’s 14 learning areas thanks to the internet. It was still very hard to decide on my selection of 6 learning areas,” Artyom shares.

In two and a half years, Artyom has managed to participate in animation, game development, motion graphics, drawing, music, and programming workshops.​​ At first, he attended the TUMO center in Dilijan (he was one of the first students at the center); for seven months, he has been completing his self-learning exercises at the TUMO Box in Azatamut, and now he studies in Ijevan box and goes to TUMO Dilijan to participate in the many, many workshops that interest him.

“My thoughts always seem to be traveling. Whatever I think up, I try to make it tangible. I’m on the road to turning my dreams into reality. I am focusing my skills and bringing life to my ideas, transforming them into lively and humorous animations. With every animation, I’m not only sharing what I love, but I also try to motivate others into realizing their ideas in this endless digital world,” says Artyom.

Artyom had been following different bloggers on YouTube from the age of six. Attending TUMO brought him to the realization that he wants to have his own channel. He started thinking about the content, the creation of the videos, and the name. Since his animations were humorous, he wanted to think of a funny name for the channel. And that’s how “Boxk” grew. He then contemplated whether he should be making the animations in Russian or English, but he came to the decision that they should be in Armenian.

Artyom edits his animations with Adobe Premiere and After Effects (software that he got familiar with on the web and enriched his understanding of at TUMO). By using the skills he attained at TUMO, Artyom improves the quality of his YouTube channel on daily.

The TUMO experience doesn’t only revolve around the Youtube channel and taking part in workshops. He has decided to advance his skills in the field of animation and eventually teach future animators who will attend TUMO.

Artyom’s favorite animation from his own repertoire (because it was the first he uploaded on his channel):

You can support, follow, and subscribe to Artyom’s channel “Boxk” here: https://www.youtube.com/@boxkanim

*The word “ study/learn” is used 16 times in this story, and that’s no accident.

16-year-old Narek studies a bit more than average, and we’re not merely saying this because it’s an obvious topic to open with. Technologies and design at TUMO and Armat Laboratories, math and English lessons, and finance and trading at home — if it seems his entire day is packed with studies, that’s because it is!

“I have classes from eight in the morning until six in the evening,” says Narek, a student at the TUMO Box in Kapan, and he does so not with disappointment but with a sense of pride. Narek doesn’t have classes (or TUMO focus areas) that he doesn’t like, because, as he relays, everything will serve him in the future.

Since he’s known for a while that he wants to become a full-stack developer when he grows up, the “I’ll need it in the future” mentality has led him to learn HTML, CSS, Python, Javascript and a few other programming languages. He’s currently studying React.

In an attempt to veer away from the topic of studies, we asked Narek about Kapan — what’s life like in his hometown?, which are his favorite spots? — and it turns out, what he loves most about Kapan is that the opportunities for self-development are numerous. “It’s not everywhere there’s a TUMO center and an Armat Lab.” His answer is not a surprise, but this teen’s yearning to learn is consistently amazing.

Narek first learned about TUMO from social media. He immediately looked into it and registered. TUMO — where you can learn something new everyday — and Narek — the boy that never passes on an opportunity to learn — were made for each other.

In the two years that Narek has been studying programming at TUMO, he has also managed to study graphic design, animation, writing, and a slew of other learning areas, develop a few websites, design logos, and even write a story.

One of Narek’s websites.

What Narek loves the most about TUMO is the variety of learning areas that are available, the significance given to independent learning, and his TUMOian friends. What he likes the least is that the TUMO center in Kapan is not open yet. Yes, Kapan’s railway station is currently still under construction and underway towards its transformation into the region’s TUMO hub, and the TUMO education has been currently available through the temporary TUMO Box cluster located next to the site. Anyway — we’re making a note to invite Narek to the opening and diving further into getting to know him better.

His favorite film is “A Piece of Sky”, and his favorite storyline from it is the moving story of the hero learning his father’s trade. Once again, amazing.

You’ll also have a hard time foreseeing Narek’s answer to the question “What do you wish for?”. Narek, who devotes most of his time to studying, dreams of building his future in such a way that he’ll be able to spend most of his time with his family. He hasn’t yet made up his mind about whether that future will be in Kapan or Yerevan, but one thing is clear — he is going to apply all the knowledge he’s accruing in Armenia.

Lusine, a coach at the TUMO Box in Spitak, talks about the movie that is her life, the film strip of which rolls through agriculture, TUMO, the lessons she’s learned from TUMOians, photography, and film itself.

Lusine’s Film

Lusine is a film director. Her favorite movie is Chungking Express, and her favorite director, Wim Wenders. She is sure that her current confident and daring characteristics is thanks to the world of film. “I applied to a few film festivals with my graduate film and received the award for Best Armenian Short Film at the One Shot Short Film Festival.”

Last year, Lusine participated in the Cinema Human Rights and Advocacy by the Global Campus of Human Rights and Picture People summer school in Venice. This coincided with the timing of the Venice Film Festival and Lusine is filled with a particular nostalgia about the films she watched then. “Some days I would watch 2-3 feature length films in one day. For a young filmmaker, taking part in a film-related phenomenon of that caliber is a dream.”

Agriculture is also a part of the movie of Lusine’s life. She loves to grow different plants and vegetables, like tomatoes and basil. “When you witness how a small seed grows and turns into food that later ends up on your plate, it’s quite a feeling.”

TUMO Before TUMO

Lusine learned about TUMO through students’ works she had seen online and could already imagine the kind of work they were doing behind the scenes. It was this curiosity that brought her to TUMO and didn’t allow the Vanadzor-Spitak-Vanadzor commute to hold her back. Lusine finds that for someone who wants to learn or work, external factors (e.g. transportation) are always overcomable.

As a TUMO Coach

When working as a coach at TUMO Lusine feels like a TUMOian, because, like her students, she too discovered TUMO’s numerous learning areas and among them found things she never thought would interest her before. Lusine also appreciates the independence that learning at TUMO allows, because, as she notes “the skill to learn independently, is the most important that someone should have”. Education is a two-way transaction: Lusine teaches her students, and she’s learned from them how to be a good friend. “It’s my favorite moment, when I see how the students’ bond grows stronger over time and how their friendships grow.”

Sometimes, she runs into her students on the bus from Vanadzor to Spitak and this becomes yet another platform to develop her coach-student rapport. For example, with one of the students from the TUMO Box in Spitak, Karen, they captured an epic shot of the cloud of steam rising from a group of people who were drying up after getting soaked by the rain.

Lusine thinks that a coach’s biggest achievement is the student’s excitement and how, with small steps, they create something big; for example, when a student finishes their self-learning prerequisites and starts attending workshops at TUMO Gyumri.

Uncovering Spitak

“When I started working in Spitak, I decided to really explore the city, poke around, because I knew nothing about it. In the process, along the path of my photography, I discovered an abandoned area — a soviet camp by the name of “Fairytale”, which was a big discovery for me and unexpectedly beautiful.”

Two Facts No One Knows About Lusine

Lusine’s first job was in a touring theater, where I played a frog in a performance staged for preschool children.

Her favorite pastimes are photography and biking. She hopes to one day travel by bike through all the cities and villages of Armenia.

The Future

Lusine envisions how she’ll one day lead a Filmmaking Learning Lab at TUMO, in which TUMOians from other target areas will also take part. For example, students excelling in writing will work on the script, graphic design TUMOians will design the poster, the artists will draw the storyboard, the musicians will be the sound engineers, and so on.

The TUMO Box in Maralik, operating for nine months now, has become the place where local youth discover new interests in innovative fields. Susana Kuznecova, 17-years-old, has already uncovered that filmmaking and music are on the top of her list of many TUMO interests.

Susana moved to Maralik from Moldova when she was seven. From her first home, she remembers the grape vines, her grandmother’s winemaking, and the scary stories her and her friends would tell around bonfires lit by the river.

Actually, whether randomly or by coincidence, her life revolves around the number seven; she also signed up to be a TUMOian on the seventh day of the seventh month, and started her first class on September 7, at 7pm.

Music is an irreplaceable part of Susana’s day-to-day life. She plays piano, guitar, and percussion instruments. On top of that, she creates digital music at TUMO, in which she can use any instrument virtually, including the violin, wind instruments, and even the xylophone.

Her love for music takes her from Maralik to Artik, where her and her friends’ band, The Pink Stones, practice. They took inspiration from The Rosy Stones, a band that played in the same city from 1978 to 1988. The Pink Stones play songs from different genres from covers of varying genres to their interpretations of Armenian songs.

“When mom got me my guitar, I taught myself to play. And then when we were looking for a guitar instructor to help me get better, they recommended I go to Artik. There I met my guitar teacher, Hamo, who’s the current leader of The Pink Stones. When he saw that I could play the guitar well, he decided to form a band with me and other young musicians,” Susana recalls.

Currently, Susana and Hamo are the only members from their original The Pink Stones group. New young musicians from Artik have come to replace the members that are now serving in the army or continuing their education.

In Susana’s opinion, their TUMO Box brought a wave of changes in their community. “For example, kids who couldn’t figure out what they wanted to do in life now come to TUMO with great enthusiasm to discover new fields.” recounts Susana.

“The first time I came to the TUMO Box, the environment immediately became dear to me. Meeting the coaches inspired me even more and I completed all of the available self-learning activities on the first day.” recalls Susana.

Susana’s favorite spot in Maralik is the park of Spitak Church, where the serene environment helps her collect her thoughts and draw the people and events that inhabit them.

When we asked her how she envisions her future, Susana didn’t enlighten us; she simply asked us to wait patiently, and get ready to be in awe when we see it, because the results will definitely amaze. Until then, she will continue to dive into film and drawing and spend countless hours with her band to achieve the ideal guitar solo.

15-year-old Ruzanna is one of the first students of the Artik TUMO box. During her 10 months at TUMO, she has managed to take part in the creative writing learning lab with Columbia University, reach level three of the graphic design workshop, compose music, create posters and logos, and more. Also, watch the video to see how one anime introduced to her by TUMO changed her life.

How did TUMO unlock “an unfamiliar world”, change Grigory Artazyan’s life, and lead him to Minerva, one of the best universities in the world?
20-year-old Grigor is a computer science student at Minerva University in the United States and has already studied at the Minerva campuses in South Korea and Taiwan, now he’s in India. In 2014, when Grigory was only 11 years old, he learned about TUMO from his friends, despite not knowing what to expect, he spent several months waiting for his 12th birthday to register. “After that, life changed. I started attending with friends, and the day of the week when we had to come to TUMO became our favorite. TUMO unlocked an unfamiliar world for me,” says Grigory.

New learning areas, failures, and successful moments

Grigory studied at Physmath, and he says that TUMO was a place for him to break away from subjects like physics and mathematics. Here, he was more interested in learning areas like graphic design and writing, while the filmmaking workshops and labs were his favorite.

“TUMO taught me to learn from failure and gather strength from my setbacks from a young age,” reflects Grigory. He remembers that he had failed the level two filmmaking workshop and had to wait six months to try again. During these six months, Grigory was encouraged by workshop leaders and coaches. Six months later, Grigory was in the third level of the filmmaking workshop. In 2019, he had already created the film “Clay Man” with his friends in Marie Ketring’s learning lab, which won the second place of the Vahé and Lucie Award.

From TUMO learning labs to Minerva University

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, TUMO’s learning labs were held online for a while. During that time, Grigory participated in Dylan and Sophia Moore’s learning lab, where he learned how to create interactive stories using AI, but also helped translate the lab for other TUMOians. It was then that he started thinking about continuing his education abroad. Grigory met Dylan and Sofia in person for the first time while he was in the US for an exchange program and he celebrated Thanksgiving at their house.

It was Dylan and Sophia who helped Grigory apply to a number of U.S. universities, by telling him his tips and tricks for applications. “I applied to about thirty universities and was accepted to several, but I chose Minerva, because the educational program allows me to travel around the world every semester, discover new countries, learn new things, study different subjects, and explore the world,” Grigory tells us.
Grigory’s next destination is Argentina. He doesn’t know what he’ll be up to after studying in eight countries yet, but he’s sure he wants to return to Armenia and contribute to the development of tech education.

Back in 2020, you might have read about the TUMO Path from Dina Yeghiazaryan’s perspective in this blog post. “The TUMO Path keeps getting better with time. I’m excited for what’s next,” said Dina in 2020. Since then, she’s come a long way. From a 15 year old exploring her interests to a freelance graphic designer with two years of professional experience at the age of 18. Let’s see what her secret to success was and what the TUMO Path had to do with it!

In October 2017, Dina decided to enroll at TUMO and her first picks were animation, graphic design, drawing, and every other “artsy” learning area you could come across. She had been drawing in her free time even before TUMO, but things got interesting when she found out that at TUMO she’d be drawing everything digitally. She was shocked when the workshop leader placed a tablet in front of her instead of pencils or paint.

From then on, her long and winding story with digital art and motion graphics began. It was in her level one graphic design workshop in March 2019 that she realized she could construct a career out of her static and dynamic designs. Not only was she interested in creating posters, she also wanted to animate the elements of the designs. This is why she decided to tackle all three levels of the motion graphics workshop at TUMO.

^{Dina’s level three motion graphics result, created in collaboration with two TUMOians}

Slowly but surely, she leveled up in her workshops and labs and began creating designs and illustrations for friends and family. Since then, she’s registered to freelancing websites and taken graphic design requests from people and companies across the world.

^{Dina in the Product Packaging Design learning lab with Sam Eckersley, Associate Chair of Graphic Design at SCAD}

Dina has worked with a team based in Yerevan to create promotional materials and animations for popular restaurants in the city. She even decided to go one step further and take a shot at web design through the web development workshop at TUMO.

Let’s see where the TUMO Path takes her the next time we catch up with her!

How did this 14-year-old student who was a rhythmic gymnast in Denmark become a Gyumri TUMOian?

Meet Anelia, who has mapped her road from Armenia to Denmark and back to Armenia, and is now a student at TUMO Gyumri. Anelia was 6 when she moved to Denmark with her family and she returned to Armenia when she was 11. During her 5 years in Denmark, Anelia became a rhythmic gymnast who was a national champion in Denmark.

“Of course it was difficult to adapt, but TUMO became my second home after I moved back.”

Anelia wants to explore whatever she can at TUMO: whether it’s programming, photography, animation, creative writing, web development or drawing, she likes all of the above and more!

Here, Anelia is at the creative writing workshop where she was interpreting paintings and writing stories about them.

The story Anelia wrote at a creative writing learning lab with Columbia University

“At TUMO, I realized that consistency is the key to success. It doesn’t matter what learning area you’ve chosen, you can achieve your goals if you’re consistent about them,” says Anelia.

^{Anelia’s graphic design project at Camp TUMO}

Besides this, Anelia is volunteering. She’s a part of the Social Media Marketing team at TeensLIVE, which is an informative platform for teens where she makes videos on trending topics.

Here, Anelia is filming an educational video on Papillomaviruses. “You come across so much misleading information on the internet and you never know which source to trust. By filming these videos, we’re trying to raise awareness among youth.”

Like many people her age, Anelia is in her self-discovery phase. She’s attending the Leaders Club at the KASA Swiss Humanitarian Foundation that’s helping her out with this. “The discussions we have here help me understand myself and others. I learned to communicate better and I think this is the first step to becoming a good leader.”

Recently, Anelia appeared on a BBC broadcast as part of a story about Armenia as the host country of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, and talked about TUMO and her hometown.

Anelia hopes that the Armenia-Denmark-Armenia road will have other stops in the future. She’s relying on the lessons learnt at TUMO to help her succeed.

Mher is from the generation of Transformers and Avatar fans. The only thing that made him different from his peers was Mher’s fascination with the 3D graphics that brought those movies’ superheroes and storylines to life.

When Mher turned 12 and entered TUMO, he was already familiar with 3D modeling, so he decided to discover new interests. He studied programming, game development, animation, and finally returned to his initial passion – 3D.

A handful of workshops and learning labs led him to his dream team: Mher was invited to be the 3D modeler o n the Tales of Neto game development project. The European Union funded anti-corruption game being developed by TUMO teens educated young people about fighting corruption in an interactive and entertaining setting.

Being so young and working on a real-life international project had many perks. Presenting the game in 2017 at the annual Lucca Comics & Games Festival in Italy was one of the major ones. Mher couldn’t believe that his first trip to Europe would not be for tourism. Tales of Neto went on to win the “Best Creative Innovation” prize at the NICE cultural and innovative festival in Essen.

By 2019, Mher had parted ways with 3D modeling. He was drafted into the army, and his military service coincided with the 44-day war. He doesn’t talk about it much. “Everyone knows what happened,” he says. After his service, Mher was looking for something that would get him back on track. That’s when he rediscovered his passion, 3D modeling. And this time, it looks like Mher and 3D have come together for life.

It’s been a year now that Mher has been working as a 3D modeler. He still comes across many challenges like working with human anatomy. He’s decided to develop his drawing skills and then specialize in game development.

Mher has many plans for the future, from working with big names in game development to opening his own studio. And all these ideas are connected to a global goal – contributing to the development of the video game industry in Armenia.