MEDIA ADVISORY: Innovate Armenia brings together best of Armenia’s intellectual and innovative talent

Festival organized by USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies celebrates the cultural and technological innovation of the Armenian diaspora

Contact and Media RSVP: Ian Chaffee at ichaffee@usc.edu or (213) 810-8554

WHAT:
Innovate Armenia is an all-day festival on the USC campus of thinkers and ideas that are reimagining and redefining art, technology and scholarship. Festival events include panels, interactive exhibits and a maker space for hands-on collaboration between scientists and festival-goers to solve or observe engineering challenges.

WHEN:
Saturday, Sept. 23, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

WHO:
• The USC Institute of Armenian Studies, an international resource that convenes and supports a multidisciplinary community of scholars who probe social, educational and political challenges impacting Armenian communities, the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian diaspora.
• David Ignatius and Adi Ignatius — David is a Washington Post columnist and Adi is the editor of the Harvard Business Review
• Pulitzer Prize-winning literary icons Peter Balakian and Viet Thanh Nguyen, also a USC professor
• Hovig Etyemezian, chief of the Mosul operation for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
• Paul Berberian, CEO of Denver-based Sphero, maker of smartphone-controlled toy robots used in education
• TED-style talks with scientists, scholars and educators, including Jet Propulsion Lab roboticistRichard Ohanian and Houston-based International Space Safety Foundation president Michael Kezirian
• Interactive experiences with chess grandmaster Tatev Abrahamyan and international chess master Andranik Matikozyan
• Brazilian photographer Norair Chahinian, whose work appears alongside vintage postcards of Armenian life in the pre-genocide years in “Undeliverable: Postcards and Photos of Lives Interrupted,” an installation at Doheny Library running through Dec. 18

For details, please visit http://armenian.usc.edu/event/ innovate-armenia-2017.

WHERE:
Trousdale Parkway, Bovard Auditorium and Alumni Park, USC campus

RSVP for parking information.