Armenia | DOTCOM in Armenia | 5 May 2010

David, Marine and Shahen

Success
Young Armenian students Marine Ghazaryan, David Avoyan and Shahen Mailyan are participating in DOTCOM program, which started in October 2008, implemented by PH International with funding provided by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. Within the the program 30 students created their blogs, where they completed their assignments. Soon together with 7 other Armenian students they were selected to travel to the USA to participate in a 3-week DOTCOM exchange program with focus on media literacy and cross-cultural understanding, where they met with 10 American and 10 Azerbaijani DOTCOM participants. It was a great pleasure to communicate and interact with people with different cultures and together make 10 films raising awareness on different social issues.

Overview
Upon their return to Armenia DOTCOM participants kept interacting and socializing through social networks. At the same time they organized Social Media and Web 2.0 tools trainings for their peers from other Armenian schools.


Afterwards the program continued with a meeting of American, Armenian and Azerbaijani students in the Caucasus. Together with other students Marine, David and Shahen participated in the “Social Conference for Social Change” conference in Georgia. Although they are not novice in social media and blogging, they learned quite a lot of useful information and made good connections. Many professionals from all over the world made very original and interesting presentations.


Marine, David and Shahen have been greatly inspired by the DOTCOM program which closes in June 2010. In order to continue their interesting educational journey launched through DOTCOM, the students had applied for the DOS-funded FLEX (Future Leaders Exchange) program and have been selected as finalists. Marine, David and Shahen are looking forward to having a terrific academic year in the US. David has even started a new blogon the upcoming academic year in the US. The FLEX program will build on their DOTCOM experience with new remarkable memories and will definitely help Marine, David and Shahen to enrich their knowledge.