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August 27, 2011
FAF and AGBU Announce Launch of NUR Plan in Karabakh
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(Left to Right) AGBU Central Board member Vasken Yacoubian, entrepreneur Eduardo Eurnekian, Chief Executive Director of FAF Ana Cristina Schirinian, and NUR program manager Sebastian Arias-Duvall.
The launch of NUR Plan in Karabakh by Fruitful Armenian Fund and the Armenian General Benevolent Union was announced at press conferences held in Stepanakert on August 15 and Yerevan on August 16, with the participation of representatives from both organizations.
Following the agreement signed last January between Karabakh Prime Minister Ara Harutyunyan and Argentinean-Armenian entrepreneur Eduardo Eurnekian, FAF presented the general concept of NUR, a plan aimed at changing the future of the educational system. NUR will be implemented with the cooperation of AGBU, the world's largest nonprofit Armenian organization, which will be providing on-the-ground support to ensure the success of the project.
NUR has been conceived following the concept of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). OLPC is an educational program developed at the Boston-area MIT university. OLPC has successfully married a hands-on approach to education with an affordable laptop computer, the XO, which was designed for educational purposes. XO is not a conventional laptop. It is a waterproof computer with durable batteries that are charged through solar cells. The units, which have Armenian keyboards, are designed to be drop-resistant and they are made so that information cannot be lost.
The program will be providing XO laptop computers to first- to fourth-grade students and their teachers. As part of the agreement, the government of Karabakh has agreed to provide Internet access at participating schools.
In the first stage, which begins September 2011, 160 teachers from schools in the Karabakh cities of Stepanakert and Shushi will start training through an intensive three-week course on SUGAR, the educational software used by XO. They will also attend a six-week virtual course to incorporate further updates on the different programs to be used with the students.
The government will also oversee that the remaining cities and towns in Karabakh will receive hi-speed Internet service so that they can participate in future stages of the project.
"NUR is close to AGBU's mission. The Union is interested in educational projects. Collaboration within the framework of NUR is favorable for all parties. With this, we will be developing one of the most valuable potentials of the Armenian nation – the human being," said Vasken Yacoubian, AGBU Central Board member.
"This is a new way of learning. We learned with books, they will learn with computers. They only need to have it, the rest they will do on their own," said Ana Cristina Schirinian, executive director of Fruitful Armenia Fund.
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