EIF, Sun Microsystems Inc. and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are jointly implementing a project aimed at preparing quality professionals for the Armenian IT industry and helping companies achieve higher value added in their products and services. The objective of the project is to strengthen the skills of university graduates and introduce high productivity services to the Armenian IT sector.
The program draws on the experience and expertise of EIF in building new technology start-ups and university programs, and Sun Microsystems’ vast technological base and interest in Armenian market.
The project focuses on the establishment of advanced R&D, testing, integration, and educational facilities throughout Armenia. Currently, four Sun Training Labs were established at:
- Yerevan State University (YSU)
- State Engineering University of Armenia (SEUA)
- Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University (RAU),
- Gyumri Information Technologies Center (GITC).
Project Successes
The main successes of the Sun Microsystems GDA project have been the effective collaboration with EIF and the establishment of four computer laboratories and an R&D testing laboratory. Many students of the project have been able to receive internships with established companies that have led to full-time offers. In particular, 70% of the 185 graduates of the Sun training program received immediate offers of full-time employment and the remaining graduates all found jobs within two or three months. The main advantages of these students were cited to be strong practical skills along with solid theoretical background, and a tight match to current industry requirements.
The Sun Microsystems program is teaching up-to-date skills that are relevant to current employment opportunities in the Armenian IT sector, especially Java and Linux, both of which are universally applicable throughout the industry. The Sun Microsystems GDA program has proven to be an effective vehicle for training students and providing them with a path to full time employment with local businesses.
Solution Development Center
The Solution Development center is aimed at providing means for groups of companies, institutions, and individuals to deliver proof-of-concepts, pre-integration and pre-industrialization solutions. The solution development center allows developers to find a hosting center to make sure that they can perform the following type of activities:
- Installation and unit testing of solutions;
- Integration of the solution in a global IT environment, and ability to test the integration;
- Scalability testing, redesign of some components to guarantee robustness, manageability and predictability of outcomes;
- Creation of a hosting space where representatives of all a project partners can come and create a solution based on a complex integration;
- Service provisioning services for solutions requiring such services;
- Ability to perform pre-tests on upgrades/required patching.
The EIF/Sun Solution Center creates a unique collaborative environment for building and testing business solution prototypes. Customers, partners, engineers, and technology experts come together with a common goal of planning, building, and testing a customer solution based on Sun technology before customers take technology back to their businesses.
SUN MICROSYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING LABORATORY 
