Onik Babajanyan: Harnessing the Power to Create

We are living through a time when the way we learn, produce and lead is fundamentally changing. Global systems are becoming more distributed, technologies more accessible, and communities are empowered to shape their own futures. In this landscape, leadership is defined by the ability to cultivate capability — to build environments where people can create, collaborate, and grow.

As Director for Operations and Education Programs at Fab Lab Armenia Education Foundation and Fab Academy Instructor, Onik Babajanyan focuses on building systems that allow people to learn effectively, create confidently, and operate at scale.

Seeing technology as a system

Onik often speaks about digital fabrication as a system of relationships: between people and tools, ideas and materials, learning and responsibility.

With a formal education in radiophysics at Yerevan State University, he learned to work with complex communication systems where precision, reliability, and feedback loops matter. Today, those same principles guide how he designs educational programs, manages lab operations, and supports instructors and learners across the Fab Labs ecosystem.

“In digital fabrication, everything is connected,” he notes. “The tools, the curriculum, the community, the mindset. If one element doesn’t work, the system doesn’t reach its full potential.”

This systemic thinking became especially visible as the lab expanded its educational reach. When Fab Academy student Yryszhan Sansyzbay from Kazakhstan joined the lab for support, the Fab Lab Armenia team provided not only technical guidance but also structured mentorship and operational clarity, fostering an environment for learning and growth. He successfully graduated — and his positive experience inspired four additional students from Kazakhstan to choose Fab Lab Armenia as their academic node. What began as support for one learner evolved into cross-border trust and regional expansion.

Responsibility as lived experience

An important chapter of Onik’s path unfolded in an environment where technology directly supports coordination, trust, and continuity.

As an officer in the Armenian Armed Forces, he worked with communication systems and radio operations — infrastructure that enables people to act together under extremely demanding conditions. Leading a unit of ten soldiers and progressing from lieutenant to senior lieutenant, he developed discipline, decisiveness, and a deep understanding of responsibility under pressure. Precision, reliability, and collective responsibility became everyday practice.

These qualities later translated naturally into his work in education and innovation — grounding long-term vision in operational reliability.

That operational mindset was evident in 2025, when the team prepared and deployed a fully functional pop-up lab for the Finnoway Expo in just one week. Rapid coordination, technical setup, and team alignment transformed an ambitious timeline into working infrastructure — demonstrating that creative ecosystems require disciplined execution.

From Access to Agency

Onik, a Fab Academy graduate, joined Fab Lab Armenia in a leadership role as the organization expanded both its educational reach and operational ambition. A key influence along this path has been the mentorship of Babken Chugazyan, former CEO of Fab Lab Armenia and now a Global Instructor within the worldwide Makers Movement network of over 3,000 fab labs, working closely with the original founder’s team led by MIT Professor and physicist Neil Gershenfeld.

Through their ongoing exchanges, Babken and Onik explored how to guide Fab Academy students toward a deeper understanding that openness, high standards, and long-term thinking are not trade-offs but mutually reinforcing principles in building meaningful technological innovation.

As Onik’s responsibilities expanded from building systems to supporting people, a broader perspective took shape. Today, he sees digital fabrication as a tangible shift from consumption to agency.

“When people can design and build what they need and when they need it, their relationship with technology changes. They stop being passive users and become active participants and agents of change.”

This philosophy is evident in the lab’s expanding educational impact. For the first time, Fab Lab Armenia is supporting seven remote Fab Academy students alongside its local Armenian cohort — a testament to both growing international trust and the lab’s operational maturity in mentoring across borders.

Expanding access beyond Yerevan has also become a priority. Through collaboration with SDA, the lab secured funding for two additional students from the Gyumri Fine Arts Academy who  enrolled  in the Fab Academy 2026 program — opening pathways for regional talent to access advanced digital fabrication education.

Beyond education, the lab’s applied capabilities have translated into industry collaboration. An initial 3D development project delivered for Green Rock evolved into a larger commissioned 3D-printed decorative installation for a modern fireplace, reinforcing the lab’s ability to transform creative concepts into tangible production partnerships.

From render to reality — a 3D-printed fireplace created for Villa 3 Community Hub by Areg Khalatyan, Head of Industrial Design & Fab Academy Support Instructor at Fab Lab Armenia Education Foundation.

Fab labs, in this sense, become spaces where global expertise meets local context — where knowledge circulates across disciplines and borders and communities gain practical capacity.

Civic Infrastructure in Action

Digital fabrication is not only about machines and materials; it is about technological literacy and shared confidence.

During a cybersecurity event organized with ISAA in Dilijan, Onik presented digital manufacturing concepts to more than 100 middle school students — introducing them to the idea that technology is something they can shape, not just consume. Fab labs function as civic infrastructure: places where curiosity becomes capability and where innovation grows from the collective effort.

The future of digital production is tightly linked to a worldwide movement of a vast majority of nations reclaiming production on their own territory.

Looking ahead, Onik envisions digital production becoming more embedded in everyday life — not centralized in distant factories, but integrated into education, entrepreneurship, community problem-solving, and a boost for local manufacturing.

He points to several key directions:

• Localized production, where ideas are developed and fabricated close to where they are needed.
  
• Education through making, where learning is experiential, collaborative, and interdisciplinary.
  
• Networked innovation, connecting Armenia’s talent with the global Fab Lab ecosystem.
  
• Operational maturity, ensuring that creative spaces are reliable, inclusive, and scalable.
• Providing a Skilled Force for local manufacturers.
  

In this future, fab labs function as long-term infrastructure — enabling resilience, experimentation, and distributed innovation.

Production is becoming more local, adaptive, and collaborative. Design, engineering, and education merge into a single process of learning by making. Digital fabrication connects global knowledge with local action.

“Fab labs serve as civic infrastructure,” Onik reflects, “places where technological literacy becomes cultural capital, where people gain agency through creation, and where innovation grows from shared effort.”

Onik invites you to visit Fab Lab Armenia open to the community every Saturday from 11 AM to 4 PM. Bring your curiosity and courage to try and make your ideas come to reality, whether it is to build your own music instrument, or 3D print a missing part to your vintage car, or build a toy for your grandchild, a creative mind has no limits and technology is here to make it happen.

Be Future Ready!

Fab Lab Armenia is for:

Students who wish to discover their creative power, express their full potential, and realize that they can build almost anything.

Educators who wish to reimagine their own learning and teaching through a hands-on digital fabrication lab, where they can also create their own teaching support material. For example, a geography teacher could 3D-print the topography of a specific landscape, while a history teacher could bring King Levon V of Lusignan to life by 3D-printing a model of his tomb from the St. Denis Church in Paris.

Business and start-ups, transforming bold concepts into functional prototypes to demonstrate the sustainability of their ventures. 

Communities ready to build their own solutions to their emerging needs together—whether it’s street animal shelters, musical instruments for schools, furniture for local kindergartens, and more.

Fab Lab Armenia stands as a space where curiosity becomes capability, and ideas become shared achievements — locally grounded and globally connected.

“When people experience their own ability to create,”  Onik reflects, “they begin to shape their future with confidence.” 

Closing

Leadership grows where responsibility meets care — care for people, for systems, and for the futures they enable.

At Fab Lab Armenia, among machines, materials, and ideas in motion, Onik Babajanyan represents a steady, optimistic continuation: a future built through learning, applied work, cooperation, and the shared power to create.

Every big idea starts with a single step — the choice to try. At Fab Lab Armenia, we turn imagination into action. Here, you can learn new skills, bring real solutions to life, and shape the world around you.

The tools are ready. The community is ready. All that’s missing is you. Join us every Saturday from 11 am to 4 pm, or book a special appointment, and start creating.