Welcome. Fab Lab Armenia Introduces a Global Network of Practitioners of Transformation Through the Mindset of Nexial Design

Jacqueline Karaaslanian

Fab Lab Armenia introduces Nexial Design: a new paradigm for a hyperconnected world moving at vertiginous speed. Together, we are revisiting what citizenship, learning, design, production, manufacturing, and industry mean today. You're about to meet a worldwide community already shaping the future that is already unfolding everywhere.

The Joy of Not Knowing: Artists, scientists, and the productive space of the unknown

Anna Gargarian

What might artists and scientists have in common when they confront questions that cannot be easily answered? From E.A.T. at Bell Labs to CETI in Byurakan, the talk explores curiosity, humor, collaboration, and discovery — and how these principles might shape a future Nexial Fine Arts Academy in Dilijan.

Nexial Design: Beyond a Discipline, Shaping the New Citizenship

Dominique Sciamma

Design is no longer just a craft, a renewed discipline — it's becoming a way of thinking, and everyone needs this new skill. This talk makes the case for design as a basic skill for citizenship, and for what it takes to teach it at scale.

From AI to AI: Designing Relationships with Evolving Systems

Florent Aziosmanoff

What richer possibilities for AI can we explore alongside those shaped by industry and finance? Understanding AI’s underlying mechanisms helps creators limit harm and design relationships that foster creativity and strengthen human autonomy.

Creating Digital Trust at the Service of People and Nations

Nerses Yeritsyan

Trust is not inherited — it is designed, one system and one service at a time. This talk makes the case for a nation redesigning itself in real time, working to keep pace with a fast-changing world.

From Complex Technologies to Systems That Serve Society

Moderator: Jacqueline Karaaslanian

Panelists:Dominique Sciamma, Florent Aziosmanoff, Nerses Yeritsyan, Anna Gargarian

The discussion explores how design can move beyond isolated products and technologies to shape intelligent systems that strengthen society, institutions, and national capability. Audience questions form an integral part of the dialogue.

Ancient Civilizations, Contemporary Responsibility

Haykuhi Muradyan

What can the experience of ancient civilizations teach us about continuity, resilience, and our responsibility to future generations?

Weaving knowledge for a New Reality

Ancestral Armenian Techniques Meet Bio-fabrication and the Circular Economy

Anoush Arshakyan

Erika Mirzoyan

How can the convergence of artistic practice, computation, digital fabrication, and biomaterials generate new forms of creative knowledge? What happens when we start thinking of nature, technology, biomaterial fabrication in a circular creation and production framework, contributing to a new intelligence in an interconnected world. Erika will showcase projects and products in process.

From Artistic Imagination to Real-World Solutions

Connecting fine arts, design and digital fabrication in Gyumri

Vahagn Ghukasyan

Young creators always explore new ideas, experiment with new media, and seek new forms of artistic expression. By connecting fine arts, design and digital fabrication, the Academy nurtures and augments their creative potential and output—helping them imagine new futures and new ways to contribute to society.

Art, Technology, and the Creative Industries

Moderator: Anna Gargarian

Panelists: Florent Aziosmanoff, Anoush Arshakyan, Dominique Sciamma, Haykuhi Muradyan, Erika Mirzoyan, Vahagn Ghukasyan

How are AI, digital technologies, and new creative industries transforming the roles of artists, institutions, collectors, and cultural economies?

How does Nexial Design change what it means to know something? Where do art and design differ, and where do they converge? How do we preserve creative work made with technologies that constantly change? How can collaboration between Fab Lab Armenia and the State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia become a living prototype for Armenia's future design culture?

From Mass Production to Personal Fabrication

Onik Babajanyan

What does a decade of Fab Lab Armenia teach about learning through making? Onik Babajanyan reports from the ground: what young people build when they are given tools, a network, and a real problem — and what it takes to make that the norm rather than the exception.

Rural and Community-Based Learning Infrastructure

Serob Khachatryan

Armenia's rural communities are usually described as an access problem and lagging behind. Serob Khachatryan reframes them as the natural home for powerful distributed learning: what a quality village school can become and how it can contribute as a creative node in a national and international network.

From Computer Science and AI Literacy to Real-World Solutions
Connecting Learning, Talent and Enterprise

Narek Aslikyan

How Armenia Code Academy responds to the challenge of offering quality technological education accessible across Armenia and to support sustainable development.

Toward a Nexial Design Mindset – A new Collective Intelligence for a New World

Moderator: Jacqueline Karaaslanian

Panelists: Dominique Sciamma, Nerses Yeritsyan, Anna Gargarian, Florent Aziosmanoff, Serob Khachatryan, Narek Aslikyan, Onik Babajanyan

The concluding session brings together the day's ideas, proposals, and audience contributions around a shared ambition: to strengthen a Nexial Design ecosystem that connects learning organizations, public and private enterprises, creative communities, and international university networks — enabling knowledge, resources, and collaborative projects to move across disciplines and institutions.