Co-Founder of Team Telecom Armenia Speaks at EPIC Hack Night
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YEREVAN, Armenia — On April 8, the Entrepreneurship and Product Innovation Center (EPIC) at the American University of Armenia (AUA) hosted the Co-Founder of Team Telecom Armenia, Alexander Yesayan, at Entrepreneurship Hack Night. The auditorium was filled to capacity with AUA faculty, students, alumni, and the outside community as Yesayan shared his unique entrepreneurial journey while providing insight into the evolution of Armenia’s telecommunication industry. From providing Voice over Internet Protocol services from his apartment in the 1990s to building the largest telecom company in Armenia, his is a story of persistence, motivation, and growth to achieve success. The inspiring talk was followed by a spirited Q&A session.
Yesayan opened his talk by sharing the story of the founding of Ucom CJSC. He co-founded the company back in 2007 with his brother and subsequently successfully acquired Orange Armenia. More recently, the Yesayan brothers established Team Telecom Armenia, a new telecom company in the country, which was quickly followed by the acquisition of VEON/Beeline Armenia. Team Telecom Armenia now boasts of employing over 2,000 people.
EPIC Assistant Director Nejdeh Hovanessian sums up the talk from a listener’s perspective, noting, “For the new generation of startup founders, hearing the real-life stories of successful entrepreneurs directly from them is insightful and motivating. Alexander showed how his success as an entrepreneur is built upon a journey of myriad failures, remarkable resilience, and unbeatable optimism.”
In response to a question from an EPIC incubation program participant on how to achieve success, Yesayan emphasized being persistent, flexible, and resourceful, elaborating that in almost every case, nothing goes according to plan. By their very nature, startups do new and different things that people often resist. Startup founders need to expect and overcome resistance or rejection and never take “no” for an answer.
Entrepreneurship Hack Night is specifically designed to provide resident budding entrepreneurs of the EPIC startup incubation program valuable insight and inspiration for their startup journey. Yesayan is an active member of the Armenian communication and technology ecosystem. He was elected as a Board of Directors Member by the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA), and is the organizer of the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT). He was the chairman of the organizing committee of WCIT 2019, one of the largest and most prestigious Information and Communication Technology (ICT) events in the world. Since 2015, Alexander has served as the President of the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE).
The Entrepreneurship and Product Innovation Center (EPIC) is a platform of the American University of Armenia (AUA) for promoting entrepreneurial education, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and startup venture incubation. EPIC provides an ecosystem for emerging entrepreneurs consisting of first-class facilities and collaborative workspace, programs and events, and a network of mentors, advisors, and investors. EPIC fosters the understanding and application of entrepreneurship in students and faculty at AUA to craft high-impact multidisciplinary ventures.