Creative Spark is a British Council programme aimed at developing enterprise education. Mediamax will provide updates on the implementation of the programme in cooperation with the British Council.

Michele Rusk is Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Leadership, Enterprise Fellow and Academic Supervisor at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. She came to Armenia by the invitation of the British Council and the American University of Armenia. Mediamax met with her before her lecture at AUA. The speech featured the ways entrepreneurial leaders inspire new ecosystems at universities, government departments, large corporations, and even civil society.

How can we improve “Armenian” ambitions for entrepreneurship?

The critical skill that young people in Armenia need to develop is confidence in their own abilities. This is my second visit to Armenia. I was here 20 years ago, and my impressions then are re-enforced now as I see that people in Armenia are extremely clever with a deep well of indigenous cultural sensibilities. I think that if the youth realized how gifted they are, they would be able to have the confidence to develop new businesses and new solutions to society’s problems. However, they need help of insightful policies by the government to do that.

What is the biggest lesson that young people in Armenia should learn to be successful?

First of all, they need to take calculated risks, dare and try. They need to understand that not everything will be successful straight away, but that when failure comes, resilience is the most important quality.

Did you learn the same lessons, when you were young? Or do you think that times are different and lessons are different?

I am a creative person, but creative people can be too early with their ideas. The most important lesson I learned was that sometimes it’s bad to be too early as it is to be too late. So now I think it’s better to read and then do something new. I also realized that through life your enthusiasm can be dampened because of challenges. It is very important to keep your enthusiasm because it’s the wellspring of creativity. It is important to live a creative life.

It seems someone really impressed you.

I have had teachers who impressed me, who ignited my enthusiasm for the history of art, for the Renaissance and for teaching others. I often advise young teachers not to underestimate their importance, since they are going to inspire the next generation. There have also been books that impressed me.

Could you tell us about those books?

I read the book by Jared Diamond “Guns, germs and steel: a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years”, which is about the humans, how languages have changed, and how we have developed. I really like that book.

Recently I have read the book by Steven Pinker “The better angels of our nature: why violence has declined”. It says that we think we are very violent, while in reality we have never been less violent in our history, which it is a message of hope for us.

Michele Rusk

Photo: Mediamax

I would also like to tell you about one of the best books that taught me to live. It is the work by Viktor Frankl “Man’s Search for Meaning”. He was a Jewish in the concentration camps, where he discovered that the difference between those who survived and those who did not was the sense of purpose among those who actually did. It didn’t really matter what the purpose was; it could be watching two cockroaches in a race or the belief in God. All those who had purpose had a better chance of survival.

In your opinion, what role do digital technologies play in learning entrepreneurial skills?

Digital technologies, particularly, machine learning and artificial intelligence will define our future. Those who understand these disciplines, those who are good at them, will be the masters of tomorrow. Armenia has great sensibilities and great expertise in software development, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Why is this important? Since now we have the capacity to know and understand huge amounts of data, we can see mega patterns, and we can see where things are going. This development will free us from mundane tasks.

That said, there are always negative sides to everything. This new tendencies may give oxygen to those who want to use them for bad purposes. We need new governance in place to stop those things from happening.

What do the Armenians need to develop their entrepreneurial environment?

I actually think that Armenians are very entrepreneurial. They’re smart, creative with a deep culture. You need to reach a tipping point, when enough people are involved in the process, and it becomes aspirational for others to follow. It is not just about governments.

I think that the Armenian Diaspora is the key to success, as they immigrated to Australia, America and elsewhere, but they still preserved great loyalty to this country. You need to look into the Diaspora, get them to come back and develop their homeland.

Lusin Mkrtchian talked to Michele Rusk

Photos by Emin Aristakesyan

Creative Spark is a five year initiative designed to support international university and institutional partnerships to develop enterprise skills and creative economy across seven countries in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan), South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) and Ukraine through UK support.

Due to the success of year one of the Creative Spark, the British Council announced it would fund a further 12 international partnerships. Each partnership will receive a maximum of GBP 40,000.

The applications for the grant will be accepted here from April 1 to May 12, 2019.

The series about “Creative Spark” on Mediamax.am is supported by the British Council.