In early February businessman and philanthropist, founder of IDeA Charitable Foundation Ruben Vardanyan delivered a lecture on “Key Challenges of the XXI Century: People and Education” at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and the Center on Global Economic Governance, Columbia SIPA.

We present you some excerpts from the lecture.

New world

I believe we are living in a new stage of the world development. If we look at the XIX century, all was about land - people were trying to find more territory to control and expand. In XX century people were more focused on industrial assets and natural resources. Now we came to the stage of information society. The world is becoming much more integrated. On one hand, this is a world where we have a chance to learn from each other. On the other hand, we continue living in old stereotype of mentality.  I am Armenian by origin, I was born in Armenia, I made my career in Moscow, my family now lives in London, I am traveling all around the world and I am a global citizen.

Oil and Education

I graduated from Moscow State University and then I went to Harvard, INSEAD and many other schools, because I believe in education. Every two years I am trying to go to some school, spend two-three weeks there and just learn what's going on in the world, what are the key trends.

I believe education will be one of the biggest industries in the future. By the way, by revenue education industry today is bigger than oil industry. People do not realize it, because it is fragmented, it's not consolidated. But this consolidation is happening.

Working for the government

Today in Russia, unfortunately, 8 out of 10 graduates want to work for the government. People think they will have more prestige, more predictable and more respective position in society if they will be working for the government. How to change this situation? Only by making success stories and showing it’s possible. Reality perception is one of the key problems inside and outside of the society, and I always believe it is very important to try to bring in more colorful pictures.

Attracting the best people to work for you

One of the key elements of being successful are vision, consistency of delivering what you promised to deliver, values and attracting the best people to work for you. When I said I want to build an international high-school in Dilijan, Armenia, people said “What? International high-school in Armenia?” Now the [former] Deputy Head of Eton College is moving to Armenia to head the UWC Dilijan school.

Trust and long-term vision

Armenian, Russian [and other] emerging markets usually are very short-term operated. There are two elements, which I've always said to be critical for success – trust and long-term vision. Trust is one of the key problems for Russia and in many other countries with emerging markets. We don't trust each other, we don't trust institutions, government and business cost is much higher, because when you do not trust, you have to pay more money for lawyers, security and other related costs.