CALENDAR OF UPCOMING & PREVIOUS EVENTS
Emma Arakelyan is speaking as the panel moderator at this conference and she is also sponsoring the event.
Startups from any industry and from Armenia and from any other country are invited in person (registration will be required and more information to come later this week) or attending via live stream globally.
The conference titled “The Startup Revolution: What are your rights and how to protect them” is being organized by U.S. Armenian Bar Association and sponsored by Orion Worldwide Innovations, LLC.
This inaugural program will bring together leaders in the field of Intellectual Property Law from the United States, Canada, Armenia, Russia and Australia to share their knowledge and #expertise with the startup #ecosystems of #Armenia and beyond. The program will be submitted for #accreditation.
Topics to be covered during four dedicated panels: 1. Establishing and growing your startup #practice; 2. How to protect your #IntellectualProperty; 3. Challenges and opportunities facing #startups in Armenia; 4. How to #protect your #TradeSecrets and the #BestPractices in #IPLitigation.
The event will close with a reception with wine and #ArmenianBrandy tasting.
Columbia University, New York City
The StartUp Revolution: What Are Your Rights and How to Protect Them
Program
8:30 A.M. – 9:30 A.M. – Registration and breakfast
9:30 A.M. – 9:45 a.m. – Opening Remarks – Souren A. Israelyan, Esq.
10:00 A.M. – 11:15 A.M.
Establishing and growing your startup practice
Topics covered:
- Organizational formation, types of organizations (corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, joints ventures), subsidiaries, cross-border entities
- Brand identification and protection
- Developing and protecting business trade secrets
- Non-disclosure, non-compete, non-circumvention agreements
- Special considerations for IT startups
- Special consideration for non-for-profit startups
- Typical agreements with customers/vendors/employees
- Online terms for websites, apps and social media pages
- Privacy policies
- Setting your data strategy and establishing data practices
- Aligning business partners
- Maintaining transparency
- The role of digital assets in today’s business environment
- Business and personal digital assets
- Steps to keep control
11:15 A.M. – 11:30 A.M. – Midmorning break
11:30 A.M. – 12:45 P.M.
how to protect your intellectual property
topics covered:
- What is and is not intellectual property
- How to protect intellectual property
- Trademarks
- Copyrights
- Patents
- Licensing
- Outsourcing
- Open source options
- Customs and practices of engagement with startups
- International protection of intellectual property
- In-house counsel perspectives
12:45 P.M. – 2:00 P.M. – Lunch break
2:00 P.M. – 3:15 P.M.
challenges and opportunities facing startups in armenia
Moderator: Emma Arakelyan
topics covered:
- Commercialization of intellectual property
- Raising capital for startups
- Initial public offerings, initial coin offerings, crowdfunding, etc.
- Ecosystem of IT startups in Armenia
- Marketing and entry into market
- Global reach of Armenian startups
- Mergers and acquisitions involving startups
- Success stories
- Emerging opportunities
- Challenges ahead
- New frontiers
3:15 P.M. – 3:30 P.M. – Midafternoon break
3:30 P.M. – 4:45 P.M.
How to protect your trade secrets
and the Best practices in IP litigation
Why startups need to know
topics covered:
- Protection of trade secrets in global cyber world
- Defense of Trade Secrets Act, what you need to know
- Trade secret misappropriation
- Current environment of threats and proactive cybersecurity management
- Cybersecurity regulation and enforcement
- Breach of cybersecurity and crisis management
- Legal obligations arising from attacks
- E-Discovery hosting and review tools
- Recent Supreme Court decisions affecting IP practice
- Evolving legal standards and practices
- Best practices in IP litigation
4:45 P.M. – Closing Remarks
Armenian Wine and Armenian Brandy tasting
Emma Arakelyan is a WCIT 2019 (www.wcit2019.org) Congress Content Committee Member and is leading Lightening Rounds Innovation Program at a Congress.
This year the Congress will be held in Yerevan, Armenia from October 6 to 9 and will include sessions on topics ranging from artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and smart cities to cybersecurity, climate change, and more.This year, WCIT will address The Power of Decentralization: Promise and Peril and explore how information and communications technology is transforming our lives for better and for worse—its impact on profits and prosperity, safety and security, democracy and humanity.
During the Lightening Rounds Innovation Program over 3 days, 15 companies and/or technologies will be showcased at the plenary session attended by 2,000 information and communications technology (ICT) leaders-CEOs and investors, policy makers and government officials, academics and technologists.
About WCIT
WCIT is the signature event of the World Information Technology & Services Alliance (WITSA), a consortium of ICT associations from 83 countries, representing 90% of the industry. For 40 years, technology leaders—CEOs and investors, policymakers and government officials, academics and technologists—have joined in this annual event to discuss the state of the industry, where it is headed and what it means for our future. Past speakers include Bill Clinton, Vint Cerf, Bill Gates, Ginni Rometty, Larry Ellison, Anne Mulcahey, Faqir Chand Kohli, and Michael Dell.
Emma Arakelyan will be attending European Model Company Act (EMCA) meeting in Vienna, Austria on January 31, 2020. She will be representing IP Protection and Corporate Law Improvement program sponsored by the Armenian Bar Association and supported by the Ministry of High-tech Industry of Armenia, Orion Worldwide Innovations and TheChisel along with the delegation from Armenia: Rafik Grigoryan, First Deputy Minister of Justice, Armenia and Ara Khzmalyan, Partner, Adwise Consulting. The discussion will be about Corporate Law reforms and directions taking place in Armenia and The Corporate Law Improvements submitted to the government. The meeting will cover company act other topics and also have representatives from other countries: distinguished professors, attorneys and business leaders from Austria, Luxembourg, Germany, Lithuenia, Georgia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Macedonia.
About EMCA
The EMCA was established in 2007 and is designed as a free-standing general corporation statute that can be enacted substantially in its entirety by the Member States, or they may enact selected provisions of the Model Act.
The EMCA offers the Member States a model company law, which leaves it to each Member State to decide whether it will offer its businesses the advantages given by harmonisation. The major benefit from an integrated company law framework is that it establishes similar conditions for company shareholders and third parties all over the EU, thus facilitating cross-border investment and trading by ensuring shareholder rights and rebuilding investor confidence.
However, at the same time the EMCA allows special local considerations and for experimentation with new or different ideas, as Member States are free to opt out of parts of the Model Law in order to implement national company law innovations.
Thus, the EMCA can be a tool for better regulation in the EU, as it will prove to be a coherent, dynamic and responsive European legislative framework. Member States will benefit from using the Model Act as a company law paradigm, as it will be a modern competitive company law
Emma Arakelyan will be interviewed by Carolina Rossini of Network Readiness Index (NRI) on September 8th, 2020.
Carolina leads Portulans Institute, the publishing house for the Network Readiness Index (NRI). Over the last two decades, the NRI has established itself as one of the most comprehensive assessments of digital readiness, this year covering over 135 developing and developed economies and representing over 95 percent of global GDP. Many economies utilize the NRI to design their digital strategies, connecting Technology with People, Governance, and Impact.
For the 2020 NRI – launch planned for late October 2020 – NRI is working on content (written and multimedia) based on interviews with Ministers, C level executives, and thought leaders. The interview with Mrs. Arakelyan will be one the interviews to enrich the discussion around the following topics:
- Does every organization need to be digitally transformed to stay competitive/survive? Similarly, how COVID has affected the need for digital transformation
- What leadership/culture is needed to ensure digital transformation does not exacerbate the global digital divide?
- What is the role of reskilling, upskilling, lifelong learning in becoming a future-ready firm/government/society? How urgently should firm leaders across industries be reskilling themselves and their staff? How does a crisis – like COVID – impact the need for reskilling?
- How can we make sure that digital transformation remains human-centric and ethical while also providing firms/governments/economies with a competitive advantage?