TEDxLittle Armenia

TEDxLittle Armenia Ideas worth spreading, now from Little Armenia. An independently organized TEDx event.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDxLittleArmenia event brings our community together for a day of sharing a TED-like experience. Licensed by TED and organized independently, it creates a space where people can connect through powerful stories and fresh perspectives. Our goal is to build a local platform that inspires us to rethink our lives, our future, and the world we shape together.

06/03/2026

"Sky" is a contemporary dance performance by Ludvig Ispiryan and Natalie Palmgren — a work that moves through emotion, memory, and the layers of human experience without ever needing words.

Performed at TEDxLittle Armenia under the theme of Hybrid Identities, the piece finds its power in what it leaves unspoken: the space between cultures, the weight of belonging, the body as a carrier of stories that language alone cannot hold. In an evening built around the many dimensions of the Armenian experience, "Sky" was more than an interlude. It was a continuation of the conversation, expressed through movement.

Watch the full performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqOhLrEfSFY

05/29/2026

“When you come from a smaller community that’s outside of the mainstream, it’s not a weakness... it’s a massive strength.”

In this deeply personal talk, Sev Ohanian traces his journey from growing up in a close-knit Armenian-American immigrant community in Los Angeles to finding his voice as a filmmaker – a journey that would eventually lead him to produce the most Oscar-nominated film of all time. Along the way, he shares how a “fake movie” made with family, friends, and zero budget became proof that the connections, resources, and support he thought he lacked were there all along. This talk is about storytelling, risk, and the quiet power of community.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZGs7vRyZi4

05/20/2026

"Learning gets its best when ideas are connected. Identity works the same way"

In this talk, Marie Lou Papazian explores how learning and identity don’t emerge from the fusion of two realities, but from the space in between. Drawing from her work in education and her experience founding the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies, she shares how creating the right conditions, such as freedom, connection, and curiosity, allows young people to develop skills, values, and a sense of self that feels authentic.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQw9yP9uLSQ

05/19/2026

"Now it's your time to catch your wave in life, and if you're lucky, you win the most."

In a world that rarely grows in straight lines, Ashot Arzumanyan challenges the way we think about progress. Drawing from his experience in venture capital and early-stage technology, he explores why exponential growth feels counterintuitive, and why understanding it matters far beyond startups and business.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evhz1x7kBvc

05/14/2026

"Stop watching your other life from the 10th row. Walk onto the stage."

From a five-year-old violinist in Aleppo to an engineer at NASA, a consultant at BCG, and now an AI founder — Armen Derkevorkian's life has refused to fit into neat boxes. In this talk, he explores what happens when the world keeps asking you to choose: musician or scientist? Practical or passionate? Logic or emotion? Through stories spanning childhood violin competitions, brutal engineering exams, and the moment everything changed, he reveals why the real breakthrough came not from picking a side, but from refusing to.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6WniXC1d-g

05/11/2026

"How should we design our own extinction ethically?"

Aroussiak Gabrielian confronts modern design’s obsession with stability, control, and permanence. Moving between ecological science, ancestral knowledge, and speculative prototypes, she reframes design as metabolic participation — an ongoing exchange within systems that exceed us. Her provocation is both unsettling and urgent: the future of design is not about preservation at all costs, but about learning how to participate responsibly in cycles that will outlast us.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qlHoXZL5m0

05/08/2026

"Every time I choose to practice kindness, I give the other person what I need most."

For years, Karen Khachikyan believed kindness was something you either had or didn’t. But while building Robin, a socially assistive robot designed to support children in hospitals and older adults in nursing homes, he began to question that assumption. In this deeply personal talk, he reframes kindness not as a personality trait, but as a skill: one that requires effort, intention, and practice.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RteHiPkm1w

05/05/2026

"A single greeting can signal belonging, forge connections, and change the course of your life".

In this moving and deeply personal talk, Ani Adjemian reflects on how entering a new space with a heartfelt greeting, like “Barev,” the Armenian word for hello, can become a catalyst for human connection. Drawing from neuroscience, cultural tradition, and lived experience, she shows how greetings are more than social rituals.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mulwG9L_4Pg

04/28/2026

They called hybridity our Achilles’ heel.
We saw it as superpower.

Shaped by displacement, migration, and lives built far from where we began, the Armenian experience was never meant to be one thing.

This is what TEDxLittle Armenia was all about, featuring voices, stories, and perspectives from a community that had its strength all along.



🎬 Created by Sanahin Papazian

04/11/2026

Some layers of identity can't be spoken. They live in movement, in memory, in everything we carry across borders and generations.

Ludvig Ispiryan and Natalie Palmgren found another way, through their dance performance, and our audience felt every second of it. 🩰

🎥 Sanahin Papazian

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