The bright idea of the Luys (Light) Foundation led 52-year-old Jacqueline Karaaslanian to change her life dramatically, leave her career at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and start a new phase of her life, in Armenia.


For more than 25 years at MIT including as a special projects director (Future of Learning Group), Karaaslanian had worked on developing educational programs worldwide. In 2009, she was invited to apply her talents in Armenia as the Foundation’s director.

“What grabbed me immediately was the vision of the program and how rich it was,” she says. “I think it will be a very powerful tool for the development of Armenia, and through this program we could connect all of the wealth of our minds together and put it in action.”

The Foundation offers scholarships to Armenian students (including from Diaspora), who earn admission to any of the world’s top 25 universities (determined according to the annual U.S. News and World Report ranking). So far, it has assisted 90 students, since it was established in 2008.

“All prerequisites for achieving success are encouraged through this program,” Karaaslanian says. “The government has defined the right vision and it was simply necessary to put it on the right track. That was very attractive for me.”

A second mission of the Foundation is to utilize the intellectual resources of the Luys scholars.

“When we give scholarships to students we don’t demand that he or she should live in Armenia, but we do demand that from the beginning they start working with us on different projects which we are doing and will do in the future within the ‘Develop Armenia’ program,” she says.

It is the Foundation’s policy to cover 50 percent of a student’s necessary expenses, while encouraging the student-scholar (up to age 40) to find other funding for the remaining half. Karaaslanian points out that AGBU is a main source applicants turn to.

“The message to a student is: ‘Get accepted and we will support you’,” says Karaaslanian. “I want to say thanks to AGBU for the cooperation. We’re all supporting the same efforts and building the future.”

Karaaslanian, who has a daughter studying in Italy and a son still in university in the United States, lived in France for 10 years before moving to the U.S. After Armenia gained independence, she came back to Yerevan, in 1993, for the first time since her family left when she was 10 (1966). She says she was surprised that education was a priority for Armenians even during their hardest days.

“I’d always had in my mind the thought of working in Armenia, but I needed an occasion, and the Foundation became that occasion,” Karaaslanian says. “Now I feel happy here. This is an opportunity to do something for Armenia in my modest way. I brought here not only my knowledge, but also my huge network of professionals, which will help me to put the focus on Armenia.

“This makes me feel that now I’m in the right place, doing something very important.”