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Good practice Imported

TUMO Center for Creative Technologies

Armenia · Yerevan · See the Armenia profile · See the Yerevan profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 74% 57/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

TUMO is a free, privately funded after-school tech and creative-arts program in Yerevan, replicated in 15+ countries. An independent 2023 evaluation found alumni far more likely to study and work in ICT than matched peers, but also more likely to want to emigrate.

49% vs 24%
ICT employment, alumni vs. comparison
70% vs 63% vs 52%
Tertiary enrollment, male alumni vs. comparison vs. national average
76% vs 69% vs 62%
Tertiary enrollment, female alumni vs. comparison vs. national average
1.7x more likely
Alumni wanting to emigrate vs. comparison
15+
Countries with TUMO centres
TUMO Center for Creative Technologies

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
TUMO Center for Creative Technologies (Simonian Educational Foundation)
Period
2011-present
Keywords
education, digital skills, creative technology, youth development

Context

TUMO Center for Creative Technologies is a free, after-school programme in technology, design and creative arts for teenagers, founded in Yerevan in 2011, funded through rental income from a donated building and diaspora donations rather than tuition.

Results

An independent Dalberg Advisors evaluation using propensity-score-matched comparison groups found TUMO alumni were markedly more likely to work in ICT (49% vs. 24% of comparison) and had higher tertiary enrollment, but were also about 1.7 times more likely to say they wanted to emigrate from Armenia than the comparison group.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
TUMO workshop coaches and mentors, online curriculum content team

Conditions for success

  • funding day-to-day operations through building rental income and diaspora donations rather than tuition, keeping the programme free
  • using a franchise/licence model so new international centres pay fees that help fund further expansion inside Armenia

Common failure modes

  • alumni were about 1.7 times more likely to say they wanted to emigrate from Armenia than the comparison group
  • more than half of alumni said TUMO did not help them get into state universities
  • no independent outcome evaluation exists yet for any location outside Armenia

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding Own resources / municipal budget

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Data sources

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