Company Presentation: PicsArt by Artavazd Mehrabyan

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YEREVAN, Armenia – On March 9th, the College of Sciences & Engineering hosted an exciting public lecture led by Artavazd Mehrabyan, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of PicsArt, and proud AUA Alumnus. Prior to founding PicsArt Photo Studio, he served as Chief Software Architect at Sourcio and Lycos Europe. Mr. Mehrabyan also conducts practical classes in software architecture and object-oriented analysis at various universities. Mr. Mehrabyan has a Master’s in Computer and Information Science from the American University of Armenia.

With 250+ million installs and a global community made up of more than 65 million monthly active users, PicsArt is a powerful photo-editing, drawing, and collage making app. PicsArt was named one of the top 5 “Hottest Startups of 2015” by Forbes and Google Play ranked PicsArt as one of the “Best Apps of 2015.” In the same year, PicsArt raised a total of $25 million in venture funds from Sequoia Capital and Insight Venture Partners. PicsArt has offices in San Francisco, California and Yerevan, Armenia.

Mr. Mehrabyan, joined by a few colleagues, gave rare insights about the development of  PicsArt including the challenges and triumphs that come with creating a start-up company, and technologies that were covered at the talk included: image processing, big data, machine learning / neural networks, and video manipulation/streaming. He also spoke about the unique features of the photo-editing and sharing app, and how the creative mobile community that is actively using the app, are blurring the boundaries between professional and unprofessional photography. The hands-on team at PicsArt uses cutting edge technology to detect and track user trends, and understand user behavior in order keep them fully engaged.

Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia and affiliated with the University of California. AUA provides US-style education in Armenia and the region, offering high-quality, graduate and undergraduate studies, encouraging civic engagement, and promoting public service and democratic values.