On January 26 a regular scientific conference was held in the house of Scientific meetings of NAS RA dedicated to the following topic: "Creating a cloud computing environment for solving scientific and applied problems".

The main purposes of this project are the problems of natural science and the development of cloud infrastructure (hydro-meteorology, ecology, seismology, biology and ecological monitoring of Lake Sevan) using the capabilities of national research electronic infrastructure.

Leading specialists took part in the conference with their speeches from Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia, The Institute for Informatics and Automation Problems, the Institute of Molecular Biology, the Institute of Geological Sciences, the Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics, the Institute of Geophysics and Engineering Seismology named after A. Nazarov, Service of Hydrometeorology and Active Influence on Atmospheric Phenomena (Ministry of Emergency Situations of RA), Environmental Impact Monitoring Center (Ministry of Nature Protection of RA) and from other organizations.

On January 23, 2019 we held a meeting between Prof. Jean Pierre Jessel and IIAP staff. The staff presented IIAP's activities in the field of digitalization and discussed possible options for cooperation in that field.

We are delighted to host Prof. Jean-Pierre Jessel (Toulouse Institute of Computer Science Research, France, https://www.irit.fr/) in the frames of Erasmus+ program in IIAP. The scientific discussions during the first day of his visit to IIAP will strengthen sustainable collaboration of IIAP and IRIT. The second day of his visit will enable MS Students to participate in a Master-Class on “Virtual and Augmented Reality”. As part of his visit Prof. Jean-Pierre Jessel will also have meetings at French University of Armenia.

Today a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Institute of Informatics and Automation Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of RA, on behalf of Deputy Director of Science Vladimir Sahakyan and the United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (http://uiip.bas -net.by/eng/), on behalf of Vice President for Scientific and Innovative Affairs, Sergey Kruglykov.

The aim of the Memorandum is to ensure the development of science and technology in both countries, to strengthen scientific ties through international cooperation.

According to the MOU, both institutions are seeking ways to develop and carry out collaborative activities, such as exchange of scientists and researchers, implementing joint projects in different spheres with the use of technology, development of joint initiatives on information technologies.

The signing of the Memorandum was preceded by a multilateral discussion between the parties, for which besides Vice President for Scientific and Innovative Affairs of the United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Sergey Kruglykov, the Director of the Institute of Mathematics of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Sergei Lemeshevsky, and the scientific researcher of the Unified Institute of Mechanical Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Alexander Zaytsev also visited Armenia.