Vazgen Galstyan’s bold ideas outsize the town he hails from. Originally from Jermuk, a mountain spa town of 5,500 in southern Armenia, Galstyan moved to Yerevan to study and ended up settling there. Exposed to the buzz of the capital, though, he often wondered what prevented towns like his to have some of the simple, yet creative initiatives that Yerevan boasts.

“What prevents people, for example, from riding bicycles, why are all the start-ups located in the capital?” maintains the 29-year-old who then gave up life in the capital and moved to Jermuk.