The Melikian Center
The Odjaghian-Ordjanian-Melikian Fund (OOM)
The Odjaghian-Ordjanian-Melikian Fund (OOM)
Learn more about your impact
The Odjaghian-Ordjanian-Melikian Fund (OOM) in the ASU Foundation seeks to advance entrepreneurship, transparency, and accountability in Armenia and other countries in Eurasia and Eastern Europe transitioning to free and open market economies. The fund supports initiatives that unlock the human potential of a new generation of talented, hardworking citizens who seek a world free of corruption and who are committed to the rule of law.
The OOM Fund honors the memory of three remarkable twentieth-century members of the extended Odjaghian-Ordjanian family—Samson, Mikhail, and Armenak. Their modern enterprises in Russia and Persia employed hundreds of local citizens, enhancing the welfare of their respective families, and sustaining the wider Persian Armenian community of which they were a part. The OOM Fund has been launched with an initial contribution from Emma Ordjanian Melikian who in doing so seeks to carry forward the philanthropic vision of her forebears. Within the ASU Foundation, the OOM Fund is administered by ASU’s Melikian Center.
Impact of Donor Support
As a National Resource Center at a leading research university, the Melikian Center supports research, teaching, and public programs that extend knowledge of the significance of Central and East Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Russia in global affairs. The Center teaches critical languages; informs public policy, business, and international relations; and advances dialogue across national, disciplinary and ideological divisions.
Many of these students have gone home where they are successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives, venture capitalists, impact investors and senior government officials. The come home with a powerful American business education taught in a culturally sensitive environment, and respectful of the nuances of our cultural differences."