Student achievements: Jessie Klzi

Yerevan, Armenia — The American University of Armenia’s Bachelor of Arts in Politics and Governance program congratulates 2026 graduate Jessie Klzi on an exceptional undergraduate journey that has taken her from the classrooms of AUA to academic conferences, forums, and youth programs across Europe.

One of her most recent academic milestones was presenting original research at the Y-Conference 2026, organized by the Yerevan Center for International Education. Her paper, “After the Territory: Small Peoples and the Digital Geographies of Collective Survival,” was presented during the panel “Affective Geographies of Loss: Mapping, Tagging, Graffitizing.” The conference brought her into conversation with scholars from different countries and further strengthened her interest in academic research.

Digital governance has emerged as another central thread in Jessie’s academic and civic engagement. In 2025, she was invited to speak at the Armenian Internet Governance Forum (ArmIGF), a national multistakeholder platform aligned with the United Nations Internet Governance Forum. Representing the BAPG program, she addressed an audience of government, civil society, academic, and private-sector representatives and contributed to discussions on digital governance, civic participation, and internet policy in Armenia.

Her interest in the field soon extended beyond Armenia. Jessie was selected for the South Eastern European Dialogue on Internet Governance (SEEDIG) Youth School 2025, which brought together young professionals from 18 countries. The program combined coursework on digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, multilingualism, regulation, and multistakeholder governance with discussions on emerging issues such as generative AI and deepfakes. She later attended the SEEDIG 10 Forum in Athens, where government officials, academics, civil society representatives, and private-sector professionals discussed the future of digital governance in South Eastern Europe.

Back in Yerevan, she continued exploring how technological change is reshaping governance through the GIZ “Digital Democracy for All” Ideation Lab on AI Governance. The two-day program focused on issues including AI in public services and e-governance, cybersecurity, and education policy. During simulation exercises, Jessie contributed to discussions about the role civil society can play in developing AI governance frameworks and building partnerships with public institutions.

Yet, among her further international experiences is the Media and Conflict Resolution Summer School in Berlin, organized by the Arab-European Association for Communication Researchers (AREACORE) in collaboration with Freie Universität Berlin and partner universities, where Jessie explored migration, forced displacement, disinformation, and media production in exile. As part of an international research team, she helped produce a short documentary examining journalism’s role in amplifying marginalized voices during conflict. The program also included visits to Deutsche Welle’s international broadcasting center and the German Bundestag, connecting discussions of media directly to political institutions and governance.

She later approached misinformation from another perspective during the Youth Response to Propaganda and Misleading Information project in Cyprus. This time, rather than only participating, Jessie led a workshop of her own, titled “The Power of Communication.” The session examined communication as both a vehicle for misinformation and a means of resisting it, with an emphasis on media literacy, critical source analysis, and responsible communication. Using examples from the COVID-19 “infodemic,” Jessie Klzi encouraged participants to perceive critical thinking not simply as an individual skill but as a broader response to disinformation. The experience also included a visit to Alpha TV Cyprus, giving participants a closer look at contemporary broadcast journalism.

For Jessie, however, politics and governance have never been exclusively theoretical. She has also sought ways to translate ideas about participation into practical initiatives.

That approach earned her team first place at the Digi-Democracy Quest Hackathon, organized under the Youth Empowerment through Civic Tech and Participation project. The team developed Tnak Games: The Civic Olympics of Rural Armenia, a civic-tech concept aimed at encouraging youth participation in rural communities through gamification. The proposal was recognized for its innovation, feasibility, and potential civic impact and is now being further developed, with plans to explore its implementation and viability.

Her involvement in youth advocacy has similarly given her a space to connect academic ideas with lived experience. At the Actival for Future 2025 Conference in Lübeck, Germany, Jessie joined more than 200 young changemakers from over 40 countries to explore the theme of civil justice.

“As a Politics & Governance student, I’m constantly engaging with questions of power, rights, and equity — and how institutions and citizens interact to shape fairer societies,” she reflected. But, she added, “theory comes to life when it’s grounded in real-world action.”

One of the experiences that stayed with her most was a workshop on social media as a tool for social change, which examined how activists can use storytelling, audience strategy, and campaign planning to turn online communication into meaningful advocacy.

“In today’s digital world, activism doesn’t only take place in the streets — it happens on our screens,” Jessie said, reflecting on the experience.

Perhaps the experience that most transformed her undergraduate years, however, was her Erasmus+ exchange semester at Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg.

For Jessie, studying abroad offered far more than a different academic setting. She took courses in areas including human rights, European Union law, and international law, while also conducting research in Germany on cross-border labor mobility, local protest movements, and democratic governance. Through the professional connections she established during the semester, she later represented Austria at the AREACORE summer school in Berlin.

The exchange was also Jessie’s first extended experience outside her region and gave her an opportunity to observe institutions and democratic practices she had previously encountered largely through academic study.

“More than just an academic adventure, it truly was a journey of self-discovery,” she said.

Rather than viewing the experience only through the lens of life abroad, Jessie found herself repeatedly thinking about Armenia. “I took advantage of my time there to see what I could bring back to my country that would benefit us for applying here,” she explained.

“Living abroad makes you both appreciate your home more while simultaneously enjoying and seeing the beauty of cultures worldwide,” she added. “I met so many people over a short period of time, and we are more alike than we are different.”

From research and public speaking to civic innovation and international exchange, Jessie’s undergraduate years reflect the many ways Politics and Governance students can take learning beyond the university setting. Her experiences brought her into conversations about some of today’s most pressing governance questions while allowing her to continually consider what those lessons could mean for Armenia.

As she has completed her BAPG journey, the program congratulates Jessie Klzi on her achievements and wishes her continued success in the next stage of her academic and professional life.