Azerbaijan's Innovation Center talks on activities to support local startup ecosystem

By Trend

The Innovation Center of Azerbaijan, together with other organizations, is conducting various events to support them in bringing the number of countrywide start-up projects to 500, a source in the center told Trend on Mar.3.

According to the source, the center annually holds more than 10 hackathons (forums for developers, during which specialists from different areas of software development (programmers, designers, managers) jointly solve any problem for a while) on various directions, the purpose of which is to support local startups in the development of their projects.

"For our part, we provide startups with financial assistance, organize meetings with local and foreign investors. Despite the restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are trying to continue our support in the online format," the center’s experts said.

Besides, the source noted that in order to bring the number of start-up projects in Azerbaijan to 500, the 500 Startup company will provide all the necessary opportunities to the participants - from creating the idea to financing the project and bringing it to foreign markets.

"In addition to increasing start-up projects, Azerbaijan needs the development of specialists in this industry. In our country, the number of start-up projects doesn’t exceed even a hundred, and therefore, in addition to creating projects, we need to raise specialists in this industry," the experts stressed.