Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

A strategy for innovative development will be developed in Azerbaijan, said Rashad Azizov, head of Department of Innovative Development of Information Society and Electronic Governance of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, during the on the 4th ICT Innovation and Startup Ecosystems workshop in Baku on May 29.

In his words, Boston Counsulting company has already been involved in this direction as an expert.

The representative of ministry gave detailed information about the ICT and startup ecosystem formed in Azerbaijan.

Azizov noted that since the beginning of this year, the process of coordination in the innovation system has been carried out in the country.

Stressing the establishment of two agencies - Agency for the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Innovation Agency under the ministry, he said that the active involvement of these agencies in this process in the future will give a great boost to innovative development. “The mandate of these bodies includes the development of startups, the technological transfer in the country, and in general, the application of innovations.”

The ministry official added that, according to the charter of the Innovation Agency, it has been directly assigned to this agency to support projects such as large data, robotics, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. It will be possible to implement these solutions in all areas of the economy in the future.

Azizov went on to note that the mechanisms for issuing certificates to startups are being prepared in Azerbaijan which envisage exemption from taxes. “At present, work is underway to develop new mechanisms for startup certification.”

The 4th ICT Innovation and Startup Ecosystems workshop was organized within InnoFest as part of the Harmonization of Digital Markets (HDM) initiative of the Eastern Partnership countries of the European Union.

The representatives of the European Commission, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and foreign experts attended the event.

Within the workshop, the work done on the formation of an ecosystem of innovations and startups in the participating countries was discussed. At the same time the experts gave information on best European practices.

During the workshop, joint projects were discussed, which will be implemented in the direction of ICT innovation and startup ecosystems in the Eastern Partnership countries for 2019-2021.

It should be noted that the HDM initiative has been implemented within the framework of the “Economic integration and convergence with EU policies” platform of the EU Eastern Partnership Program since 2014.

The goal of the HDM initiative is to promote the development of a digital economy and society in the Eastern Partnership countries by expanding the advantages of a single digital market in these countries.

Azerbaijan is represented in this initiative by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies.

It is noteworthy that Azerbaijan has recently ranked 47th among 188 countries in the Global Startup Ranking.

Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and High Technologies is taking important measures to support startups in the country. Earlier, the State Fund for Development of Information Technologies under the Ministry has been established to be engaged in providing investment.

Recently, a joint consortium has been established with the participation of the Innovation Agency under the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, AzInTelecom LLC and companies Lenovo, Nutanix, and iQRex to ensure the participation of startups in tenders held by various government agencies and individual companies, as well as in important projects and to support them in this field.

The consortium will provide local startuppers with an opportunity to get access to various financial sources, to take part in important projects, including large and medium-sized tenders.

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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888

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