Science & Technology Entrepreneurship grant competition winners to receive $15,000 each

YEREVAN, November 27. /ARKA/. Winners of a grant competition under the Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Program (STEP) will receive $15,000 each, Director of Enterprises Incubator Foundation (EIF) Bagrat Yengibaryan said.

The program has been implemented by the Enterprises Incubator Foundation together with the US Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF Global) and Armenian Ministry of Economy since 2006.

“The aim of the program is to find bright ideas, teams and projects that may be interesting to investors,” Yengibaryan told journalists at the two-day From Idea to Market venture forum opened in Yerevan Tuesday.

This year, the STEP From Idea to Market annual competition started in May. More than 50 participating projects on IT, engineering, biotechnology, chemistry, and etc. were evaluated by American and Armenian specialists, Yengibaryan said.

Of them, about 20 projects selected through a review process, have the opportunity to present and pitch their technology to potential investors. The winning projects will receive 15,000 US dollars each. Along with Armenian specialists the expert panel of judges included reputable American experts, Warren Haber and Heath Naquin, this year.

Number of applications grows from year to year, Yengibaryan said. Apart from that, some projects and teams have grown into successful organizations, he added. STEP participants export their products to Thailand, Ukraine, Russia and the USA.

Representative of CRDF Global Yevgeny Krasovskiy, in his turn, said that the efforts made have been very fruitful.

“Our aim is simple – we should support local technological entrepreneurship and give people of all ages an opportunity to bring their technological ideas to market, implement their potential, establish contacts and create new jobs,” Krasovskiy said.

According to Krasovskiy, number of young participants of the competition has grown over the last two-three years.

“We see the history of success,” he said adding that there are people and companies who took the advantage of the program themselves and helped the others.

Armenian Deputy Minister of Economy Tigran Harutiunyan, in his turn, reminded that IT is a priority development field and receives funding from the government.

The aim of the STEP is to help Armenian specialists to introduce new products, create new enterprises and to successfully cooperate with other companies. Grants are given, seminars and business courses are held, legal and accounting consultancy is provided under the STEP.-0-