Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 3
Trend:
Azerbaijan in recent years started to lean more towards the knowledge-based economy, and the country’s continuous development of the IT sphere creates favorable conditions for the investors, Ulvi Aslanov, Head of Research and Development, Supporting Startups at High Tech Park Azerbaijan told Trend during ‘This Week in Focus’ program episode.
Speaking about Azerbaijan's achievements with startups, Aslanov said that from year to year, it is becoming better and better.
"Two years ago, we had only two incubation centers for the startups, while today we have eight of them," he said.
Aslanov noted that both the government and the private sector try to stay informed on the startups, however there is always need for new ideas and products.
"We have nearly 30 startup ideas being developed in the incubation centers, with more than 20 teams working on them," he said. "And everyday almost 100 people use our incubation centers and facilities."
Aslanov also said that the High Tech park has a new initiative called "Code Academy", which teaches coding and programming.
Among the newest startups at the High Tech park, Aslanov mentioned the Baku Parking project.
"It is a small mobile application, which allows a person to pay the parking ticket from a mobile phone's balance."
Answering the question about the possible language barrier that has to be dealt with, in particular issue of working with English, Azerbaijani and Russian languages at once, Aslanov said that this is an advantage, not a barrier.
"It is an advantage for Azerbaijani sector, because knowing languages allows users to use both Russian internet resources, Turkish resources too, as Azerbaijani language is similar to Turkish," he said. "
As for English language, Aslanov agrees that it is the most important language as far as startups go. He reminded that at the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2015, a team of Azerbaijani programmers (NoObs Team) was among the finalists.
At the competition, Azerbaijani team presented "Spinal" - a project that aims at helping people to control their posture, preventing consequences of wrong spinal position while they are sitting, walking, working. The It helps develop a habit of correcting back position by using special sensors and phone.
Meanwhile, Aslanov said that two of the most important things in the startups sphere, Aslanov said, are English language and the idea of pitching your idea.
To learn more about the topic, check out the full episode below.
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