BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 24
By Sadraddin Aghjayev – Trend:
Azerbaijan, one may say, opened the door to Silicon Valley at the beginning of this year, but the pandemic forced the start-up projects of local developers to return to Azerbaijan, Director of Innovation Center LLC (INNOLAND) Mammad Karimov told Trend.
“Our specialists are actively working today and looking for ways to develop in this sphere not to face a similar problem in the future,” the director of the center said. “Despite this, our other projects are successful in foreign markets.”
“INNOLAND innovation center was forced to revise its standards and implement a project to switch to remote work,” Karimov added. “Currently, the work in this sphere is still underway.”
"This includes registration of start-up projects, remote meetings with investors, the creation of similar platforms for the Azerbaijani society," Karimov said. “Some start-up projects continue their development, the implementation of some projects has been completely stopped.”
“The work is being conducted to develop the projects aimed at the development of business projects and those associated with it,” the director of the center said. “E-commerce projects, distance learning projects, financial technical projects are also actively developing.”
“About 10 online events aimed at sharing experience and opinions were held,” Karimov said. “It is planned to increase the number of such events in 2021.”
"The number of orders for start-up projects has greatly decreased since the beginning of the year due to local standards and inconsistency,” the director of the center said. “The reason is that customers demanded the projects to be fulfilled only on the basis of an idea without a prototype or a business model. We, in turn, are considering the projects having their own team, besides ideas, as the priority."
“The investors financed the current projects, rather than new projects in 2020,” the director of the center said. "It is difficult to talk about the cost of projects as some projects are still at the stage of signing, some investments have not been fully made. On average, this year our center has attracted 500,000 manat ($294,117), which is much less compared to the same period of 2019.”
“The decline in investments is connected with the lack of stability in the market,” Karimov said. “Some investors expect returns on deposits from other projects. We expect an increase in investments in our projects, rather than another recession in 2021."
“In accordance with the statistics, the majority of investments in the projects are made by local businessmen,” the director of the center said. "Korea, Germany, Georgia, the US are among the investors abroad, investments are also expected from Poland."
“The development of the startup industry in Azerbaijan in the near future will be aimed at investing in infrastructure,” Karimov said.
“Presently, given the end of the armed confrontation between our country and an external aggressor, I think that the investment in infrastructure will be the priorities of the state,” the director of the center said. “I hope that innovation will be part of this infrastructure. Therefore, we expect support from the state and the opening of new opportunities in connection with our victory.”
“Proceeding from this, one can say that the startup industry will become a big part of the development of Azerbaijan's infrastructure at the regional level,” the director of the center said. “Within such a possible state program, one can talk about an increase in the number of foreign investors. The interest of foreign investors in financing the Azerbaijani projects will give an impetus to the rapid development and growth of local projects."
“Besides the abovementioned aspects, this year forced our state to adopt new innovative, technical solutions, as well as the integration of new projects into its existing programs,” the director of the center said.
“One may say that here new programs, projects in the field of health care, education and other state structures were developed,” the director of the center said. “If there were, for example, 10,000 specialized IT specialists in our country in 2019, I am sure that this year their number is 15,000-20,000.”
“An increase in the number of these employees is associated with the introduction of innovations, new technologies, and projects in the activity of our state, as well as society as a whole,” Karimov said. “Such an increase will lead to the creation of local projects, Azerbaijan will not integrate ready-made foreign solutions. The online and e-activity of the state, in general, has grown many times in 2020."
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