BAKU, Azerbaijan, Mar.16
By Sadraddin Aghjayev – Trend:
Some 75.7 million manat ($44.5 million) was allocated to Azerbaijani enterprises to apply innovations in the country’s ICT sector, implement projects, develop infrastructure, modernize and improve the quality of service in 2020, Trend reports.
Besides, the Azerbaijani Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship ‘Barama’ informed about the launch of a new incubation program in the country.
According to Zaur Unsi-Zadeh, the center’s program manager, this program differs from the pre-acceleration program (launched by the center in January last year) in its designation for projects that have a minimum product.
“In fact, we aren’t working with teams from scratch now. The main requirement for a team is the availability of a minimum product and two participants possessing technical and business knowledge,” he added.
The manager noted that the program consists of two parts.
"The first part is online, and the second one - offline. Since the pre-acceleration program fell during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to implement it online. Within this program, various events, mentoring sessions were held weekly. Our mentors are local and foreign specialists, as well as employees of other advanced big IT companies,” he further said.
Unsi-Zadeh also noted that in June this year, it’s planned to hold an online event DemoDay, which will attract a number of foreign and local investors.
Holding of such an event, according to him, will help attract foreign direct investment to the local start-up projects from both investors and venture funds.
"We, as a center, create conditions for our start-ups so that they can develop their projects and bring them to global platforms," concluded Unsi-Zadeh.
Another highlight of the past week in the ICT sector was the announcement of Azerbaijani TECH AZ company’s Director Tariel Aghazadeh about plans of the US Slack company’s representative office in Azerbaijan to hold about ten events in the country in the fields of startups and IT projects.
According to him, earlier, with the mediation of Slack and its US employees, an event was held in Azerbaijan to exchange experience and the possibilities of introducing foreign technologies in the field of remote work. Another online event is planned for the current month.
"TECH AZ, together with Slack, plans to hold a number of online events in Azerbaijan. Our main strategy in cooperation with Slack is the introduction of foreign innovations and technical solutions in Azerbaijan, as well as an increase in the number of users of the Slack platform in the country," he stressed.
Besides, according to the Director of Azerbaijan’s Stell Technologies company Ali Aliyev, the company has introduced an innovative solution of a new internet connection standard - WiFi-6 for the first time in the country.
"I would like to stress the project for the implementation of an innovative solution - WiFi-6 at the Marriott Court Yard Hotel, in the Center for the Rehabilitation of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (the equipment was supplied free of charge),” said Aliyev.
“Each further Wi-Fi connection standard is characterized by the increased bandwidth and for example, when one phone is connected to the router, Wi-Fi 6 is by 40 percent faster than Wi-Fi 5,” he added.
During a press conference of Azerbaijan’s Nar mobile operator company dedicated to the results of 2020, it was reported that the company’s technical department had already started planning the placement of equipment in Azerbaijan’s territories liberated from Armenian occupation (as a result of 44-day war from late Sept. through early Nov.) last year.
Besides, the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gunnar Pahnke said that currently, about 84 percent of all Internet on the network is provided through base stations with LTE-A technology.
He stressed that due to the setting of the new base stations in the country, the number of 4G users has grown by 33 percent.
"A significant growth in this indicator (52 percent) accounted for the share of users in the regions," added the CEO.
Furthermore, Nurlana Abdulazizova, Frontend Web Developer at Azerbaijan’s Digital ERA company, said that one of the main directions of the company's activity is entering into cooperation with the banking sector of the country.
“We have developed a strategy and prepared solutions that may interest the banking sector,” she stressed.
According to General Director of Teknopark Istanbul, Bilal Topcu, within the framework of cooperation between the company and Azerbaijan’s Innovation Agency, it’s planned to organize an exchange of experience in the field of high technologies, to provide support in the development and improvement of high-tech products in technoparks that will be created in Azerbaijan’s territories liberated from Armenian occupation within the framework of the agreement.
Over the recent years, Croatian companies have begun ramping up the export of Azerbaijan’s IT technologies.
Along with the foregoing, for online collaboration and education, Microsoft Teams has recently localized all major applications and services of the corporation into Azerbaijani languages, such as Microsoft Translator apps, Office, Translator for Bing, as well as Azure Cognitive Services Translator for business and developers.
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