Turkish and Armenian Entrepreneurs Convened in Gyumri The first stage of the Exchange of Entrepreneurs Project in the scope of the programme ‘‘Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process’’ was held in Armenia
ANKARA- The first stage of the Exchange of Entrepreneurs project jointly organized by TEPAV and Public Journalism Club (Armenia) was held in Yerevan and Gyumri on 6-9 November. The project brought together Turkish and Armenian entrepreneurs in Gyumri.
The event carried out in the scope of the EU-financed programme ‘‘Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process’’ hosted a Turkish entrepreneurship delegation of 12 entrepreneurs, 12 investors and a Silicon Valley-based investor. The events were attended also by more than 30 startup entrepreneurs from Armenia, selected by TEPAV’s event partner Public Journalism Club, as well as Armenian and American investors, established entrepreneurs and ICT experts.
The project involved a roundtable discussion titled “Getting to Know Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in Armenia and Turkey, and Exploring Collaboration Opportunities”, visits to centers of excellence including Armenian National Engineering Laboratories, Microsoft Innovation Center, PixArt, and TUMO, and the Armenia-Turkey Startup Weekend.
Armenia- Turkey Startup Weekend
One of the highlights of the project, the Armenia-Turkey Startup Weekend kicked off on November 7th in Yerevan. The Startup Weekend then continued on November 8th to 9th at the Gyumri Technological Center. The event brought together 60 startup entrepreneurs and investors from the two countries. The prototypes developed throughout the Startup Weekend were assessed by a panel of judges and the winning teams were announced on November 9th during the closing ceremony.
The Best Team
The “WeCloud” team which pitched with the slogan "Smarter Storage Solutions" was recognized as the best team of the Armenia-Turkey Startup Weekend. The team composed of 2 Turkish and 2 Armenian entrepreneurs (Umutcan Duman, Berkay Akçora, Anita Alexanian and Gor Vardanyan). The project offers a marketplace devised to collect free storage from private computers and sell or rent it to other clients.
WeCloud team suggests that the cloud system to which computers from all around the world are connected, will become an online datacenter. This community-based ever-growing data center does not require any space or installation operations that cost millions of dollars. Through this online data center, the team is planning to penetrate into the web hosting market that currently has a global market value of 12.3 billion dollars. The WeCloud team guarantees that they system will offer a faster and safer service at the cheapest price. The team was awarded $1000 USD and secured a seat at the second stage of the project to be held in Turkey.
Please click here for a piece by Elmira Bayrasli on the visit
