A group of five experts from the field of Information and Communication Technologies visited Armenia on 6-10 October, 2019 to participate in the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) and to meet their counterparts in the neighbouring country with the aim of discovering the potential areas of cooperation. The group from Turkey was comprised of prominent specialists from angel investor networks, İstanbul Startup Angels and TRAngels, a venture capital, Startupfon, an incubator center, ITU ARI Technopark, and online community marketing platform, Hayal Akademisi.

The experts participated in the sessions at WCIT and listened to the speeches delivered by influential and world-famous figures on the impact of technologies on the improvement of people’s lives, as well as the threats rising from the same technologies. Apart from participating in WCIT, the experts from Turkey had the chance to learn about and get acquainted with the ICT and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Armenia.

 

The experts were welcomed by Hero House, an innovation hub for startups and Impact Hub Yerevan, Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF) and the to be established “Engineering City” within their premises and FAST Foundation, aiming to bring together the science, technology, and business with their start-up studio, angel investor network and development programmes, to hear about their activities and meet startups from Armenia. During their visits, experts from both countries shared their domestic and international market experiences, made contacts and discussed perspectives of future cooperation between Turkey and Armenia, and in the region.

On the last day, the experts from Turkey visited TUMO Center for Creative Technologies. Besides the institutional visits, there were multiple meetings with angel network representatives such as Angel Investor Club of Armenia (AICA), Business Angel Network of Armenia (BANA), representatives of a venture capital Smartgate VC, digital marketing and designing companies Digital Factory, Renderforest, and the EU TUMO Convergence Center for Engineering and Applied Science, to be established with the aim of a mixed-use campus bringing together academia and industry. Participants also had the chance to meet the founder of Broadway Angels and the founding board member and first investor of Salesforce. The experts from both countries had comprehensive discussions to discover new cooperation opportunities both on individual and institutional levels.

In order to get acquainted with the multi-layered cultural and architectural heritage of Yerevan, the participants made excursions to some of the notable museums, major sites, and architectural buildings of Yerevan and explored the major architectural and cultural sites of the city.

This activity was organised by the Hrant Dink Foundation
within the framework of Turkey-Armenia Dialogue Programme Series
with the co-financial support of The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland and Chrest Foundation.