Startup began in Azerbaijan
29.05.2020 10:59
In 2006 the management of the Azerbaijan Oil Academy commenced "startup” a program
which allows perspective
students and young scholars to take their inventions to the international market. The program
will also create the opportunity for the participants of the program to earn
money and bring in revenues for university, as part of the project the university hosts trainings for
students. Here is the interview with trainer of the program Igor Pir:
- How is the "startup” program going? Are expectations about the students justified?
- Well, I think that we received even more than what we were expecting. We were not sure whether we’ll be able to cope with language barrier and how easily we’ll be able to communicate because we use three languages-Russian, English and Azerbaijani. We thought it would be difficult to combine them all. However, I believe we found a peculiar solution which is ideally suited for Azerbaijan and we can already see the good results. Currently we are in the beginning of the process. This is already the second more or less serious business meeting but I am repeating again this is a very small part of the way. I am sure that everything will be alright.
- As a result, how many ideas came up which it is practical to continue with?
- We have already held the selection rounds and for now we have about 15 ideas which can be continued and developed. We will see what happens by the introduction time at the end of June, when we will pitch these ideas to investors. In my opinion we have pretty good ideas that we can move forward.
- In the end what will the university get from this startup training?
-How many people have taken part in
startup trainings so far?
- For now more than 60 people have participated and 14 teams have been set up. Each team has several leaders who lead the teams. Of course there are also those who came to school but do not have personal ideas, they subsequently can join any other team or not to advance to the next stage of training. It is also an absolutely normal process because not everyone of course can become a startup businessman. We do not have such a task and we are not like a university to where 100 students have been admitted and therefore 100 diplomas must be issued. We just open up progression, people come to us and if they have something new based on which business can be built, we do that. Without this nothing will work.
But according to figures about 60-70 people came to us and now we have approximately 15 projects at the exit and it means usually with ratio 1 to 4 or 5. Therefore in the following stages of training we expect to receive even more ideas because more people will know about that and will be able to join us.
- What kind of support did you receive on realization of this project? Possibly from the management of university or from somebody else?
- The university fully supports us because it is our joint project. We have access to classrooms and students. We get support morally and informationally. Currently negotiations are under way to get support for the project on a state level. In order to extend the project just beyond the university and develop an innovative movement among youth across the country, we search for ways for more active cooperation with state. We would like to see it lead ultimately to the development of real business projects.
-How do you evaluate our youth?
- Speaking quite frankly, the youth here is not very advanced, students are not creative. It is felt that the school is really good and has a good basis. We need somehow to unite this knowledge basis and develop their creativity in parallel and move them to the following level of development when new ideas emerge, not just emerge but put into action. Of course we really like the students. If we did not like them, we would not work here.
What ideas expressed by them did you like most? What ideas you could personally borrow?
- I would not like it so much for myself but by using it with them, it means our task is to create something together. There are a couple of good ideas, and it is in the field of IT. We have here two girl students who offered a kind of virtual reality technology for e-commerce, for instance when you want to buy something and before purchasing it with the help of mobile app you have the opportunity to see how it will look in reality. For example before buying the ring it is possible virtually to try it on and check in advance how the ring will look on your hand. The 3D system will allow you to see what the item looks like from different angles. It will be very useful when buying watches and jewelry. This innovative platform can increase the sale of this product segment. We also have more serious developments for instance, hydrogas - when gas is generated as a result of splitting of seawater. This is so called "green technology”. This project involves innovative technology, engineering and instrumentations. This is interesting and a multi-sided project.
- What are your future plans? Have your expectations been realized? Do plan to come here again?
-We have high expectations, there are already a couple of companies that we can soon work with and attract investments. Currently we are going through a kind of developing process of interrelations and my further plans are to improve this process for achievement of maximum efficiency.
- Did your expectations before arrival match with reality?
- When we were heading here, we did not know anything, therefore I can say nothing about expectations. We knew that Baku is beautiful city, a city of students, a lot of oil and gas and it was unclear in which fields we could develop innovations apart from oil and gas.
Now I can say with certainty that we have a very good idea, especially when I see our enthusiastic students, when more and more people attend our meetings. So even our most optimistic expectations were met. Now our main task is to develop the creativity of our students and eventually to get a quality product and introduce it to the market.
- What do you think you managed that was of benefit?
-Well, based on how they thank me it is useful (laughing). It seems to me that everything is alright because I managed to find a way, let us say to the mind and heart of these young people. It is very important for us to make sure that students obtain certain professionalism, corrections and understanding of those processes and ideas that they give us. This is experience and knowledge of the international market, information of economical processes taking place today in the West, USA and other countries. We try to keep listeners from needless risks using our expertise and knowledge. Because businessman who start the business, for instance, may create some product and try to go to international market with it, but without analyzing the economical situation it is doomed to failure. Our knowledge in this field is very useful and combining their ideas with our proficiency it is really possible to get a quality final product.
-And the last question: In which field did you see the most ideas?
- I was surprised that everything here is balanced; there is no excess in any of the fields. If we take these 15 ideas we will see that there are three main directions: information technologies, instrumentation and exact sciences. I am very pleased with this versatility.
I think at the crossroads of these fields a very good symbiosis will occur.
www.ann.az
- How is the "startup” program going? Are expectations about the students justified?
- Well, I think that we received even more than what we were expecting. We were not sure whether we’ll be able to cope with language barrier and how easily we’ll be able to communicate because we use three languages-Russian, English and Azerbaijani. We thought it would be difficult to combine them all. However, I believe we found a peculiar solution which is ideally suited for Azerbaijan and we can already see the good results. Currently we are in the beginning of the process. This is already the second more or less serious business meeting but I am repeating again this is a very small part of the way. I am sure that everything will be alright.
- As a result, how many ideas came up which it is practical to continue with?
- We have already held the selection rounds and for now we have about 15 ideas which can be continued and developed. We will see what happens by the introduction time at the end of June, when we will pitch these ideas to investors. In my opinion we have pretty good ideas that we can move forward.
- In the end what will the university get from this startup training?
- At first it will receive initiative students, a very
good aspect because students may subsequently put into practice the knowledge obtained and establish certain business. Very
often these developments and ideas later become a catalyst that starts to involve young people to a more active education process.
Because students are more interested in doing what attracts them and sometimes
there is just a lack of knowledge for that. When the university can offer them that
knowledge, students realize their full potential with great eagerness rather
than when they are forced to learn something because they have to. When you study
what interests you, the result
is quite different. Therefore I think the university will profit here simultaneously in several
directions: Firstly, we get more active students. Secondly, it is very likely
that half of the ideas and developments will be
practically applied. And thirdly these students undoubtedly will be examples
for others and attract students from other universities thereby turning their
university into an innovation centre in Azerbaijan and
you would agree with me that it is a great advantage.
- For now more than 60 people have participated and 14 teams have been set up. Each team has several leaders who lead the teams. Of course there are also those who came to school but do not have personal ideas, they subsequently can join any other team or not to advance to the next stage of training. It is also an absolutely normal process because not everyone of course can become a startup businessman. We do not have such a task and we are not like a university to where 100 students have been admitted and therefore 100 diplomas must be issued. We just open up progression, people come to us and if they have something new based on which business can be built, we do that. Without this nothing will work.
But according to figures about 60-70 people came to us and now we have approximately 15 projects at the exit and it means usually with ratio 1 to 4 or 5. Therefore in the following stages of training we expect to receive even more ideas because more people will know about that and will be able to join us.
- What kind of support did you receive on realization of this project? Possibly from the management of university or from somebody else?
- The university fully supports us because it is our joint project. We have access to classrooms and students. We get support morally and informationally. Currently negotiations are under way to get support for the project on a state level. In order to extend the project just beyond the university and develop an innovative movement among youth across the country, we search for ways for more active cooperation with state. We would like to see it lead ultimately to the development of real business projects.
-How do you evaluate our youth?
- Speaking quite frankly, the youth here is not very advanced, students are not creative. It is felt that the school is really good and has a good basis. We need somehow to unite this knowledge basis and develop their creativity in parallel and move them to the following level of development when new ideas emerge, not just emerge but put into action. Of course we really like the students. If we did not like them, we would not work here.
What ideas expressed by them did you like most? What ideas you could personally borrow?
- I would not like it so much for myself but by using it with them, it means our task is to create something together. There are a couple of good ideas, and it is in the field of IT. We have here two girl students who offered a kind of virtual reality technology for e-commerce, for instance when you want to buy something and before purchasing it with the help of mobile app you have the opportunity to see how it will look in reality. For example before buying the ring it is possible virtually to try it on and check in advance how the ring will look on your hand. The 3D system will allow you to see what the item looks like from different angles. It will be very useful when buying watches and jewelry. This innovative platform can increase the sale of this product segment. We also have more serious developments for instance, hydrogas - when gas is generated as a result of splitting of seawater. This is so called "green technology”. This project involves innovative technology, engineering and instrumentations. This is interesting and a multi-sided project.
- What are your future plans? Have your expectations been realized? Do plan to come here again?
-We have high expectations, there are already a couple of companies that we can soon work with and attract investments. Currently we are going through a kind of developing process of interrelations and my further plans are to improve this process for achievement of maximum efficiency.
- Did your expectations before arrival match with reality?
- When we were heading here, we did not know anything, therefore I can say nothing about expectations. We knew that Baku is beautiful city, a city of students, a lot of oil and gas and it was unclear in which fields we could develop innovations apart from oil and gas.
Now I can say with certainty that we have a very good idea, especially when I see our enthusiastic students, when more and more people attend our meetings. So even our most optimistic expectations were met. Now our main task is to develop the creativity of our students and eventually to get a quality product and introduce it to the market.
- What do you think you managed that was of benefit?
-Well, based on how they thank me it is useful (laughing). It seems to me that everything is alright because I managed to find a way, let us say to the mind and heart of these young people. It is very important for us to make sure that students obtain certain professionalism, corrections and understanding of those processes and ideas that they give us. This is experience and knowledge of the international market, information of economical processes taking place today in the West, USA and other countries. We try to keep listeners from needless risks using our expertise and knowledge. Because businessman who start the business, for instance, may create some product and try to go to international market with it, but without analyzing the economical situation it is doomed to failure. Our knowledge in this field is very useful and combining their ideas with our proficiency it is really possible to get a quality final product.
-And the last question: In which field did you see the most ideas?
- I was surprised that everything here is balanced; there is no excess in any of the fields. If we take these 15 ideas we will see that there are three main directions: information technologies, instrumentation and exact sciences. I am very pleased with this versatility.
I think at the crossroads of these fields a very good symbiosis will occur.
www.ann.az
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