On October 3, press conference on a cutting-edge pre-acceleration programme of the “Armenia Startup Academy” took place at Novosti-Armenia press center.

The speakers of the press conference were the Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investments of RA Emil Tarasyan, Country Director of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH for Armenia Anne Kempa, the Head of Cooperation Section of the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia Hoa-Binh Adjemian, International Aid/Cooperation Officer of the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia Stanislav Toshkov, “Supoport to SME Development in Armenia” (SMEDA) Project (EU/GIZ) Team Leader Eva Naeher, Expert of the “Support to SME Development in Armenia” (SMEDA) Project Peer Priewich, the Co-Founder of Catalyst Foundation, Partner of SmartGateVC Hambardzum Kaghketsyan and Co-Founder of Catalyst Foundation, Partner of SmartGateVC Ashot Arzumanyan.

“Armenia Startup Academy” acceleration programme is launching today, which includes not only the IT acceleration program but also is a High-Tech Industry Start-up. The best methodology of world experience in acceleration programs has been selected. It will allow to reduce the number of failures in the startup market and increase the percentage of success that will have a significant impact on the use of startups in the economy. The startups will be given the opportunity to gain considerable skills in the area of investment, which will enable the investor to invest in a start-up that has not been previously used. I want to express gratitude to the EU Delegation in Armenia and GIZ which agreed to fund this pilot program. The Government of Armenia supports the implementation of the program and the idea of creating the Aacademy is in the agenda of the Government,” said the Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investments of RA Emil Tarasyan.

“Armenia Startup Academy”, a cutting-edge pre-acceleration programme will be launched on October 16, 2017. The programme aims to build a game-changing entrepreneurship and startup education and evangelise the startup culture in Armenia. The programme is intended to boost Armenian tech companies and teams to sharpen their skills for creating products that customers love.

Armenia Startup Academy is a Catalyst Foundation project implemented in the framework of the Support to SME Development (SMEDA) Project, which is co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ’s Private Sector Development in South Caucasus Programme.

The Academy will be launched on October 16, 2017 following the selection and interviewing process of applicants. Up to 15 startups will be selected for the first cycle and trained for duration of 12 weeks. The academy offers a high quality programme incorporating innovative instruments, methods and topics as well as access to a pool of high-profile mentors to facilitate the business success of participating startups.

Apart from an advanced training curriculum the current state and basic needs of each team will be reviewed by the instructors and a fully tailored programme for them developed. Local and international mentors and guest-speakers will deliver talks and lectures as well as consult the teams during the programme keeping the utmost focus on the business development of the projects. Thereby, the teams have the opportunity to acquire hands-on experience in all knowledge areas that are crucial for the startups’ future growth, customer and product development.

Furthermore, the programme includes weekly review meetings, evaluations and regular demo-pitching sessions to analyze the progress and review plans. The programme is highly demanding and teams that demonstrated the most progress in the dynamic trainings and performed well on the demo-sessions will have access to a pool of potential investors and will be prepared to apply to global and regional acceleration programmes.