ASOIU hosts presentation of student startups which won SFDIT’s grant competition

Today, Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University (ASOIU) have hosted a presentation of a number of projects of the university students, who won the grant competition announced by the State Fund for Development of Information Technologies (SFDIT) under the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies.

Opening the event the Rector of ASOIU Professor Mustafa Babanly talked about the Startups and Innovation Centre operating at the university.

The Executive Director of the SFDIT Elchin Zeynalov informed the participants about the purpose of the meeting and the support provided by the Fund to start-up projects.

The Head of Department of the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies Tahir Mammadov wished success to the projects that won the grant competition, and stressed the importance of the contribution of such innovative initiatives in the development of the ICT sector. According to him, by supporting startups, the state creates a favorable ecosystem for the development of the non-oil sector.
Representatives of the "Startup Azerbaijan" Movement, Industrial Park of Qafqaz University, Business Incubator of Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction, Innovation Business Incubator of Azerbaijan State Economic University and other startup ecosystems also took part in the event.
Then presentations of the projects "Comfortab" and "Magic Words", which were developed by ASOIU students and won the grant competition, were held.

In conclusion, some of the winning projects were awarded certificates of the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies.

Note that 121 projects were presented to the last grant competition. 112 of these projects passed the initial evaluation phase of the competition. 61 of the 112 projects passed successfully the comprehensive evaluation phase of the grant competition.

In the end, 29 projects were declared the winners of the grant competition by the decision of the Supervisory Board of the SFDIT.

The total sum of grants amounted to 395,000 manat.

It should also be noted that the SFDIT supported the creation of business incubators in Azerbaijan State Economic University, Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University, Azerbaijan Technical University, Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction, Lankaran State University, Mingachevir State University and Ganja State University.

The main purpose of creation of such business incubators and centers is to increase young people's interest in the ICT field.

The SFDIT continues to support the process of creation of new business incubators in universities and conducts regularly information sessions to support the realization of projects in the incubators.