3rd Republican Innovation Competition announced

The Ministry of Economy, together with the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, the Ministry of Culture, the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, the branch of the company Ernst & Yanq Holdinqs (SiAyEs) Bi.Vi in Azerbaijan and the Representative Office of the United Nations Development Program in Azerbaijan,  have announced  the 3rd Republican Innovation Competition.
 
The purpose of the competition is to promote the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, encourage  innovations, as well as to support the implementation of the Development Concept “Azerbaijan 2020: Looking into the Future” and the “Strategic Roadmaps for National Economy and Main Sectors of Economy”.
 
Projects covering the stated targets will be accepted to the competition.    
 
Inclusive labor markets:
 
- An innovative idea or mechanism related to active labor market and employment;
- Solutions for integration of vulnerable groups (children, youth, disabled, etc.) into society;
- Labor organization and organizational culture;
- New technological equipment and methods for increasing economic productivity;
- Innovative startup and inclusive business incubator;
- Innovative training methods for organizing vocational training;
- Innovative idea of mutual cooperation between public and private sector and vocational education institutions;
- Innovative teaching and learning methods at the higher education level;
- Innovative approaches to the implementation of distance learning;
- Creative industry;
- Smaller-capital-volume infrastructure;
 
Promotion of "green economy":
 
- Green economy;
- Establishment of a climate change awareness-raising and natural disaster early warning system;
- Effective climate change planning and management in local conditions;
- Ecologically clean city life;
- Ecologically clean transportation;
- Ecologically pure agricultural production;
- Environmental clean-up technology or public innovation;
- Energy efficiency;
- Use of alternative energy sources (wind, solar, etc.);
- Waste utilization;
- Waste-free or low-waste technology;
- Efficient and ecological use of food waste;
- Marine and coastal ecosystems;
- Protection, reproduction and sustainable use of forests, wetlands, mountains and land areas;
- Nanotechnologies and their application;
- Biodiversity conservation;
- Establishment of e-agriculture system;
- Innovation logistics;
- High-added-value generating technology and innovative production;
- Urbanization;
 
Improvement of social services:
 
- Innovative social services;
- Implementation of innovations in social infrastructure and public life;
- Innovative projects aimed at improving health, education and culture services;
- Improving the quality of utility services;
- Innovation in the ICT field;
- IT solutions in urban management (Smart City);
- IT solutions for public services;
- Planning and management of residential areas;
- Innovative idea or business project in tourism, banking and insurance;
- Sustainable infrastructure and advanced urban development engineering;
- Conducting propaganda activities to ensure the participation of all segments of society in socio-economic, cultural and social life;
- Implementation of innovative ideas and solutions for using open data;
 
Requirements for the projects submitted to the competition include priority areas, economic efficiency and implementation feasibility.
 
Candidates who wish to participate in the competition must submit their projects by July 10, 2019 via the Idea Bank platform of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan or by e-mail narmin.babayeva@economy.gov.az.
 
To do that, the candidate must register on the "www.ideya.az" website, fill in the application on the ‘“2019-Innovations” Competition’ section of this website and submit his project.  
 
Detailed information on the competition is available on www.sdg.az.
 
The winners of the 1st, 2nd and the 3rd places will be awarded 5000, 3000 and 2000 AZN, respectively.
 
Various government agencies, organizations and business entities will provide support to encourage the realization of the projects that will receive positive feedback from the Evaluation Commission.    
 
At the same time, the authors of these projects will receive encouraging awards from the Evaluation Commission.    
 
Apart from that, the 2 teams that will be announced as the winners of this year’s competition will be entitled to participate in the “STARTUp Day” program in Estonia.  And the selected 3 teams will take part in a 4-month intensive improvement and sales program after the Country Finals.     
 
One or two winning projects will gain the right to participate in the Joint German-Azerbaijani Program on Increasing Managers' Professional Skills in Azerbaijani Business Community.
 
Also, one of the winners of the competition will be invited to the “Fast Track Azerbaijan” program by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, and one selected project will receive Cloud4Start Award (3000 manat-data and cloud services package).

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