Azerbaijani students had the outstanding opportunity to learn how to develop a startup business by participating in the second part of the Discover Europe programme organised by Turan Trade in collaboration with Startup Campus, InnoHub Europe and Azerbaijan Innovation and Digital Development Agency. Through 12 workshops participants learned how to turn their business idea into a startup that has the potential to become an international success story. As the closure of the programme, the organisers arranged a Study Tour to Budapest, Hungary which was held from the 23rd until the 25th of May 2022.
Module B, the second phase of the programme was focusing on students and was a continuation of the Discover Europe business development and education programme, which first took place between September and December of the year 2021 and focused on young entrepreneurs with established businesses. During the 8-week programme, students gained basic business knowledge and a global perspective, as well as valuable connections in the European start-up ecosystem. They learned the phases of the start-up life cycle, how to validate their business idea, how to build an international market entry strategy, and expand their network of mentors, experts, investors, and start-ups participating in the programme.
In the course of the tour to Budapest, the participating teams held pitches and introduced themselves in front of the organisers and partners, visited the Tungsram showroom, and even travelled to Győr where they could pitch their solutions at the Széchenyi István University.
At the Demo Day of Discover Europe – Azerbaijan Module B programme 16 talented university students presented their startups. The winning teams were Teammers, Kekalove Adaptive, Kekamaps, Ecotree which teams are trying to solve important and globally relevant problems.
“It is rewarding to see bright students contributing to wider innovation ecosystem development in Azerbaijan and taking an active part in linking their ideas to the European marketplace. We believe that through this comprehensive educational module we would be able to address ecosystem development and turn ideas into businesses with the support of our partner institutions.”
– says Ibrahim Ismayilov, founder of the Turan Trade LLC.
The long-term goal of the programme has been to build a link between the Azerbaijani and European ecosystems, thereby encouraging the best start-ups, once they are ready to scale internationally. More details about the programme: https://www.discovereurope.az/
A special partner of the programme has been the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency, and the project has been sponsored by bp in Azerbaijan.