Eighteen young entrepreneurs from Armenia and Turkey will start an intensive 4 months capacity building program as part of the Technology Goes Beyond Borders project (TGBB) funded by the U.S. Embassy in Armenia. The project gives young ICT entrepreneurs from Armenia and Turkey an opportunity to build their capacity through mentorship support and training, advancement of their startups and collaborative partnerships. The project is implemented by the Microsoft Innovation Center and Public Journalism Club in collaboration with the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV).
Three teams from Armenia and three teams from Turkey are enrolled in the project. The teams will have two rounds of online mentorship sessions with selected mentors from Armenia and Turkey and will get together in Armenia for a 4-day crash course at Microsoft Innovation Center. In the first stage of the capacity building program (February23-March 23, 2015) the mentors will work with teams to identify and address their needs through online sessions. The course in Armenia (March 26-29) will be tailored to the needs of teams and will also focus on such areas as technological capacity, customer development/acquisition, business modelling and developing an impressive pitch. During the second round of mentorship sessions (April 2015) the teams will get support in fine-tuning their ideas and preparing their pitches. In May, the representative of the teams will meet in Armenia once again to pitch their ideas to investors from Armenia and Turkey.
