The  IT Student Club members and IT cluster representatives came together in the Writers’ House of Tsaghkadzor resort on August 21-22 to discuss one of the important items of the current cluster agenda – startups and entrepreneurship. The meeting was attended by more than 60 representatives from IT start-up firms and business associations. The event was held with the support of the USAID-funded Competitive Armenian Private Sector (CAPS) Project.

The number of IT enterprises grows every year.  There were 200 IT companies in Armenia in 2008, and this figure has grown by 60 during the last two year. However, the leading specialists of this sector believe that this growth trend is unsatisfactory since the goal for 2018 is 1000 IT firms.

“In order to achieve this goal it is necessary to pave way for young IT specialists and assist in the establishment of new enterprises so that every young specialist believes that he can start his own business and that there are people of the same age that have already had success.” Armen Abrahamyan, CAPS IT Cluster Coordinator said. According to him every individual has certain skills and desire to run a business but many people avoid taking the risk. “Meetings like this help young people enrich knowledge and try applying their skills in business”, he mentioned.

Karen Vardanyan, Executive Director of the Union of IT Enterprises (UITE) asked to look to the future. “In order to have 1000 enterprises in 8 years instead of 20-25 we must establish 250-300 new firms every year. This means that today a real start-up boom must start. We strive to see Armenia as a high tech country, and that will be possible only if there is a targeted movement of young technological entrepreneurs with ambitious initiatives and with high thinking specialists who offer the best solutions in the world for this or that sphere.”

Karen Vardanyan said he believes in the Youth, trusts and supports them in all their brave initiatives. “UITE is always ready to listen, cooperate and assist you. Formulate your five-year goals, accurately manage your time and have high landmark.”

The young IT students discussed issues related to web standard creation, website security and protection, as well as learned about micro plan entrepreneurship development projects presented by CAPS Business Development Specialist Marina Poghosyan who also held an accelerated 4-day course on entrepreneurship skills development on August 24-27 at CAPS office.

During the certificate awarding ceremony Karen Vardanyan, who also participated in the course, said. “This was a vey important experience for us and we are asking CAPS project to make the course continuous so that other participants of the IT Club meetings can also attend. This training is the practical miniature of business and is very instructive. The most important thing is that it clearly shows the difference between self-destruction and cooperation. Evidently, when there is cooperation the income is ten times bigger for everyone then the biggest income in case of self-destruction.”

IT CLUB members intend to actively continue meetings of this format since it demonstrated its effectiveness.