VENTURE CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN IN OCTOBER

YEREVAN, MAY 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The pairs “scientist – scientific
development introducing company” to participate in the Science and
Technologies Entreprenuership Program (STEP) of the US Civilian
Research and Development Fund (CRDF) in Armenia will be chosen during
a venture conference in Yerevan in October 2006. The program
coordinator Andrew Chakhoyan stated this on May 26 when presenting the
STEP participation terms to representatives of state governance
bodies, private companies, business assistance and donor organizations
in the spheres of science and education. A. Chakhoyan said that
courses will be run for those representatives of the partner-pairs who
have submitted a bid in the period of May 1-30. In his words, in
considering the bids for participation in the STEP, the availability
of a program to commercionalize a development of scientific
application and local resources for implementation of such a program
will be taken into account. Out of the bids to reach the final –
venture conference discussion stage, 4-5 bids – the most substantiated
and accessible ones will be financed. The cooperating company has to
provide 10% of a 5,000-dollar grant from the CRDF to a scientist or
scientific group for fulfilment of new development idea during
implementation of each project. Director of the Enterprise Incubator
Foundation (EIF) Bagrat Yengibarian stated previously that a
50,000-dollar grant will be given to scientific groups in case of
availability of a contract between an enterprise and a scientific
group on implementation of a scientific development. It is envisaged
that the grant component of the STEP program will be financed by
various donor organizations operating in Armenia. According to
A. Chakhoyan, the STEP program has been implemented for a year in
Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan.