INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON VENTURE CAPITAL LAUNCHES IN YEREVAN

ARKA
Oct 17, 2008

YEREVAN, October 17. /ARKA/. The Entrepreneurship in Science and
Technologies international conference on venture capital started
in Yerevan.

At the opening ceremony today Director of the Enterprise Incubator
Foundation (EIF) Bagrat Yengibaryan stated the conference is aimed at
introducing science intensive projects on cooperation between science
and private sector to investors and interested parties.

"This will give us an opportunity to attract investments as well as
to establish long-term cooperation and develop business-projects with
various investors," said Yengibaryan.

A presentation and a sum up of a grant program promoting the private
sector-science cooperation will take place as a part of the conference
and the authors of the three best research projects will be awarded
$10,000 each.

Zhenya Azizyan, Head of IT Development department, RA Ministry of
Economy, noted the conference is in harmony with the Government’s
programs, strategies and IT development conceptions.

"Development of projects and commercialization of their results
will let us develop scientific thought, as well as entrepreneurial
abilities, which is a priority component that attracts venture capital
and is gradually becoming a reality for Armenia," said Azizyan.

She expressed a hope that in the near future a use will be found
for the conference results not only in=2 0Armenia but in the USA and
other countries as well.

The applications for the competition are mainly in the fields of IT,
some engineering solutions and projects in biotechnologies and energy.

The RA Government plans to attract some $700mln of venture capital
for the IT sector in ten years.

The organizers of the conference are EIF, the U.S. Civil Research
Development Fund (CRDF) and the RA Ministry of Economy under the
Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Program (STEP).

U.S. and European investors participate in the conference.