Georgia Innovations’ Week opened in Tbilisi

A gaggle of innovation experts, leaders and Government representatives have converged in Tbilisi today to share global trends and discuss Georgia’s innovative business environment during 2014 Georgia Innovations’ Week. 

More than 100 participants attended the launch of the Innovation’s Week, including start-up entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and successful business leaders from Georgia and abroad.

Georgia’s Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development Giorgi Kvirikashvili believed Georgia had important intellectual potential, an enthusiastic young generation and budding scientists and creators who could boost the innovation industry in the country.

"The Government of Georgia together with the World Bank works on creating the strategy -Innovative Georgia 2020 - that aims to help the country obtain global competitiveness and growth,” Kvirikashvili said in his welcoming speech which marked the beginning of Georgia Innovations’ Week.

"Countries like Estonia, Finland and Ireland support Georgia’s economy to implement various innovations, particularly in agriculture and industry.”

In a bid to use technology in more unique ways and boost cooperation in the sphere of innovation development, the Government established the Innovation and Technology Agency last February, which was the brainchild behind Georgia Innovations’ Week.

International experts also believed Georgia had the potential to become more innovative.

Angela Prigozhina of the World Bank Country Sector Coordinator for Financial and Private Sector Development in the South Caucasus region was among those who said supporting new quality growth could increase Georgia’s innovative potential, which would allow the country to become more sophisticated and competitive in the export market.

At today’s event World Bank’s regional director in South Caucasus Henry Kerali said: "Science, technology and innovations are the central driver for long term growth in any country. Innovation drives competitiveness and maximizing the competitiveness is in these principles.”

"Anyone can innovate but innovation is not creativity alone. It begins with an idea that requires good implementation to produce new value.”

Georgia was ranked 73 out of 142 countries in the 2013 Global Innovation Report that ranked countries and economies in terms of their enabling environment to innovation and their innovation outputs.

Included in the throng of people who attended today’s occasion were a group of classmates who created the Blind Cam - an application for people with impaired vision to use mobile phones more easily using special cards.

Givi Beridze together with three of his friends created the application at the Hackathon, an event to collaborate intensively on software projects last March.

"By touching the braille font cards on the smartphone you could do any kind of function, including making a phone call, listening to music or trying to find the date and time. This will make it easier for blind people to use mobile phones,” Beridze said.

The networking-packed gathering with evening events offers participants the opportunity to meet high-level Government and business representatives, discuss new technologies and create long-lasting strategic, global partnerships.

It is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects.