25 September 2007
| Yerevan, Armenia
The Regional Conference of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Network of Business Incubators and Technology Parks was held on September 17 – 20 in Yerevan, Armenia. The conference brought together over 100 participants from 15 countries in the region, and was opened by the Minister of Trade and Economic Development of Armenia.
What is the role of business incubation in fostering regional innovation and entrepreneurship? What types of national public sector policies and programs support innovation initiatives in the region? How can Public-Private Sector Partnerships play a role in promoting innovation? What are the main models and themes surrounding business incubation in the region?
“All the countries in this region compete globally. This conference is an opportunity for us to share experiences and learn from global approaches to implementing innovation policies in the region and for developing the competitiveness of small countries in a regional context. It is important to build bridges on the institutional, financing and business environment levels in order to ensure forward-looking and sustainable policies for innovation and entrepreneurship.”
H.E. Mr. Nerses Yeristyan, Minister of Trade and Economic Development of the Republic of Armenia
These are some of the questions that were tackled at the Advancing Innovation in ECA 2007 conference in Yerevan. The creation of effective innovation clusters is a key success factor for strengthening the competitiveness of the countries in the ECA region, and business incubators and technology parks can play a crucial role in this process. The conference succeeded in raising awareness of this reality and in engaging partners and stakeholders to support innovation-driven enterprises in the region. Indeed, one of the main conclusions of the first two days is that the value of knowledge is significantly increased when that knowledge is shared, and that the effectiveness of incubation increases when the regional and global communities gather around prioritized themes, as well as use and develop the same tools.
The conference agenda and discussions were future-driven, and there are already several best practices and lessons learned that can be drawn from developments both regionally and globally. Policymakers are beginning to place increased significance on the role of Innovation & Entrepreneurship policies in reaching broader economic goals, and on the impact that business incubation can have on social and human development. For example, Armenia, the host country of the conference, is in the process of implementing its national IT policy for 2006 – 2010, with the specific intention of strengthening its competitiveness and creating new jobs, and is a regional leader in developing innovation clusters. The Minister of Trade and Economic Development of Armenia opened the conference and stressed the importance of having the opportunity for exchanging knowledge and best practices on innovation, and for further leveraging the role of business incubators and technology parks in empowering the ultimate driver of any economy – its human capital.
The ECA region enjoys a high level of scientific and technological knowledge through a traditionally strong emphasis on education in these areas. However, it was underlined that this knowledge needs to be more stringently tied to industry, government and the private sector, and that the connectivity of ICT to other sectors (such as education and healthcare) will further maximize the value added among such operational linkages.
The importance of strengthening the national capacity to absorb innovation was highlighted by Mr. Itzhak Goldberg, Advisor, Policy and Strategy, ECSPF at The World Bank. According to Goldberg, important prerequisites for absorbing innovation include national and regional financial and institutional instruments, a certain level of R&D, and an abundant pipeline of ideas. He engaged his panel in a discussion debating on further prerequisites for the implementation of successful innovation policies (such as human capital and the investment climate), the openness and accessibility to FDI, knowledge flows, and languages, as well the governance structures of business incubators and technology parks.
Other regional and global perspectives included a proposal on technology transfer collaboration between ECA and China by Mr. Liu Zhengping, General Manager of the Shanghai Co-way International Technology Transfer Center, a discussion on women in incubation by Ms. Zamira Akbagysheva, President of the Congress of Business Women of Kyrgystan, a presentation on public sector innovation policies and programs by Mr. Odikhuja Parpiev, Head of the Innovation Department at the Committee for Coordination of Science & Technology in Uzbekistan, and a view to engaging university support for innovative start-ups by Mr. Oleg Movsisyan, Director of the Moscow State University Science Park.
Two days of high-level panel discussions set the scene for the ensuing two workshop days for the incubator and technology park managers. The incubator and technology park managers formed working groups on: Rural Innovation, Youth in Innovation, SME Education in Transition Economies, and Incubation in 2020.
A summary of the conference, with main conclusions, can be found in the attached document.
Please visit the conference website to access conference presentations and a list of participants by clicking here.
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The conference was jointly organized by the Information for Development Program (infoDev) housed at the World Bank, the ECAbit Network of Business Incubators and Technology Parks of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF) of Armenia. Partners of the conference include The World Bank, the Government of Armenia, USAID-CAPS, ProSME Armenia, Microsoft, and Viasphere Technopark.