The main objective of this proposal is to create an international working group with a practical approach that will help give innovative support (means of sustainability, business models, commercialization, etc.) towards ICT related start-ups in each country. The results would benefit directly young companies/start-ups incubated in the participant organizations and the general ICT entrepreneurial ecosystem as well.

During the execution of the grant the following activities are to be completed to obtain the stated objective:

• Exchange of lessons learned, good practices and success stories from each organization. The proposal is to utilize Web enabled technologies to exchange ideas (ICT entrepreneurship Blog), which will be lead by one of the participants of this proposal. The materials produced by this working group will be submitted to IDisc.
• Exchange of participating organizations portfolios (companies supported). This will give visibility to all companies supported by the participants, allowing the detection of synergies and possible collaboration opportunities (partnerships, lessons learned, business reality for similar projects in each country, etc.) between supported start-ups.
• Interviews with world class references in ICT incubation/acceleration (IC2: Austin Technology Incubator, Idea Lab, Canterbury Innovation Center) in the developed world in order to learn from the best and possibly establish cooperation methods through partnerships.
• Create a LinkedIn account that includes the international ICT community relevant to the acceleration of the supported start-ups, this is to connect people/entrepreneurs and companies.
• The program will include a networking event in Miami, FL, USA, where Octantis Business Accelerator has its international branch. The event consists of presentations of five (5) ICT related start-ups with an international scope supported by different participants along with presentations of the conclusions of the work done by the international working group during the execution of the grant. A fruitful agenda for all the companies participating in Miami would be coordinated with the relevant business community for each project, resulting in an expanded network for the entrepreneurs.
• Creation of “The High Growth International Institute” (HGII) as a conclusion of the program, using the outcomes of the project as an input in order to leverage the results to the entrepreneurial ecosystems in developing countries, the resources of the HGII would be made available to InfoDev and iDisc to ensure the learning’s are shared as widely as possible.

The proposal will be lead by Octantis, Business Accelerator located in Chile and Enterprise Incubator Foundation in Armenia. The participants are the following; New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, LATU – Ingenio, Uruguay, Ayala Foundation, Philippines, TRINUS Soluções Empresariais – FUMSOFT, Brazil, Crea-me, Colombia, University of Guadalajara Technology Incubator, México, Instituto Gênesis - PUC-Rio, Brazil, Technology and Business Incubator Center-CITAf, Romania, The Innovation Hub, South Africa, Palestine Information and Communications Technology Incubator. The project will begin in July-August, 2008 and has a duration of 12 months.

Please contact smelin@octantis.cl, benjamin@octantis.cl or info@eif.am if you would like to join.