On January 31 –February 4 a group of  12 graduate students, young graduates of Universities and entrepreneurs from Armenia will meet their peers in Turkey at a four day long  intensive acceleration project. Ankara based Viveka incubation center will conduct the acceleration course giving the participants  opportunities to deepen their knowledge of and hands on expertise  on  the essential stages of generating and implementing innovative ideas with use of technologies. The  program also includes study visits to ICT Centers of Excellence and Companies including ODTÜ Teknopark, Bilkent Cyberpark,  Game Incubator ATOM and others. 

Each day of the session will be dedicated to a single stage, including: Idea Generation, Business Model Development, Investor Pitching, Building a Proof of Concept, Duct Tape Marketing and others.

The acceleration course will be led by Viveka trainer Emin Okutan alongside with Narine Kotikyan from Armenia . The training will be facilitated by participants of the first stage of Technology Goes Beyond Borders Project, including representative of Evreka (Turkey) and Home Planning (Armenia).

The project is co-implemented by the Public Journalism Club (PJC) and the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) with financial support from the U.S.Embassy in Armenia. Enterprise Incubator Foundation, Union of  IT Enterprises and Bet Construct will also support project activities in Armenia.

“Technology Goes Beyond Borders: Yerevan-Ankara”  project builds on the success of the first “Technology Goes Beyond Borders” project (February-May 2015), in framework of which 6 startup teams from Armenia and Turkey were engaged in an acceleration program at Microsoft Innovation Center (Armenia). This project was cofounded by The US Embassy in Armenia and the European Union.

Public Journalism Club

Established in March 2011, the Public Journalism Club (PJC) unifies journalists, social media experts, and advocates to improve information dissemination through collaboration between new technologies and media.
The organization's mission is to promote freedom of expression, diversity and pluralism in Armenia developing participatory and public journalism by bridging public reporters and professional journalists, mass media and social media, IT and social sector specialists. During the last 3 years PJC has succeeded to establish a positive reputation in the field by effectively implementing a few targeted innovative, trailblazing projects collectively reflected at mynews.am public reporting platform and Hackathon{YAN} contest of innovative ideas.

The Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV)

The Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey is a non-partisan, non-profit think tank based in Ankara, Turkey. TEPAV was established in 2004 as an independent research institute and is Turkey’s largest economic policy think-tank employing highly talented researchers and experts. 
TEPAV’s mission is to develop innovative policy strategies for public and private sector development within Turkey and the surrounding region. Our interdisciplinary approach focuses on fostering competitive business environment, improving regional development within Turkey and supporting international economic integration. TEPAV’s approach is to accomplish our mission through project based innovations by bringing together different players and experts for a common goal.