A new cycles of youth startup Initiatives support programme kicked off. According to the results of the competitive selection, 43 startup projects from Tashkent took part in the fourth cycle of the ‘Startup Initiative’ support programme. This year we selected projects from all the provinces of Uzbekistan and organised seminars and master classes in 5 regions covering more than 178 youth startup projects.

This year we have received a record number of applications - 648. Participation in the programme of youth in the provinces has improved remarkably, 359 against 289 from the capital region. Projects led by girls prevail in Tashkent - 79 against 66 projects from the regions. Tourism, travel and hospitality services are the most popular direction for young people - 98 projects, followed by projects on social sectors: ecology, sports, education and the urban environment - 77 projects. Concluding area in the top three is  medicine, including pharmacology and biotechnology - 61 projects. Youth also see the prospect for developing startups in the fields of trade and services, agriculture and the food industry (AgroTech and FoodTech), transport services and logistics.

Training started with an intensive five-day seminar where participants are learning the basics of launching a startup using the Lean Startup methodology. After the educational part, young startups will move on to the practical implementation of their projects - they will develop a roadmap for implementing their projects, start testing the value propositions, study the needs of the target audience, create working models and start testing sales channels.

'Trackers', i.e. experienced mentors will guide and advise projects during the programme, accompanying the team development and advising on achieving the goals. Over the next two months, workshops and expert consultations of skilled experts and successful entrepreneurs will be organized for participants on various issues related to the implementation of startup projects. We also invited experts from Russia, South Korea and the USA to train our participants.

Based on the results of the programme, teams will present their projects at Demo Day (demonstration day) to attract interested organizations and investors for further development of their projects. At the end of the Demo Day top five projects will receive financial rewards (investment grants) for the development of startups.

“Based on the results of the interviews, we were convinced that the projects have become more interesting, more conceptual, and the teams are “mature”. There are more teams that already have MVP (minimum viable products). This is a good trend. The quality is clearly higher and it is pleasing”- Alisher Yusupov, Director of Brand.uz, mentor of the “Startup Initiative” programme.

By serving as a bridge between the educational and private sectors, the programme contributes to the creation of effective interaction mechanism for searching, selecting and testing promising youth ideas, technologies and projects that meet the needs of the parties, and the development of the country's innovative and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The support programme is implemented under the "Promoting Youth Employment in Uzbekistan" joint project of UNDP in Uzbekistan and Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations with the financial support of Russian Federation, in cooperation with Youth Union of Uzbekistan, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan and Technological Park of Software Products and Information Technologies (IT-Park).

Youth Entrepreneurship Support Center and the “Yoshlar Kelajagimiz” Foundation under the Youth Union of Uzbekistan, “Digital Trust” Digital Economy Development Support fund, “Uzpromstroymaterialy” (Uzindustryconstructionmaterials) Association, East Telecom LLC, Westminster International University in Tashkent, and coworking centers “Ground Zero” and “C-Space” are also participating in the implementation of the programme as partner organiozations.

More information on the programme is available on startup.mehnat.uz, Facebook page and Telegram channel.

Contact Information: +998 90 317-39-59, Usmon Rakhimjanov, Task Manager on promoting youth entrepreneurship, “Promoting Youth Employment in Uzbekistan”