On February 16, the Georgia and Armenia Tech Hub Summit 2023 was held at the Tbilisi Marriott Hotel. Its main sponsors were GEORGIA TODAY and Tbilisi Marriott Hotel. The conference was organized by the Georgia-Based Klein & Pantsulaia and Armenia-based Klein & Iskandaryan.
The regional Tech Hub Summit is among the first of its kind. Representatives from three American firms- Dataart, the Cambridge Massachusetts-based Quantori, and Innovecs, were invited as speakers. The German-based Devexperts, also present, has many offices around the world, including in Ukraine and Bulgaria, but does not currently operate in Armenia. All four companies collaborate with Georgian technical universities, however, and in some cases have their own R&D centers.
Also speaking at the summit were representatives from two universities: Georgia’s Ilia State University and the Georgian campus of San Diego State University.
As the Klein law firm has offices in Georgia (Klein and Pantsulaia) and Armenia (Klein & Iskandaryan), they wanted to find foreign companies that were operating in both markets. At first, there seemed to be hardly any. It came as a surprise, since it made logical sense that neighbors in the Caucasus would have common business interests. After a deeper look, however, they found that, in fact, in the tech sector there are a lot of businesses working in both markets to tap into the large and booming tech talent.
One of the main themes discussed at the summit was the many subsidy programs and tax incentive schemes for the IT sector carried out in an effort to try to attract investments.
“We wanted to have a conference where we would talk about business, technology, and investment in universities,” said Daniel Klein Co-Founder of Klein & Pantsulaia, Klein & Iskandaryan. “I think this summit was really interesting, because it featured some of the best topics for Armenia and Georgia. We’re confident we will see very interesting prospects going forward.”
“Our team believes that communication and education drive innovative ideas,” said administrative assistant at Devexperts Georgia Nata Vazhinskaya. “We’re focused on building an environment where professionals can freely share their expertise. To do that, we sponsor and take part in international and local professional IT events; organize internships, internal courses and mentorship programs; partner with university programs and conduct workshops for students; and support and manage free events for IT specialists.”
The organizers are already planning a follow up Summit for the spring.
By Mariam Mtivlishvili
