Quick check of project viability, which will save time and resources.
“Startup Initiatives” youth innovative ideas and startup projects support programme
“Startup Initiatives” youth innovative ideas and startup projects support programme
About the programme
Intensive programme to support development of innovative ideas and startup projects provides opportunity for young people to test their innovative ideas and startup projects create their own startups, develop their skills and capacity in the field of entrepreneurship.
What will the programme participants get?
Participation in the acceleration programme
Quick check of project viability, which will save time and resources.
Knowledge
On methodology and tools for launching and developing innovative ideas and startup projects.
Project road map
Developed by you together with a business mentor accompanying your team.
Workshops and consulting
Participating in online-seminars and getting expertise from mentors and leading experts of the market.
Marketing and customer studies
Identification of target audience, testing value propositions and hypotheses of the project.
Partnership
Access to the resources of partner organizations for creating Minimum Viable Product of project, testing and getting feedback.
Presentation for investors
Finalists of the programme will present their startup on Demo Day and may attract investment for the implementation of the project.
Financial support and prizes
The best 40 projects will receive valuable prizes and seed grant funding rewards of up to 50 million soums for the development of the project.
PR support
PR of your project, assistance in attracting investments and participation in acceleration programmes of foreign countries.
Who can participate?
Initiative youth above 16 years old, entrepreneurs, inventors, students, teachers and researchers of higher educational institutions, graduates of vocational colleges and academic lyceums are invited to participate in the programme.
Projects and teams led by girls or whose teams include girls as co-founders are welcome.
What is required from participants?
Why should you participate in our programme?
IT IS ONLINE
Residents from any part of the country can take part, as the programme is being run completely online and expanding its reach this year.
IT IS USEFUL
You will get knowledge, skills and hands on launching and developing a startup from the best experts of the country’s startup community: through communication with mentors, successful entrepreneurs, as well as educational programmes
IT IS FAST
During the three months of participation, you will not only test the idea, develop the skills and potential of a technology entrepreneur, but also start creating your startup and get financing for its launch
IT IS FREE
Participation in the programme is free, and the organizers do not claim a share in your project or your intellectual property
Selection criteria
Feasibility
Teams must be able to build a Minimum Viable Product during their participation in the programme (3 months).
Solve the problem
Your product or service should be focused on solving specific problems of the target audience, and have a clear and attractive value proposition
Technological novelty
The project should be based on a unique innovative solution that is different from competitors, with a clear and attractive value proposition.
Investment attractiveness
Your product or solution must have significant market value and great potential for growth and scale.
Project team
The project should have a determined and capable team of at least 2 individuals who are focused on results and ready for intensive work. Also, the team must be able to allocate at least 15 hours per week to work on the project.
Programme stages
Preliminary selection on the basis of technological and business evaluation of applications received. Projects that have successfully passed this stage will be invited to an online meeting – interview with an expert group.
Online interviews with teams and project evaluation. The expert group will identify promising innovative ideas and startup projects for participation in the support programme.
The launch of the support programme (acceleration programme) begins with an online-live educational course on the Lean Startup methodology, with the participation of teams of selected projects.
Individual work with business mentors, workshops and expert advice (mentors), hypothesis testing, development of minimum viable product, test sales and market research. All the processes will take place online on the accelerator.uz platform.
«Demo Day» – presentation of the best projects’ results that received the highest marks from trackers based on their performance during the participation in the support programme, across the regions and Tashkent city.
Up to 3 most promising projects in each region and the Republic of Karakalpakstan and 10 projects from the Tashkent city and Tashkent region will be selected for the award.
Further, the most ambitious and active innovators will present their projects to guests and investors at the national “Demo Day” online.
Priority areas of technologies
Submit application
Applications accepted till September 20, 2020
For your convenience, you can download the application form in MS Word format, write answers offline, and copy to the online form
Download applicationTechnology requests
| Are you the head of an enterprise / organization?
If you are the head of an enterprise / organization, please, take this survey. It is aimed at identifying technological requests and needs of enterprises and organizations in new technologies and innovations by regions and industries. |
Are you a resident of the startup programme?
Those wishing to participate in the Support Programme can familiarize yourself with the needs of organizations and enterprises by areas and regions: |
| The information you provide will be used for targeted search and attraction of innovative ideas and start-up projects of young people for their solution within the framework of the implementation of the 5th cycle of the Startup Initiative support programme. | |
| Questionnaire for heads of enterprises and organizations | View |
Photos of 5th cycle (2020-2021)
Publications about us
The Startup Initiative programme serves as an excellent foundation for those who want to create a startup. It is like filtering from an idea to a real startup. You will be taught how to start and do everything correctly in the shortest possible time.
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If you want to have networking and mentoring, that’s the place for you to be.
Case: At the end of 2018, our UniBus startup (current name Passenger Transit) almost crashed financially. But thanks to this particular programme, we were able to raise $ 200,000 investment on “Demo day”. That’s cool!
I think in order to realize your idea and turn it into a cool startup, you need to be bold and always be able to sell yourself.
As for the mentors, I am grateful to Zhasur Ruzmetov and Aziz Rakhimov for helping us with advice in the field of product, unique selling proposition.
Special thanks to the coordinator of the programme, Usmon Rakhimdzhanov, who poured his whole soul into this project and continues to work day and night despite any obstacles and help young people achieve their ambitious goals!
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Shahzod Umirzakov, UniBus Project
Thanks to participation in several startup contests, we got acquainted with the Lean Startup and Customer Development methodologies. We learned how to conduct a thryfty launch: to start from a “duct tape solution” and use a small-scale MVP for testing customer demand manually. This technique changed our initial idea of starting a business, and helped us a lot with planning the budget and find buyers.
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During the competition, we laid the foundation of our financial and economic education, we received confidence boost that is necessary to start, received an assessment of our idea (luckily, it turned out to be quite high!). After going through all the cycles of the program, creating a minimum viable product, manually examining the demand for our product, we reached the finals. We were learning and trying new things at each stage of the competition, prepared on the advice of our trackers, experienced and respected professionals in their field, presenting their ideas and product on Demo Day.
In conclusion, if I may advise you: be sure to participate in the competition of startup initiatives. It is very important and useful. You will meet a lot of smart and successful people, you will be inspired by workshops, you will feel the atmosphere of victory, discover a lot of new things, look at the world from a different angle, and believe in yourself. And you know, this is an invaluable experience! Act! And you will definitely win!
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Alexander Gorovik participant of the programme 2018A, project “Visual programming on Scratch”
This programme provided us with much more support and experience than we even expected.
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Starting with the first stages of the programme, successful entrepreneurs and experts of Uzbekistan conducted for us master classes and practical expert sessions that helped us in a short time to realize our project in a qualitative way. During the ‘Startup Initiative’ programme with the support of our mentor Usmon Rakhimjanov, we managed to turn our idea into a finished product, became the finalists at ‘Demo Day’. We were approached by several investors who were ready to finance our project. Among them we chose an investor with the most suitable conditions and today we work with them. With the help of the aroba.uz platform, we bring the service of intercity taxi of Uzbekistan to a new level, working with about 500 drivers.
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Shokhrukh Karimov, participant of the programme in 2017, ‘Aroba.uz’ project
Initially, we submitted the application with another project, but after studying the problem and our needs, we realized that the idea we had did not make sense at all.
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During the work with our mentor (Aziz Rakhimov) we came up with a new idea and started work in this way.
What did the programme give us? We have learned not just to think, but to act, to think flexibly and react quickly. We realized that the most important issue is the Team! You can have super software engineers, but they are not good at selling or even at accounting. When you hear this idea you can’t believe and think that you will cope with everything! But in reality it is not always possible. The main conclusion for me is not to be afraid! Go forward, you can move slowly, but move! This is important!
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Charos Abdukayumova, participant of the programme in 2017, ‘Event tech Solution’ project
The ‘Startup Initiative’ project helped me to take a fresh look at business development, to learn how to identify potential problems of consumers, and thus open up new business opportunities. Our team received a lot of useful tips for our startup development, which helps to avoid mistakes, to assess financial capabilities and project prospects.
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During the programme we also learned to pitch our projects to potential investors. The most important thing in the project is that we have found a lot of new friends and useful contacts who help to move forward today. Even a year later the organizers of the programme are in contact with us and help us to develop our skills and our project.
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Farrukh Azimov, participant of the programme in 2017, ‘Oylik.uz’ project
Organizers
Partners
Information support
