This year’s first startup meeting has been held between local entrepreneurs and university students on the initiative of the Central Council of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan in collaboration with the Ashgabat City Committee.
Organized since 2018, these meetings have become traditional. Topics for discussions, ideas and self-designed projects are proposed by talented young people, and representatives of private businesses consider and assess them. The best projects have every chance of being jointly refined, improved and brought into use.
This creates excellent opportunities for young people to transform their creative ideas into successful startups and helps entrepreneurs to get innovative business models and put them into practice. Among those participating in meetings with entrepreneurs are students, young teachers, employees of research institutes, and youth, who are particularly keen on science and modern-day technological development.
Young teachers and students of the Institute of Telecommunications and Informatics, the Institute of Engineering and Transport Communications, and the Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly presented their projects and research undertakings at the first in a series meeting this year. In particular, on exhibit were models of developing multimodal transport and logistics corridors in the Central Asian and Caspian Regions, recycling waste plastics and glass, and enhanced software programs for Internet users.
A joint project created by students and teachers of the Institute of Engineering and Transport Communications of Turkmenistan was a big draw. They presented an innovative model of bleaching cellulose with high-frequency waves. This method will allow reducing the long time required for bleaching (the whole process at textile factories usually takes about twenty four hours) to 8-15 seconds. Time and new themed events will tell whether the business plan becomes a reality.
It remains to mention that a growing number of young people participate in these meetings, seeking to demonstrate their abilities, realize their ideas and present them to specialists. Providing support to youth, engaged in different fields of science and willing to participate directly in the country’s socio-economic development, is a top- priority of the state youth policy and the State Program in the field of state youth policy of Turkmenistan for 2021-2025, adopted this January. As part of the Program, meetings with enterprising young people and budding scientists will be held every month on a regular basis.
Anastasia KASYANOVA
