The EU funded IRIS Business Incubator, which announced SPARK, BUILD, and START programs last October, received about 600 applications. This was stated by Narine Terzyan. the Executive Director of the IRIS Business Incubator, which was established with funding from the European Union within the “Increased Resilience of Syrian Armenians and Host Population” (IRIS) programme.
“The competition for applications from IRIS Business Incubator is quite high, as we have received about 600 applications. 160 of them overcame the first stage and in February took part in business idea presentation courses, then a few days later presented their business initiatives and reasons for becoming residents of the IRIS Business Incubator to the jury.
For two weeks, we listened to and studied a lot of ideas in the IRIS Business Incubator. It is extremely encouraging to see the wonderful ideas of Syrian Armenians, returnees and local residents in agriculture, tourism, fashion, food and other areas․ The participants are either looking for opportunities to implement their ideas, or to expand an existing business. Such representation of participants and spheres once again confirms the vision adopted by the IRIS Business Incubator – to become an important link of economic integration in Armenia. Of these 160 candidates, about 100 were invited to the business model formation course, at the end of which the selected participants will pass the next stage – the IRIS Academy.
Given that the services and support provided to start-up entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized entrepreneurs are particularly important in this crisis situation, our team has invested its efforts to quickly respond to the business needs of our participants. The IRIS Academy, which was designed for about 100 people and was formed on the model of direct knowledge exchange, live contacts, has also been adapted for an online format to help the authors of business initiatives plan their future activities as soon as possible․ We were worrying to face technical issues and not full availability of the participants, but fortunately the lessons are going very productive” N. Terzyan said.
When asked how the ideas were evaluated in such diverse areas, N. Terzyan said that considering the particularity of the EU IRIS Programme and IRIS BI, the Jury members were multi-skilled experts from the various sectors of development programs and entrepreneurship.
The Executive Director of the IRIS Business Incubator Foundation also added that in January 2020, the IRIS Business Incubator was registered as a Foundation and the Board of Trustees of the IRIS Business Incubator Foundation was formed, which itself is a multidisciplinary and specialized Board. Lusine Stepanyan (Armenian Caritas Benevolent NGO) chairs the Board of Trustees, while Ruben Osipyan (SME Cooperation Association), Gerlinde Astleithner (Austrian Red Cross), Aline Masrlian (Syrian-Armenian entrepreneur), Jirayr Habibyan (Lebanese Armenian entrepreneur, business consultant), Naira Manoukian (expert in Business Support and Development) and Vardan Jilavyan (business consultant) are members. The multi-skilled and experienced Board members of the IRIS Business Incubator Foundation, together with the incubator team and mentors, combine their efforts in the work on economic integration of Syrian Armenians and locals in Armenia, as well as the development of small and medium-sized enterprises.
N. Terzyan also said that the IRIS Business Incubator has recently launched www.irisbi.am website that fully represents its activities and programs.
IRIS Business Incubator has been established in 2019 by “Armenian Caritas” Benevolent NGO and “SME Cooperation Association” NGO within the framework of “Increased Resilience of Syrian Armenians and Host Population” (IRIS) programme. The programme is funded by the EU Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis (the ‘MADAD’ Fund), Austrian Development Cooperation and Austrian Red Cross and is being implemented by the consortium led by Austrian Red Cross and consisting of “Armenian Caritas” Benevolent NGO, Armenian Red Cross Society, Centre for Coordination of Syrian Armenians’ Issues and “SME Cooperation Association” NGO.