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Ecosystem platforms > SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM

FAST | COMMERCIALISATION

Recognizing the critical need to boost scientific commercialization in Armenia, FAST has placed a heavy focus on creating programs that will help build science-intensive innovation and also ensure pre-seed funding for companies created through this pipeline.

IMPACTS ON COMMERCIALISATION OUTPUTS

FAST has launched science-intensive venture builder programs — ASCENT and InVent — as well as Armenia’s first Angel group — the Science and Technology Angels Network — which unites 31 prominent professionals from all over the world who are committed to invest 10,000 USD annually.

31

angels involved in STAN

$681K

 committed in angel investment

$305K

invested in 9 local tech startups

230

startups benefited from programs

2

science-intensive venture builders created

I’m thrilled to be a small part of the amazing efforts and initiatives that FAST is engaged in to encourage and support entrepreneurship in Armenia. Promising talent coupled with great startup education makes me very excited for Armenia’s future.

Marvin Liao

Former Partner, 500 Startups United States

 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ANGELS NETWORK (STAN)

FAST established the Science and Technology Angels Network to help fill Armenia’s gap in seed-stage investments. STAN serves as a platform that unites a group of prominent Armenian professionals from all over the globe to invest in Armenian pre-seed and seed-stage startups engaged in science and technology innovation.

Along with providing access to risk capital, STAN also possesses a vast expertise that can be leveraged to support companies through strategic advice, mentorship, introductions and connections capable of facilitating their further development.

Today there is sometimes the impression that you have to go to the US, Europe or other countries to be very successful. I would like to help to create such an ecosystem in Armenia to put the country on the map as a country where you go to become highly successful. I believe that with tremendous IT talent and large Diaspora connections, Armenia has all the ingredients it needs to become such a destination.

Igor Khalatian

Co-Founder, Co-Chair, STAN VP of Development, Oracle, United States

 

ADVANCED SOLUTIONS CENTER

FAST designed the multifunctional ASCENT platform, which develops science-intensive ventures with a high potential to become internationally competitive deeptech companies.

ASCENT focuses onArtificial Intelligence and Life Sciences. It uses its innovation model and a stage-gate process to evolve ideas from venture hypotheses through prototype companies to new companies and eventually spinoff ventures. The innovation model is co-designed with Flagship Pioneering, a leading venture-building company based in Boston which has generated more than 100 companies since 2013. An integral part of the solution is a yet-to-be-established venture capital fund attached to ASCENT to help further fuel company growth.

INVENT

FAST designed a pioneering venture-building program to utilize ASCENT’s filtered ideas, and challenges collected from industry and government, to generate startup companies using an exploration methodology tailored to matching prevailing needs and opportunities.

The InVent program runs over 20 weeks and walks serial entrepreneurs, researchers and industry professionals through the startup journey from idea generation and team formation, to minimum viable product (MVP) development and fundraising. Throughout the program, FAST provides full institutional support to the participants.

NERUZH STARTUP PROGRAM

The Neruzh Diaspora Startup Program was established at the initiative of the Ministry of Diaspora and co-designed by FAST in 2018.

The program promoted the inflow of innovative, capable and scalable tech startups from within the Armenian Diaspora to enrich the local startup landscape. Investments were made in their advancement and growth within Armenia and to serve as a gateway for deploying and scaling-up impactful Armenian technologies and business models throughout world markets. In doing so, it leveraged Armenia’s significant Diaspora presence and deep connections in the leading global tech hubs.

NETWORK-BUILDING PLATFORMS

Creating a dynamic in which Armenia’s STI ecosystem can generate efficient and prolific innovative outputs requires strong links among the various stakeholders that will form that ecosystem.

It also requires the formation of ties between key Armenian stakeholders and the outside world. As a result, FAST programming devotes considerable effort to both strengthening existing links and creating new ones. In addition to organizing small and mid-scale engagements, FAST has also strived to build regular largescale scientific and tech events to strengthen Armenia’s positioning as an emerging innovation hub.

NSF-FAST WORKSHOP ON MACHINE LEARNING FOR DISCOVERY SCIENCES

FAST and the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) jointly organized a Workshop on “Machine Learning for Discovery Sciences”.

The 4-day workshop brought together 45 toplevel speakers and nearly 250 researchers and specialists from various disciplines in the field of data science.

The workshop’s primary objective was to bring researchers and practitioners from machine learning and other dataintensive disciplines to advance cross-disciplinary collaborations that could facilitate science discovery in those fields.

Another important objective was to establish and promote mutually beneficial collaborations between international and Armenian scientists, researchers and students.

GLOBAL INNOVATION FORUM 2018—2019

The Global Innovation Forum is a FAST flagship event organized annually since 2018. Each Forum carries a specific umbrella topic, with GIF18 being dedicated to “Engineering the Evolution” and GIF19 exploring “Transforming Intelligence”.

During GIF18 and GIF19 over 1,400 forum participants and 1,700 guests have attended 80 GIF talks and sessions on the immense impact of AI and life sciences on society and science. Numerous partner events have also been hosted on the GIF platform. The Forum has become a hub for vigorous debates, captivating presentations and policy discussions delivered by over 170 outstanding scientists, innovators, executives and thought leaders from 23 countries.

GIF20, titled “Life-altering Technologies”, was scheduled to be held on 7 October 2020, but was postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

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Dear Visitor,

We are glad you are interested in the activities of the IDeA Foundation.

On this platform, you can learn about two-decades long thought, passion, commitment and hard work — all in pursuit of a more prosperous Armenia. The road has been long and reflections many. But we managed to achieve to a point where our work has left its mark on the lives of millions of people and we are really proud of it.

Our accomplishments are the fruit of a collective effort by hundreds of thousands of promoters and volunteers, tens of thousands of donors and supporters, hundreds of colleagues and dozens of founding partners. Together, we have shown what wonderous things can be achieved when people strive for realization of a common goal.

Allow our family, who was lucky enough to witness these remarkable achievements from the beginning, to express our sincere gratitude to numerous wonderful, caring, purposeful people and organizations that made all these achievements possible. We have the honor to present their successes and express our gratitude to them.

We have tried to present the key landmarks of our journey to a brighter Armenia, to chart the lessons learned, and some of the new approaches and initiatives they have forged — the 700 projects over the last 20 years.

We hope that learning about these works will be as pleasant for you as it is for us to tell about them.

But, more importantly, we would like to see you among those Armenians who will continue this path together with us in the future.

If a single community of like-minded people working towards the realization of a common vision of the future can achieve such a result, imagine what kind of changes can be made if the efforts of the entire nation were directed towards creation. Together we can dream.

And, together, we can make our dreams come true.

Thank You,

Ruben Vardanyan and Veronika Zonabend