Mayor Encourages Young Entrepreneurs with New Business Accelerator
On Thursday last week, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze presented a new Business Accelerator project at the Veterans' Culture and Rest Park (better known as Kikvidze Park). The event was attended by Ambassador of the European Union to Georgia Karl Harcell and the Head of City Hall’s Economic Development Department, Andria Basilaia.
The new project serves to promote the development of business ideas by young people. “This project will support young people in carrying out their ideas. We will help businesses create a business plan and communicate with them to make their ideas a reality...Anyone can register, present a project and work with people who will give them maximum support,” Kaladze explained.
At the kickoff event Thursday, Ambassador Harcell commented on the importance of the project and expressed his readiness to share European experience in implementing the program. He noted that the purpose of the project was to combat brain drain, ensuring “Georgia does not lose talented young people”.
The Business Accelerator program is part of a large-scale initiative being implemented in Georgia and Eastern Europe, ‘Mayors for Economic Growth’. Half a million Euros of the project is being financed by the EU, while Tbilisi City Hall is also contributing an undisclosed sum.
Mayors for Economic Growth is an EU initiative that began operating in January 2017 in Eastern Partnership countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Its overall goal is to support mayors and municipalities to be more active facilitators for economic growth and job creation at the local level. The EU hopes that the initiative will one day become a regional professional network that requires certain commitments from its members while offering expert and peer-to-peer support.
The Business Accelerator's work space in Kikvidze Park was initiated by Tbilisi City Hall and the European Union in partnership with the Georgian Employers' Association within the framework of Mayors for Economic Growth. The purpose of the project is to promote employment, enhance the capacity of Georgian entrepreneurs, and implement innovative business ideas. From now on, the work space and the services offered there will be available to anyone with a business idea.
The event was held in conjunction with a Tbilisi Market day, where artists and craftspeople in various fields exhibited their work at stands set up in the park. Nearly 50 entrepreneurs exhibited and sold their products at the Market.
The Tbilisi Market project debuted last year in July with a focus on handmade crafts, and ran every Saturday of the month. The Department of Economic Development at City Hall said that project aimed to promote local creativity and business development in the arts. City Hall hoped then that the Tbilisi Market would become an “interesting and verified trade space for local guests and tourists, where micro and small entrepreneurs registered in Tbilisi can take part.”
In July, Kaladze emphasized that “it is highly important to encourage people who work in this field to sell items regularly from this location. As you know, there are many tourists in the city and this opportunity is vital for them”.
By Samantha Guthrie
Image source: Tbilisi City Hall