A blossoming tree
How a hot-house in Minsk
hatches entrepreneurs
The Business Incubator on Chapayeva street was established by the Minsk City Executive Committee and registered as a small business incubator in 2009. The site has become the centre of a wide-ranging business initiative – part experimental space, part job creation powerhouse – that is helping to open up Minsk, and the whole of Belarus, to new educational and entrepreneurial endeavours.
…as it was the first such
[entrepreneurship] centre in Belarus
everything was very new for us.
Managing director Rima Epur sees her role as a mix of those two fields. From an educational perspective, she helps young people by listening to their issues, sharing her experience, and connecting them with appropriate support. “Before I became managing director of the Business Incubator I was a school teacher. The main purpose of the Incubator is to support young people in implementing their ideas, and as it was the first such centre in Belarus everything was very new for us.” Born in Siberia to a family which had been deported there by Stalin’s regime, Epur believes her upbringing influenced her to look for new ways to solve old problems and, in the process, develop leadership skills.
Rima Epur also sees herself as a bridge between the emerging entrepreneurial eco-system growing within the Incubator and the wider community, particularly government. The importance of the contribution made by SMEs is readily acknowledged by Marina Saevich, head of the department of entrepreneurship in the Partyzanski district of Minsk, one of nine local districts within the city. “As a local authority we’re providing support to schools to encourage children to learn about business in special educational programmes. We truly believe that every city, every region of our country must have its own incubator, a place which can offer opportunities for young people to work together to create wealth and jobs as part of this emerging entrepreneurial movement.”
Every city, every region of our country
must have its own incubator.
Since its establishment the Incubator has been visited by some 6,000 school students whose teachers bring them there to gain exposure to entrepreneurial activity and general business issues. For Saevich, the success of the Business Incubator model reflects the special appeal of Minsk as a city, and she expresses pride in the sustainable businesses that have been hatched by the Incubator.
“This is a great example of collaboration between government and young entrepreneurs. The impact of their activities has been significant and without doubt is affecting local policy. For example, we’re looking at how we can take the interests of young entrepreneurs into account in the policy-making process. We’re developing many projects specifically to support young entrepreneurs, including the managed rents in the Incubator, tax relief, and trade mission participation. We’re organising a special delegation to the regions of Russia with the heads of our administration and with residents from the Business Incubator to establish relationships with SMEs in Russia.”
Incubator resident Sviatoslav Parfionov sees the relationship between the Incubator’s staff and residents, founding partners, and the shared marketing, legal, and accountancy service providers, as a big tree. “Every business is like a blossom on this tree. They benefit from growing together here, from being parts of an integrated whole.” To extend the metaphor, the branches are like the community’s projects, linking different businesses. A feature of this approach is that business owners can meet informally and discuss issues of mutual interest. It serves as a networking service that links new entrepreneurs with seasoned business people who can offer support. This also creates word-of-mouth marketing which entrepreneurs can use to spread the message when they have new products and services to offer.
This entrepreneurial community, known as the ‘beesiness-hive’, is a business incubator consisting of ‘business cells’ specialising in business education, employment, art industry, IT, tourism, promotion, services, and so on. Based in Minsk, the incubator provides a framework for continuous learning in a cycle of knowledge-sharing, and professional assistance is provided by more experienced multidisciplinary ‘business bees’ and local government representatives.
Learn more about Minsk entrepreneurial community (FR) and the ETF project.
