3 Facts Why Georgia is The Country of Innovation
Even on governmental level
This year lots of hackathons were held in Tbilisi and as far as I know there is an innovation camp coming soon. When I graduated from high school five years ago, no one even knew definition of the word “Entrepreneurship” in Georgia (at least not that I know of), although there is no corresponding word in Georgian language yet, today there are reasonable amount of startup companies registered by Georgian entrepreneurs in Tbilisi as well as abroad. (i.e in2circle, deehubs, etc)
Let’s start from big to small.
1. Georgia is Selling eGovernment Innovation
In Georgia we have The Public Service Hall, it’s a building where most of public services are presented, so called “Everything in one place” system. The idea originated in 2005 and it was caused by effort to lower the level of bureaucracy and create an open governance. In other words this is the place where you can get birth certificate, get married, divorce, change name, get the citizen ID, get death certificate, etc.
So this is combination of not only the offices that are located in one huge building, but the software that is behind this system as well. This means that IT in Georgia is well developed, otherwise it would be incredibly hard to maintain all of these data.
In November 2013 Financial published article concerning Public Service Hall. Here is a quote from it:
“The idea Everything in One Space has already been patented and many countries are interested in importing it,” said Nino Chichua, Executive Director of the House of Justice. “Botswana, Turkey, Argentina and some other countries have already expressed interest in purchasing the Georgian innovation. We have not yet signed contracts with these countries, but negotiations are already underway. The second and even third stages of negotiations have been completed. The current challenge is how to fix the procedures for exporting the idea. If the negotiations continue successfully, then Georgia will sign a contract with these countries in 2014. Georgia does not have natural resources, but Georgians know how to produce services,” said Chichua.
2. It’s Really Easy to Start Business in Georgia
It’s well known fact in Georgia and some of my friends are already annoyed with it, since almost everyone was waving with this status couple of year ago, but I am going to repeat it once more. Georgia currently ranks 9th out of 185 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings. This is a great achievement for a country which was under the Soviet Union state ruled economy less than 25 years ago.
Regardless the lack of sympathy among citizens towards foreign investments in Georgia, according to Diplomatic Currier, this country ranks high on the criteria of ‘Protecting Investors’. Whatever citizens might think, this country definitely needs foreign investments in order to fix current economical situation. As Financial quoted:
Georgia does not have natural resources, but Georgians know how to produce services…
Thus investing money in Georgia, especially in IT businesses might be highly profitable, considering that several IT companies and digital agencies are focusing on international markets and selling their services to foreign countries, which will be easier after signing European Union Association Agreement.
3. Georgia is The Only Country that has Innovation Agency
Yes, Georgian government has created an agency that specialized in developing innovation and technology in Georgia. Georgia is the only country that has Innovation and Technology Agency, at least among post-soviet countries.
Agency already carried out Innovations Week and Innov-a-thon, the startup pitching event in collaboration with Turn8 Accelerator and is preparing several other events for the future.
So whether you live in Georgia or you have at least once considered coming to Georgia, it’s about time you look more seriously into it.
