Innovation and creative thinking based on intellectual activity have an important role in the sustainable development of the national economy. From this point of view, the elaboration and implementation of startup projects is of great importance in the development of the modern economy of Azerbaijan. State support for the implementation of start-up projects in our country is mainly conducted by the Small and Medium Business Development Agency (KOBİA) under the Ministry of Economy. Micro and small business entities whose projects are being developed are encouraged to obtain a start-up certificate by applying to KOBİA. SMB entities were exempted from profit and income tax on their income from innovation activity for a 3-year period from the date of issuance of the certificate.
Gunay Imanzade, Head of Metatesk LLC and winner of the Presidential award for innovation and entrepreneurship is one of the young entrepreneurs recently received a start-up certificate for the online education platform.
"One of the benefits the certificate brings is income tax exemption and this is a huge support for us in the early stages," stated the young entrepreneur and she also added that the project she led is regarding the organization of education in the virtual world. The project is mainly aimed at the education of children aged 6-14: "For instance, if children exhibit an interest in space, they will be able to learn about it not from books, but from the virtual world in 3D format, and will be exposed to certain subject by visually traveling in a shuttle along with their teachers and classmates." G. Imanzade said that students, teenagers and young people had no choice but to to study online during the pandemic and it was the main reason of arranging the project to this effect. Students were studying subjects through online classes as they were watching some videos on YouTube and which was evidently very boring: "At that time, the Metaverse technology began to spread rapidly, and I thought of harnessing children's interest in games to create educational content. So, I developed the first lesson that excited them, our team grew alongside the rise in the subjects."
G.Imanzade said that despite, they are currently working mostly for the foreign market, there are also local students among the project stakeholders. They are encouraged to come to the company`s office and watch scientific lessons on various STEAM topics with virtual glasses: "Children are enthusiastic about lessons with various contents such as space, water cycle in nature, atmospheric layers, planet Earth. Currently, only limited educational contents we have created is introduced to students, however we will try to make this platform more accessible to users, educational institutions and teachers for developing topics in line with their area of interests in the future after once we attract enough investment." Our interviewer added that they currently offer about 60 educational contents as 2-year program to students. Students are encouraged to join these virtual classes once a week for an hour. Only english classes are fee based. Azerbaijani students pay 10-11 US dollars for an hour, and those joining the lessons from abroad pay 50 dollars. The average grade formed for extracurricular activities was taken into account while setting the class fees.
There is a great interest in this project in the foreign market, especially in China according to the startup founder. There is a great number of people joining the project from abroad: "There are several reasons for this trend. One of them is that people adapt very quickly to new technologies. Our main source of income is the People's Republic of China. People in this country are more open to technological innovation and able to accept it more easily. The number of our Chinese customers is increasing because the price we offer is satisfactory enough."
The founder of the startup added that they are currently looking for investment regarding the development of the project: "Developing different educational contents for each school requires a lot of resources and time. People can create their own content using a single platform and that is the main reason why we are looking for investment. We are currently trying to develop the project by reinvesting the income we collected. Our biggest challenge is speed. Developing something in a virtual world is all about game programming. This is also one of the fields of programming that requires the largest budget because the number of qualified experts is very small and content development takes a lot of time. In this regard, we will be able to increase the speed of content creation and develop faster by attracting new qualified employees to the project if we acquire enough investment."
The startup founder also emphasized that they would like to create educational contents in the Azerbaijani language for the future.
That is the reason why they participate in the relevant grant project of KOBİA: "KOBİA helped us from the establishment of LLC to all other legal issues. As an entrepreneur establishing a startup with limited resources and not formed a team, I was faced with serious challenges. I did not know exactly where to start and what to do due to lack of experience. For this reason, I applied for the respective "SMB House" and asked them for help as suggested by KOBİA. They helped to establish an LLC, prepare documents for obtaining a start-up certificate, as well as prepare tax reports accurately and free of charge. The provision of these services is certainly a great support for developing startups with limited resources."
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