IT Park and USAID discuss cooperation opportunities

On June 6, the IT Park office was visited by Brendan Barcelo, Deputy Director for Technical Assistance of the USAID Asia Bureau in Washington, Michael Wizan, Acting Director of the USAID Economic Growth Office in Uzbekistan, and Shakhrukh Irnazarov, USAID Project Management Specialist in Uzbekistan.

The guests were welcomed by the First Deputy Director of IT Park Abdulakhad Kuchkarov, Adviser on International Cooperation and Project Support Rustam Sulaymonov and Head of the Investment and International Relations Department Nigora Mirdzhalilova.

On the agenda of the meeting is a discussion of the export of IT services and the startup ecosystem.

The guests were presented with the activities of IT Park, told about the residency program, including the types of companies and projects that are being developed there, and presented an overview of the development of the startup ecosystem in Uzbekistan.

USAID representatives were also told about the human potential of Uzbekistan (noting that annually more than 100,000 students aged 18 to 30 graduate from universities in a specialty related to the IT industry) and about the process of training qualified IT personnel in Uzbekistan within the framework of such large projects, as One million Uzbek coders, Coursera, IT Bilim, ITPU.

Foreign colleagues noted the growth and development of the economy and the ICT sector in Uzbekistan. They became interested in preferences for residents and the One Stop Shop service. Shahrukh Irnazarov, USAID Project Management Specialist in Uzbekistan, in turn, focused on the domestic market and mentioned the need to develop it to increase profits. The parties discussed the possibilities of cooperation and agreed to hold new meetings in the future.