OSCE PCUz supports youth start-ups in the Khorezm province

On 5 December, the awarding ceremony for youth start-ups in the Khorezm province was held in Urgench. The event marked the conclusion of the capacity-building programme for youth start-ups in the Khorezm province, co-organized by the OSCE PCUz and IT-Park Uzbekistan and launched in September.

The programme aimed to unlock the entrepreneurial and ICT potential of young people through business workshops and ideathons to motivate and unlock their business ideas as well as an incubation programme to enhance capacities in core business disciplines to establish a start-up, and an ICT course to teach coding skills and programming languages for specialists to support the incubation programme graduates.

Business workshops were organized for at least 300 young people, with subsequent ideathons for at least 80 young people. Both activities were organized prior to the incubation programme, whereas the IT-course for at least 30 young people was organized in parallel to the incubation programme. IT Park Uzbekistan provided several premises free of charge at its branch in Urgench.

Abdulla Abdurasulov, a 4th year student of the Urgench Branch of the Tashkent Medical Academy presented his start-up idea ‘Avishifo’, an AI-powered virtual assistant which would help doctors make a faster and more accurate diagnosis, which he developed alongside his team during the incubation programme. Following the event, he stated: “It was a great experience. Coming from a medical background, it was interesting to learn about business and IT and definitely a new challenge for me to create a project that combines the three sectors.”

Within the framework of this programme, the PCUz aims to support small business development and increase employment opportunities for young people through digitalization.