CEO of Digikala Visits ICT Park to Expand the Relationships and Interactions

"ICT Park is one of the main poles of science and technology development in Alborz province where the motto is 'Alborz, the Province of Science and Technology,'" said Dr. Mohammad Jafar Sadigh Damghanizadeh, the President of Information and Communication Technology Park, at the beginning of the meeting and after greeting the visitors. 

While mentioning and introducing the other parks around the world, Dr. Sadigh Damghanizadeh said that the great mission of ICT Park is providing economic development and technology deepening for the associated companies with the aim of increasing their competitiveness.

Dr. Sadigh Damghanizadeh stated: "Accelerators play a very significant role in every country; however, unfortunately, they did not prove successful in Iran due to the operational mismatches with the intended tasks. In today's world, the concept of open innovation is of paramount importance. The focus of innovation clustering is the market, and the performance of acceleration and the innovation centers operate more successfully when their market is identified.

"One of the grants that ICT Park offers to the associated companies includes supporting the development of innovation clusters," reiterated the Advisor to the Minister and the President of ICT Park, referring to the intended grant for supporting the development of innovation clusters. 

“We believe that large companies benefit from proper software and hardware infrastructures and are capable of accommodating and growing technology nuclei within them. On the other hand, many nuclei enjoy a high scientific capacity and are capable of helping these companies in the research sector,” he added.

"By trusting support into the development of innovation clusters, the Information and Communication Technology Park aims to create a suitable amalgam of large companies with potential markets and new ideas together with newly-fledged nuclei. In other words, the purpose of the Information and Communication Technology Park is to provide supporting grants for the development of innovation clusters in order to help create innovation clusters as a combination of core companies and start-up technology units, with the aim of developing innovation and technology through start-up technology units and their products besides the central companies and their mentorship services, infrastructure and hardware,” he continued.

Dr. Sadigh Damghanizadeh stated that the purpose of ICT Park for awarding these incentive grants to the development of innovation clusters is achieving MVP and BSP, and mentioned the idea of owning "stable markets for the technology-oriented companies" and "a contract to guarantee the purchase of a product or shares of the established reproductive companies" as the requirements for receiving these grants.

"Acceleration is very crucial to the country, but it entails many challenges, ICT Park is interested in this field and is ready to cooperate with Digikala" he concluded. 

Amir Salehi, the CEO of Digikala Innovation Center, thanked ICT Park and introduced Digi Next: Digi Next is Digikala's Innovation Center and Accelerator, which invests in artificial intelligence-focused start-ups. In other words, Digikala Next is Digikala's innovation muscle, which has been constructed with the aim of connecting Iran's largest e-commerce platform to the country's best start-ups.

"Innovative and technology-oriented ideas in general and focusing on artificial intelligence lead to proper solutions for the current problems of online and technology-based businesses," he clarified. Digikala Next supports the developments of these technologies, which include start-ups and innovative projects associated with e-commerce, cloud services, logistics, and IoT.

Saeed Mohammadi, the CEO of Digikala, thanked Dr. Mohammad Jafar Sadigh Damghanizadeh for introducing ICT Park and said: “Digikala has been operating for 15 years. During these years, we realized that no matter how capable and active our teams operate in Digikala, the required solutions could not be achieved without further cooperation. It is also important to note that most of the time, productive teams do not necessarily appreciate working within the walls of a company.”

"In this regard, Digi Next, as Digikala's innovation center pursues this goal arms in arms with Digikala and is established in a general sense with regard to the value chain of e-Commerce,” he continued. “Digi Next's different sections include Academy (a platform for networking and artificial intelligence training), Research (solving industrial issues with the researchers using advanced technologies), Start-Up Programs (team building and initiating active start-ups that are focused on advanced technologies), and Investment (investment and partnership with those start-ups that are focused on advanced technologies),” he added.

In the end, the CEO of Digikala expressed his readiness and inclination to cooperate and interact with ICT Park.

It is noteworthy that in this meeting, the possibilities for joint cooperation, were discussed besides the conditions for initiating and increasing the interaction between ICT Park and Digikala. 

It should be noted that in this meeting, besides Dr. Mohammad Jafar Sadigh Damghanizadeh, the Advisor to the Minister and the President of the Information and Communication Technology Park; Engr. Javad Yazdanpanah, the Deputy of ICT Park’s Technology Development; Dr. Namaki, the Advisor to the President of ICT Park; Eng. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Director of ICT Park’s Techno-Units’ Development Center; Amir Salehi, the CEO of Digikala Innovation Center; Saeed Mohammadi, the CEO of Digikala, Mr. Mohammadi, an active in capital markets, and Alireza Kamranianfar, Digikala Business Development Manager were also present.