Dr. Hasanzadeh: Our aim for cooperating with ICT Park is to develop skill training in the province

During this visit, Dr. Mohammad Jafar Sadigh Damghanizadeh, the Advisor to the Minister and the President of ICT Park, referred to his experiences regarding park management, including the design and establishment of Isfahan's Scientific and Technology Town (ISTT), and the possibility of making this experience available to Kerman province: "In our country, ICT business  has a great potential for development; however, we experience little development since in our country, the process of acceleration does not function properly. Hence, we need to use the capacity of this sector more efficiently," he said.

"The strategy for developing this sector is creating a market, because when there is no market, the natural consequence is that ICT researchers migrate from Kerman to Tehran and then abroad. In our country, some software products have the capacity to gain international reputation," he added, emphasizing the need to transform Tag Accelerator into a startup studio.

Then, Dr. Sadigh Damghanizadeh enumerated the areas of cooperation between ICT Park, Kerman province and the Tag Accelerator: "The two main axes of our cooperation are the call for skill training and ICT Park's financial and systemic support for these courses; hence, we will pay 30% of the tuition fees for all the learners and provide up to 70% of the tuition fees for the top 40% of the participants in the course," he said. 

While vigorously emphasizing the significance of holding these skill training courses, the Advisor to the Minister of Communications proposed the second area of cooperation with Kerman province to be focusing on two or three specialized areas, including software upgrading in the startup studio and empowering them.

The President of ICT Park then explored the possible ways of providing the required building for the construction of a new Park: "One strategy for having such a construction, which is currently the best way, is to use the existing empty buildings in the province, as we did in Semnan. There are also two other strategies for providing the required space for the park: asking for the required land from the University and using the existing half-finished towers," he added. 

"One of the ways for reducing the costs and providing funds is entering the existing businesses with a certain purpose, for example, entering IT and IOT into agriculture. In this regard, we are now setting up a greenhouse incubator in Zanjan province, where, for example, instead of turning the whole of an 18-hectare field into a greenhouse, we divide it into 30 sections of 600 meters, giving one section to a distinct individual; hence, the income will be at least 15 million per month," he continued.

In addition, Dr. Amir Hasanzadeh, Kerman's Deputy Governor of Economy, mentioned the goal of Kerman's Governorate to be a balanced development of the northern and southern parts of Kerman province: "The problem that exists in Kerman province is about skill; this means that people are deprived of the required skills regarding different activities like welding or those topics related to the digital economy. Therefore, our tendency for cooperating with ICT Park is to develop skill training," he said.

It should be noted that before Sedigh Damghanizadeh's speech, two introductory video clips on ICT Park were presented to the attendees, in which the Park's missions, goals, tasks, branches and the services it provides were introduced. 

Then, Eng. Yazdanpanah, the Deputy of ICT Park’s Technology Development, enumerated the different ways of cooperation between ICT Park and Tag Accelerator, including providing the required space for establishment: "The precondition for receiving the mentioned supports proposed by ICT Park regarding grants, training, consulting, and other items is membership in Digital Economy Development Network (DEDN).

He also introduced Mashhad and Semnan branches and the ongoing projects for building new techno park branches in Sari, Kerman, Kermanshah, Hormozgan, Shahrekord, Isfahan and Zanjan: "One of the main missions of ICT Park is defined in line with gaming and animation. The main hub of content production and cloud services started from Mashhad, beginning its activity as a hub for the first center of content production and cloud services in the northeast of Iran. 

In the continuation of this meeting, Ms. Seyedzadeh, the Head of DEDN, introduced the Digital Economy Development Network with its financial support in the form of providing grants to start-up companies all around Iran: "The Javaneh Grant, in cooperation with the Ministry of Science, supports theses/dissertations with market-oriented ideas in the field of ICT. During the last three courses, ICT Park has provided the highest amount of financial support to the selected theses. Another grant provided by the Park is the Roshd Grant that is dedicated to the development of ICT products in companies associated with the growth centers of DEDN and is exclusively implemented by ICT Park. This grant too, has been well received so far.," she said.

In another part of this meeting, Eng. Najaf Abadi, the CEO of TAG Institute, introduced the TAG accelerator and their field of activity, introducing the records and undertakings of the founders of this accelerator in technology and innovation: "The TAG accelerator has the capacity to work at both national and international levels. For example, for the first time, we aimed at building a platform for accelerating the accelerators, in which the acceleration path is from 0 to 100. Additionally, evaluation, acceleration and investment, training and commercialization are among the other services that Tag provides; hence, we have the potential for employing any kind of support that ICT Park can provide," he added. 

Stating that the main goal of TAG accelerator in cooperating with ICT Park is creating a network at the national and international level, he introduced the capacities, facilities, challenges and advantages of Kerman province in the field of ICT and proposed ICT Park to enter ICT into the mining sector.