Summary of Global Entrepreneurship Week- Interview with Tinatin Gholadze
Interview with Project Director Tinatin Gholadze on summary of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
What was the main theme of the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2020 and what important questions were answered during the first day of the week?
It was held for the ninth time in Georgia this year on November 16-22, co-organized by the Global Entrepreneurship Network and the Innovation and Technology Agency.
The main theme of this year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week was integration, which means the involvement of groups with less access to innovative entrepreneurial activities, particularly the integration of young people and women from highland and inaccessible areas.
In total, 20 events were held by up to 10 partners during the week, involving more than 1,000 people. In terms of global data, more than 30,000 events are held simultaneously during the week in more than 170 countries, by more than 10,000 partners, involving more than 20 million people.
The opening event of the Global Entrepreneurship Week was held on November 16, during which Georgian and foreign experts shared their experiences with the audience. The theme of the event was ‘Leasons Learnt’, speakers look like this:
- Celia Gates - Founder of Global Brainstorm
- Nana Dikhaminjia - Vice Rector for Innovation and Technology, Ilia State University
- Matteo DellAcqua - Founder and CEO of Adflex Group
How many people participated in the event. What field representatives were the main participants?
As you know, 20 events were held during the week by up to 10 partners, according to preliminary data, more than 1000 people participated in these events, but the final figure will be known later when we receive the final information from all partners.
The week was held in Georgia for the ninth time, what has changed so far, and what do you plan to change next year?
Initially, during our Global Entrepreneurship Week, only our organization organized events, as it was difficult to persuade people to get involved in the project and to volunteer.
Over the years, awareness of the project has grown, with more supporters, partners and organizers joining us. For example, this year, despite the pandemic, up to 10 partners were involved besides us, who had planned various events.
The Global Entrepreneurial Network has the role of coordinating this project in Georgia. We are responsible for increasing the scale of the project, engaging partners, supporters and organizers, providing an overall branding strategy, creating and implementing a project concept, as well as organizing the official opening and closing events.
Next year we plan to hold larger-scale global events and increase the scale of the project itself. We hope that more partners and supporters will join us and we will be able to offer a larger project.
Who were the speakers and how were they selected for this event?
Both local and foreign entrepreneurs, startups and ecosystem representatives participate in the week. The events included a variety of activities including storytelling sessions, workshops, panel discussions, startup pitching sessions and more.
The speakers at the week represented both beneficiaries and partners of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, Innovation and Technology Agency.
What challenges did you face in the pandemic and what problems did you have to solve?
As for the challenges, as you know the attendance rate for online events is much lower than for physical events, so we thought this would be one of the major problems, although in the end the attendance rate was quite high. One of the challenges was also to achieve the results set with small resources, which I think we solved ourselves.