Ecom School and Imagine Cup 2024: Programs and Competitions for IT Specialists in Central Asia

We are sharing with you a selection of competitions where you can participate and receive support in developing your project or win cash prizes.

Qualifying round for the Yandex Cup 2023 programming championship

Yandex Cup is an annual programming championship. The prize fund of the championship is 38,000,000 tenge.

Participants can choose from six tracks:

— analytics

— Frontend development

— Backend development

— mobile development

— machine learning

— algorithms.

Deadline: October 29

Registration is available via this link.

Ecom School by IMPRO & Most Business Intelligence

Ecom School is an incubation program specifically designed for student entrepreneurs.

Program goals:

— accelerate the development of your e-com startup

— help you launch a pilot project that generates revenue

— provide an opportunity to attract investments and funding for your business.

Deadline: October 27

Registration is available via this link.

Star Venture by EBRD

This is a program by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development aimed at supporting innovative startups.

The Star Venture program by EBRD is designed to identify promising innovative startups, providing them with access to expertise and funding. The project will help entrepreneurs develop their businesses by offering consultations on various aspects, including strategy, finance, operations, organization, marketing, and sales.

Companies can represent a wide range of sectors: artificial intelligence development, educational innovations, agtech, healthcare, cloud computing, and energy-efficient technologies.

Deadline for Uzbekistan: November 27

Registration for Uzbekistan is available via this link.

Deadline for Kyrgyzstan: November 8

Registration for Kyrgyzstan is available via this link.

Imagine Cup 2024 by Microsoft

Participants will gain access to Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, $1,000 in Azure credits, $2,500 in OpenAI credits, as well as access to self-paced learning of technical and entrepreneurial skills.

Championship timeline:

— from January 26 to February 9, 2024, student teams must submit their MVP

— from February 26 to April 12, semi-finalists will work with mentors to refine their startup ideas.

At the end, the top three teams will be selected, and they will attend the Microsoft Build developer conference in Seattle, where they can present their ideas in the final judging stage.

The winning team will receive $100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The other two teams will receive $50,000 each.

Deadline: January 24, 2024

Teams can register on the Imagine Cup website.

Entrepreneurship World Cup 2024

The competition has been held since 2019, initiated by the Global Entrepreneurship Network and Saudi Monsha’at to support promising business projects at all stages of development. Over the past four years, more than 370,000 entrepreneurs have participated in the program.

Winners of the national stage will be able to present their projects at the international stage in Saudi Arabia. The total prize fund for the event across six categories is $1,000,000.

Finalists will also receive prizes in the form of sponsor support totaling $100,000,000. Additionally, contest participants will receive free access to educational resources.

Deadline: April 1, 2024

You can submit an application via this link.

You can find additional information about the EWC initiative on the official website.