About the Program
AIM ANAU AgriTech Accelerator program is designed to support science and technology-backed startups and budding entrepreneurs offering solutions to tackle challenges in the agricultural sector of Armenia and worldwide. The program is launched by UNDP ImpactAIM Accelerator and implemented jointly with Armenia National Agrarian University (ANAU), International Center for Agribusiness Research and Education (ICARE) Foundation, Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST), Nation in Action initiative, is supported by Armenian National Innovation SDG Lab and ADB Ventures Facility.
AIM ANAU AgriTech Accelerator program is the follow-up phase of the ANAU AgTech incubator launched in 2019 at Armenian National Agrarian University (ANAU) with a 10-week pre-incubation training program and deep learning workshops for 44 participants including ANAU students and the young professorship. Several monetary prizes were awarded during the Startup Clash. One of the main outcomes of the program is the construction of the venue for ANAU AgriTech Incubator in the premises of ANAU with an expected opening in September 2020 granting students and professors the opportunity of testing their entrepreneurial projects in real life.
AgriTech Acceleration program aims to provide the necessary knowledge, expertise, network, and funding for setting up, and/or scaling up existing ventures. Gap assessment is conducted to offer a tailored program best fitted to the participants’ individual needs.
The full program will last 3 months followed by further prototyping sessions and scale-up schemes. The program will be conducted online and in three stages:
On-Boarding
1 month-long series of sessions to get entrepreneurs on the startup spaceship, elaborate on the impact of frontier technologies on agriculture, and laying the foundation of participants’ sustainable growth.
Session 1
On June 9, 18:30 was the Accelerator official Kickoff. The live event featured a webinar on the Impact of Frontier Technologies on Agriculture. We have invited the top specialists of the field to present a dynamic dialogue about one of the compelling topics of the time.
The Panellists
- Vardan Urutyan | Rector ANAU – Moderator
- Arman Khojoyan | Deputy Minister of Economy
- Dmitri Mariassin | UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia
- Armen Orujyan | FAST Founding CEO
- Armen Harutyunyan | UNDP Singapore Senior Advisor
- Paolo Spantigati | ADB Country Director for Armenia
Session 2
On the 12th of June, 2020 we covered one of the most essential topics for ant entrepreneur: “Getting on startup spaceship”:
The Speakers:
- Ruzanna Safaryan | Head of UNDP ImpactAim Venture Accelerator
- Hovhannes Yeritsyan | Co-founder, Nation In Action
- Haykaz Aramyan | Lead Innovation Analyst, FAST – Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology
Session 3
On the 15th of June, Alberto Levy spoke about the first steps of Startup Development. Alberto Levy is considered an “Innovation Evangelist” by the Harvard Business Review Summit and The Global Shaper program of the World Economic Forum. International lecturer, technology and marketing consultant, executive strategist, and creative soul with the ability to continuously break paradigms with new proposals for an effective and memorable dialogue cross-platform between organizations, governments, brands, and consumers. With a successful career bringing innovation to various industries, he has worked in more than 20 countries, 1,500 projects, and 300 clients including many Fortune 500 companies. www.albertolevy.com
Session 4
⚡Our next Onboarding session with Al Eisaian, CEO & Co-founder of IntelinAir, was held on June 20.
Mr. Eisaian will share his vision and insights on “What makes founders Succeed? How to be a great founder?”
About Al Eisaian Al Eisaian is a multiple-exit serial entrepreneur; passionate technologist & technology investor; frequent speaker; avid reader & futurist; and a committed servant-leader. As co-founder and CEO of IntelinAir, a Crop Health & Intelligence company with its innovative product, AGMRI.
Session 5
Hambardzum Kaghketsyan has prepared an exciting topic: “Defining Value Proposition through Customer discovery” 🔥
ℹ️ Hambardzum is a Draper University alumni (2015) with experience in international organizations, including World Bank Group. He is a partner at SmartGateVC: a pre-seed stage venture capital fund, backed mostly by Silicon Valley and US investors and entrepreneurs. SmartGate invests in pre-seed startups in AI, Cybersecurity, and IoT which target the US market
Session 6
⚡ Our next Onboarding session with Dr. Raffi Chammassian was held on June 30.
Get ready for his vision and insights on “How agritech can become the hero of sustainable agriculture”.
ℹ️ Dr. Raffi Chammassian is an educator, practitioner, senior consultant, startup mentor, & investor. More than 25 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience have helped him to connect the scientific and business worlds. Today, Dr. Raffi teaches at various European universities, consults top executives, partners with accelerators and incubators, and is a mentor for start-ups. He is permanently based in Switzerland.
Session 7
We are excited to introduce John Shegerian, ERI Co-Founder and Executive Chairman for our next Onboarding session.
⚡ ℹ️ John Shegerian creates profitable impact companies that make the world a better place. He has played a significant role in paving the way for electronic recycling, data protection, and ITAD industries. Building ERI (eridirect.com) from the ground up, John Shegerian has helped lead the company to its current standing as the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States. Under his stewardship, ERI now has the capacity to process more than a billion pounds of electronic waste annually at its eight certified locations, serving every ZIP Code in the United States.
Core Startup Development
A structured curriculum for budding entrepreneurs and a more tailored program for startups. This stage will walk the participants through the entrepreneurial journey: from customer to product development, from business development to investment pitches. UNDP ImpactAIM ANAU #AgriTech Accelerator program reached the second milestone: Core startup development stage is completed 
- 34 entrepreneurs and 13 startup teams
- 15 sessions with 13 outstanding speakers
- More than 100 1-on-1 meetings with teams
Session 1
We start Startup development stage of the ImpactAIM ANAU #AgriTech Accelerator program with designpreneur Nejdeh Hovanessian ✨ ℹ️ Two sessions on “Design Thinking” will be held on July 10 & 14 Nejdeh Hovanessian is the first Armenian graduate of the newly formed Design Management field from Brunel University, West London. He is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence of the Entrepreneurship and Product Innovation Center (EPIC) at the American University of Armenia. Before his graduate studies he had practiced industrial, graphic, and interior design for more than twelve years. He developed and coined the concept of ‘designpreneurship’ during his master’s dissertation. In the last ten years, he has co-founded and strategically directed one of the top ten e-commerce businesses in Iran: a car auto-trading online platform.
Session 2
Please welcome behavioral scientist Mariam Hambarchyan who will present the upcoming Startup development session. Get ready to learn how to write a customer discovery interview script and develop the Hook model for your product. Two sessions on “How to conduct customer discovery research to build habit-forming products” will be held on July 17 & 21.
Mariam Hambarchyan is a behavioral scientist with over 10 years of consumer behavior and psychology research experience — in academia (UCLA and Stanford Graduate School of Business) and Silicon Valley startups. She led user and market research at NeoSensory to validate product-market fit and inform their first product’s go-to-market strategy. Mariam also consults, teaches, and advises entrepreneurs on their iterative customer development process.
Session 3
Art Ghazaryan has over 17 years of experience and an interdisciplinary portfolio of impactful ventures and engagements. He is MIT Sloan Fellow MBA 2017 and holds MA degrees in Computer Science from Tufts University and in Media Management from Ohio University.
Session 4
Marvin Liao ex-partner at Venture Capital Fund 500 Startups presenting an exciting topic on “The Art of Sales”. Marvin Liao is an early-stage VC Investor & tech/media executive, Tsundoku, reader, and world traveler who is interested in almost everything! 
Marvin was previously a partner at Venture Capital Fund 500 Startups, running the SF based accelerator program as well as investing in Seed stage startups. He has invested in over 414 pre-seed & seed-stage startups during the 6 years spent there. A 10.5-year veteran of Yahoo! Inc., Marvin has held executive roles in the various departments of Sales, Business Development, Ad Operations, and Marketing. Most of his roles were regional or global management roles giving him extensive experience across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States in his career at the company.
Session 5
⚡ Our next Startup development session with Levon Minassian, Product Manager at Arable Labs will be held on August 7
📌 Topic: “Journey of Agritech Startups: A case study from Arable“
ℹ️ Arable Labs is a San Francisco based agricultural technology company that provides in-field crop analytics. Levon’s work focuses on providing growers with key metrics that drive crop growth and health so that they can make informed decisions throughout the course of the season. Prior to joining Arable, Levon co-founded his own chili pepper farming business called Fire Tongue Farms that he continues to run to this day. He currently resides in Berkeley, CA.
Session 6
Effective hiring and team building are at the core of a successful business. That is why we’ve invited Luiza to elaborate on the essentials of “Hiring and team-building” in the frames of Startup Development Sessions.
Luiza is the co-founder of HRTech startups staff.am and HIreBee.ai. She holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and is a certified Project Manager (PMP). Luiza has started her career as an engineer, then moved to the banking industry, where she held managerial positions in project management, e-channels, and business development. She started staff.am 4 years ago, which is currently the leading career platform in Armenia, with a presence in 5 countries. HireBee is an AI-powered full-scale recruitment platform, covering the entire value chain of recruitment and onboarding, targeting the global market.
Session 7
Our next Startup development session with Irina Yashina, Portfolio Manager at the Untitled Ventures will be held on August 13
Irina builds up the operations and IR relations within the invested startups and assists some of the startups directly through her own agency and community WeVenture. The key industry expertise lays in retail, advertising, and lifestyle. Their geography focus is on Russia, CIS, and Europe.
Session 8
Hovhannes Yeritsyan, Co-Founder at Nation in Action speaks about elevator pitches and pitch decks.
Demo Day
The 13 most promising startups will present their innovative solutions to tackle challenges in the agricultural sector! 
. We have 3 categories and a $16 000 cash award in total 
.
Meet our finalists
ℹ Agrosoko is a mobile- and web-enabled B2B marketplace. Team members are determined to bridge the gap between marginalized African farmers and large offtake buyers.
ℹ Cup of tea plant aims to produce high-quality herbal tea using innovative technology (solar dryer) to deliver good products to consumers.
ℹ FoodHub is building a customized cloud-based Food and Beverage (F&B) procurement B2B marketplace for agricultural products.
ℹ Green Star produces small and smart vertical farms. Team members are designing the hydroponic systems by the clients’ orders.
ℹ Green Concepts offers autonomous growing kits with authentic design that can improve indoor air quality and the health of people.
ℹ LINEL is an e-commerce platform for agricultural trade։ Team members are aimed to connect farmers with retailers, the HoReCa sector, food production factories, and individuals.
ℹ Indigenous Farmers Coffee Enterprise is a venture to Increase production and distribution of coffee products of indigenous coffee farmers in Kalinga, Cordillera Philippines through agri- technological transfer, mechanization of production, and marketing.
ℹ Greenthumb aims to develop a Peer2Peer AgriTech Marketplace that connects buyers and urban smallholder farmers through a mobile app.
ℹ Plantheus aims to provide the ideal conditions for a healthy plant to grow throughout the year with reduced land requirements, less water, no weeds, and pests.
ℹ Smart Garden is a platform for early detection of infected and damaged areas in the greenhouses.
ℹ Organify is a healthy eating platform that allows urban consumers to seamlessly access organic fresh food, sourced straight from local small-scale farms, and delivered to them.
ℹ SmarTerev mobile application is aimed to detect plant diseases with the help of a sick plant image using Artificial Intelligence.
Onboarding sessions are open for everyone, and obligatory only for Idea, Pre-seed/ Seed stage teams and Individuals, as they will pass to the next stage of the program based on their commitment and participation. The growth stage ventures will decide whether they want to join or not.
Our Participants
Budding Entrepreneurs (Idea Stage)
to introduce and develop entrepreneurship culture by providing fundamental knowledge and practical skills.
Pre-seed & Seed Stage Startups
to take them through the entrepreneurial journey with each module being specifically designed to cover their needs. The track offers a structured curriculum and is mostly based on coaching on startup development modules and mentorship.
Organify City
KenyaHealthy eating platform for your family
Rural Culture
ArmeniaA mobile game with agro production solutions
Cownet
ArmeniaTool and service suggested to a dairy farmer
Tsil
ArmeniaAutomatization Solutions for micro gardens
Freeze Tea
GeorgiaState-of-the-art shock freezing technology
Krishi Sewa App
NepalConsulting app service for farmers
Agrosoko
TanzaniaMobile and online-enabled B2B marketplace
PinoKIT
LithuaniaAgro-technology directed educational training kit
Robogrows
ArmeniaDevice that can grow any given plant
Growth Stage Startups
to provide tailor-made coaching and mentorship. The core component of the track is growing the network of startups to further scale their venture
Access to funding
After the successful completion of each stage, the most promising graduates will receive monetary awards/grants of up to 10,000 USD
Other Opportunities
To fuel the further growth of successful ventures, the program is partnering with ADB Ventures. ADB Ventures was established to support and invest in technology-driven businesses with significant potential to scale and deliver impact. Its inaugural ADB Ventures Investment Fund 1 has a 17-year fund life and supports early-stage and growth-stage cleantech, agricultural technology, fintech, and health technology businesses. Its focus will be on companies with solutions that can address climate change and empower women.
Promising startups will also receive an opportunity to pitch in front of the investors from the Science & Technology Angels Network (STAN).
The global scale-up perspective envisions that the most promising startups will benefit from UNDP in Armenia – Cultiv@te: Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture initiative partnership.
Cultivate Program
Cultiv@te program helps startups in the agriculture field by providing a number of benefits, including attractive prizes, partnerships, and investment opportunities, and the opportunity to scale up globally.
Who has applied
The program targets only science and technology-backed startups (pre-seed, seed, and growth stage) and budding entrepreneurs (Idea Stage). Individuals, teams and registered entities (CSO/NGO, LLC, LTD, etc.) both from Armenia and around the world are eligible to apply if they offer solutions to tackle the following challenges in the agricultural sector:
Data-Driven Agriculture
Efficiency and productivity will increase in the coming years as “precision agriculture” becomes bigger and farms become more connected. It’s estimated that by 2020, over 75 million agricultural IoT devices will be in use: The average farm will generate 4.1 million data points daily in 2050, up from 190,000 in 2014.
Internet of Things (IoT) | Automation of skills and workforce | Data-driven farming | Chatbots | Drones
Online Management Systems & E-Commerce
Easy to use digital platforms for accounting and financial reporting | Payment and optimization systems for agriculture services | Land modeling and sales | Online sales and delivery systems for farmers |Training and advisory services in rural areas | Sustainable pasture management systems
Increased Efficiency in Food Production Value Chain
VERTICAL AND URBAN FARMING | GENETIC MODIFICATION AND CULTURED MEATS | APPLYING 3D PRINTING TECHNOLOGY TO FOOD | SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING: BIOPLASTICS
*The solutions that also target responding urgent challenges caused by COVID-19 in the short and long terms, will be considered of higher priority.