On the 177th meeting of the Islamic consultative assembly of Tehran, the vice president for science and technology affairs stated: Tehran has a large capacity for being turned into a smart city due to the existence of academic centers and specialized human resources. Therefore, it could be expressed that the city has the capacity of developing an extraordinary innovation space.

According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, the 177th meeting of the Islamic consultative assembly of Tehran was held in the presence of Sorena Sattari, the vice president for science and technology affairs. During the meeting, Sattari presented a report on smart city.

Mentioning the great move of the young and creative workforce and the formation of the ecosystem of knowledge-based economy in the country, Sattari asserted: this move will transform the economy of the country. Meanwhile, the municipality or any unit that helps this move will benefit from its future advantages.

Sattari expressed that the development of startups provides a unique opportunity for municipality. In this regard, he added: while the municipality does not own the city, its opposite is observed in Iran. In fact, businesses are owned by municipality in the country.

Sattari marked: these days, even those who are not familiarized with the use of the Internet and computer use cellphones. This is mainly due to the fact that most needs of people, such as online payment and hotel room reservation, can be met by this method. The same way, the education system of the world has been transformed and we now see that education continues to death.

Rapid Development of the Technology Ecosystem

The president of the national elites foundation explained about the formation of the knowledge-based ecosystem in the country, affirming: in this ecosystem, various players play a role, including academic centers, science and technology parks, innovation centers, accelerators, innovation factories and knowledge-based companies. Each of these components plays a specific role and in the acceleration of knowledge-based economy in interaction with others. In addition, the creative human resources of universities have entered the ecosystem.

According to Sattari, there are currently 180 accelerators and innovation centers in this active ecosystem to improve the activities of startups with their services. In addition, six thousand startups with innovation activities have made transformations in this ecosystem. Moreover, there are 4600 knowledge-based companies in the ecosystem. Last year, these companies have generated more than 90 thousand billion Tomans, and have recruited 300,000 jobs.

Sattari regarded the return of Iranian elites as performance indicators of the ecosystem, adding: returning more than 1400 graduates from the 100 top universities of the world has been one of the measures taken by the Vice-Presidency. These people have established 93 startups.

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Sattari explained about the anticipations regarding the activity of the ecosystem up to 2025, asserting: it is predicted that we will witness the activities of 6,000 startups, 200 accelerators and innovation centers and eight innovation factories. These companies will reach a sales rate of 150 thousand billion Tomans and will make 700,000 direct jobs.

The president of the knowledge-based economy and culture-building technologies development headquarter pointed out the development of urban areas as the innovation region, expressing: formation of innovation regions in cities has been recognized as a mechanism for creation of innovation cities. In this regard, recognition of potential spaces that have scientific features and development of urban innovative areas near universities have been appropriate measures.

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The vice president for science and technology affairs regarded the development of technological cities as the goals of the country, expressing: for instance, the city of “Shenzhen” in China is a technological city with a high GDP. Tehran is also one of the top 50 startup cities in the world.

Sattari recognized the Azadi Innovation Factory as the first innovation factory of Iran and talked about its importance. In this context, he affirmed: the largest space for establishment of startups was formed in the old factory of “Ama Electrode Manufacturing Co.” with the cooperation of the government and the private sector. In this center, a space is provided to 500 startup teams and jobs have been formed for 1100 people.

Sattari regarded the formation of an innovative city as the startup culture to be at service of meeting the needs of the society, expressing: therefore, we can see this as an opportunity and not a threat. This opportunity can increase the presence of startups in the society and solve the social problems and issues.

According to Sattari, there are currently startups in the stock exchange market with a value of seven thousand billion Tomans. A few years ago, “startup” was an unknown word.

In terms of cooperation with city council, Sattari marked: the municipality can act as a virtual park in the city in this ecosystem and cooperate with this move and benefit from the creative forces.

In addition, Mohsen Hashemi, head of the Islamic council of Tehran, expressed: there should be no rent in economic activities. We have to be able to accumulate the data of different organizations in one place. In this regard, we are fully prepared to cooperate with the Vice-Presidency to establish a databank for Tehran.