“Arash”, the Iranian-made robot, was the special host of INOTEX 2020, showing its hosting power and capabilities to the people. It also invited the key speech speakers to make their speech.

Entrepreneurship Is Turning into Value

During his online speech, the vice president for science and technology affairs stated: over the past five years, the country has made significant advancements in the field of innovation.

During this time, many accelerators, innovation centers, science and technology parks, innovation factories, and innovation zones have been established and the number of startups has been on a rise.

He continued: there was no such an ecosystem several years ago. Today, there are many innovators and entrepreneurs working in various scientific field recruited by this ecosystem.

The president of the national elites foundation mentioned the attention of the academia to the innovation field, asserting: universities have turned to innovation and entrepreneurship and significant changes have been observed in this area. In fact, universities are advancing toward third and fourth-generation universities.

Sattari added: the public opinion about startup activities has changed; today, entrepreneurship is becoming a value in contrast to the past that valued recruitment.

In the end, he marked: I appreciate the efforts made by the authorizes of Pardis Technology Park to hold INOTEX virtually.

The innovation ecosystem is alive and nothing can stop it; even corona

Mahdi Safarinia, the head of Pardis Technology Park, made an in-person speech during the event, stating: we started the event nine years ago and we would have never thought that it would reach this level of importance.

He added: given the outbreak of coronavirus, we faced a dilemma whether to hold the event this year or not. Everyone worked so much to make a virtual exhibition, which is held for the first time in the country, possible.

In the end, he affirmed: I hope that this new experience, which showed that our ecosystem is alive and nothing, not even corona, can stop it, will help the elements of the ecosystem advance and increase occupations and activities of the youth.

We hope that the number of our knowledge-based companies will reach 10,000 companies, which is also considered by the Supreme Leader, and that they will operate like the nearly 5,000 active companies currently. This could change the country's reliance on underground resources for innovation.

Holding INOTEX 2020 Virtually along with 12 Secondary Events

Sajad Abbasi Fashami, the secretary of the event, explained about the exhibition’s programs and goals. Pointing out the slogan of INOTEX (all components of the innovation ecosystem under a roof), he mentioned: in general, INOTEX pursues three goals of creating cooperation and partnership between the main actors of the technology and innovation ecosystem, providing new investment opportunities to investors, and enabling dialogue and networking between the elements of this ecosystem.

INOTEX has been defined as one of the major impact programs of the campus technology park on the technology and innovation ecosystem.

 The 9^th round of INOTEX will end on August 15^th, 2020.