I was extremely honored to participate in IIEF Slemani — the forum's second edition. This year, many ecosystem players in Sulaymaniyah joined forces to prepare and execute it, and everything about the activity was perfectly planned.
The location said a lot: the old Tobacco Factory, where one of the hangars has been rehabilitated into "The Innovation Hub" — a building that ties the city's past, present, and future together. The first speaker, Dr. Mantas Adomėnas (a senior research fellow at the Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology and former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania), explained the entrepreneurial revolution that took place in his home country in just a few years and how it rippled across the Baltic region. To me it mirrored the potential Iraq holds, and the effect it could have on the whole region once the right pieces are in place.
Between H.E. Qubat Talabani's (Deputy Prime Minister of the KRG) opening speech and his closing remarks announcing a list of governmental changes, adaptations, and reforms in the KRG — real steps on the right path to empower young innovation. That announcement is the fruit of hard work by the organizing entities and their collaboration with the government. It adds to the openness we've seen from the CMC in Baghdad over the past year to collectively rewrite new regulations like the well-known Mobile Apps regulation draft.
Kudos to Savo Bakhtiar Rasoul, Shwan Ali Qaradaghi, and the rest of the ecosystem heroes who made this not just a gathering of like-minded people, but an event with solid impact on the ground for youth, startups, and SMEs. This is definitely a turning point.