Description of activities, objectives reached, and outputs

Angelos Vernardos is an Agricultural Engineer and Food quality manager from Crete, motivated to participate in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program in order to gain a better understanding of how digital tools can support agronomists and farmers in his region. He had a specific idea about promoting agrotourism through digitalization, but he discovered many other opportunities after starting his exchange with Nelly Davtyan in Armenia. Nelly, CEO of IT Solution, was excited to investigate how IT can be applied in the agricultural industry and help her company expand the scope of its activities. Having been a successful Young Entrepreneur herself in the past, she was thrilled to undertake the role of the Mentor, hosting an ambitious entrepreneur like Angelos and experience the programme as a Host Entrepreneur.

During his exchange in Armenia, Angelos was involved in the organization of a series of seminars in the Agrarian National University of Armenia. This experience allowed him to develop his communication skills and gain a deeper understanding of the problems faced by farmers, identify training needs as well as potential digital solutions. As he worked with Nelly, they realized that there was a need to empower farmers to sell their products directly to customers and that there is an opportunity to do this by using digital tools. Together, they designed the “Agrotis” (farmer in Greek) platform, a marketplace where farmers can connect with customers and trade their products without overpaying to the retailers. They had meetings at the Ministry of Economy in Armenia, the Fund Investment Support Center and the National Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship to present and validate their idea and started the development of the project.

The Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program served as a catalyst for forging a powerful collaboration and partnership between Angelos and Nelly. Angelos elaborated and defined his business idea as he gained a better understanding of how digital tools can support the agricultural sector, which allowed him to design innovative solutions to problems faced by the farmers in his region. This led to a joint venture for the development of “Agrotis” platform with Nelly Davtyan. Nelly, from her side, developed her network in Armenia, enriched her services and extended her IT activities in a new field, that of agriculture. Angelos and Nelly after one year from the completion of the exchange, they are still in contact to implement their project, while they are extending their cooperation replicating the seminars implemented in Armenia to University students and farmers in Crete.