Supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Munich and Upper Bavaria, and working in partnership with the Georgian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), this project aims at strengthening entrepreneurship education in Georgian Vocational Education and Training (VET) institutions.

We first met Gogi Elanidze in winter 2015, when interviewing farmers in Rati’s village, Kvemo Alvani. Located in Akhmeta municipality, Kvemo Alvani and its twin, Zemo Alvani, are not your usual Kakhetian villages. The two serve as the winter base for the people of Tusheti, an isolated valley separated from Kakheti by the 3000m high Abano mountain pass.

On Friday, June 5th, ISET hosted Mr. Rezo Vashakidze, the founder of Chirina Ltd, by far the largest Georgian producer of poultry products (sold under the BiuBiu brand), a Greenfield investment worth more than 80 mln USD. The main topic of Mr. Vashakidze’s presentation was entrepreneurship in Georgia (as well as Azerbaijan and Armenia).

Currently, farming in Georgia is a “by default activity” – the vast majority of Georgian “farmers” are not really farmers in a professional sense but rather people who try to survive by growing agricultural products. When traveling through Georgia’s countryside, one sees immediately that it is mainly the older generation which has to resort to this default activity.