On December 5, ISET organized yet another informational tour for its BA students. This time students visited the FRIXX factory, during which they were introduced to the technical operations and business strategy of the company. They were welcomed by Giorgi Darakhvelidze, General Manager, and Mariam Gabatashvili, Commercial Manager, who gave them a factory tour and showed them how FRIXX potato chips are made.

Did you know what Georgia produces most and what the share of its production worldwide is? Wine and copper seem the obvious answers – but these would be wrong. The answer is, in fact, cryptocurrency: 15% of all Bitcoins in the world are mined in Georgia, perhaps a disproportionate figure given the country’s small size.

On December 3, ISET BA students visited the Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC). Revaz Geradze, Deputy Director of the Natural Gas Department, introduced the students to the mission of the GNERC and gave a presentation about the Investments Appraisal Rule, the objective of which is to develop the main principles and criteria for drafting, submitting, evaluating, approving and monitoring the investment projects for tariff setting purposes with regards to the electricity and natural gas sectors.

ISET’s Irakli ‘Rati’ Kochlamazashvili, the deputy head of the Agricultural Policy Research Center, has been awarded the prestigious MASHAV Scholarship to attend the “Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics – Changes in the Era of Globalization” program conducted by the International School of Agricultural Sciences of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Robert H. Smith, Faculty of Agriculture, Food & Environment.

As part of its MA in Economics program, ISET has launched a new Concentration in Modern Data Analysis (MDA), which is aimed at providing young professionals with expertise in data (including big data) management and analysis using modern analytical tools.