WIPO has awarded Pupils from Akhaltsikhe with the title of IP Youth Ambassador 2021

Tamar Tateshvili, Salome Tateshvili and Saba Zedginidze will promote intellectual property among the youth under the mandate of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The IP Youth Ambassador status was awarded to the trio for a term of one year, enabling these young people to make their contribution to the IP development in Georgia, the Central European and Baltic States.

The National Intellectual Property Centre of Georgia Sakpatenti selected the youth trio, the team “GoGeoGo”, which won third place at the Millennium Innovations Awards in 2020, as candidates for participation in the Project.  The WIPO Academy recognized their innovative and entrepreneurial efforts and awarded them the IP Youth Ambassadorship for Georgia in 2021. Now they are entrusted with the mission of promoting development of the intellectual property field among the youth in Georgia as well as the Central European and Baltic States. One of the main objectives of Sakpatenti is to develop invention, innovative and entrepreneurial competencies among the youth and to popularize the IP field.

The pupils from Akhaltsikhe public school were awarded for the tourist application “GoGeoGo”, created by them. The application protected by copyright provides to tourists and local population travel information for different destinations, which can help popularize the cities and villages of Georgia and, hence, support the national economic development of the country during the pandemic. The app is already published at “Play Store” for Android users and the team is planning also to make it available on IOS as well.

As the inspiration for the youth trio to create this innovative, necessary and specific application served the fact when they came across a lost tourist trying to get to the resort town Abastumani. The pupils helped the tourist and then started to work on the application intended to help users navigate the transport system in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. The app includes bus times, the expected duration and prices for the journeys. Photos for some of the destinations are featured as a visual aid for users. The self-taught developers of the application used Google and YouTube in the process of work. The idea of the pupils to develop the application was also actively supported by their physics and mathematics teacher, whereas they learned about the necessity to protect their copyright as app developers from the members of their family.

“It would be great if IP is taught in middle and high schools in Georgia, because we know many kids with great ideas who don’t know their rights and how to protect their work. Kids are very creative in Georgia”, - noted Salome Tateshvili.

IP Youth Ambassador is one of the projects developed within the WIPO Academy IP4Youth&Teachers Program, aimed to promote raising awareness in the relevant field and encourage innovations among the youth of their countries by the nominated candidates.