OREANDA-NEWS. September 08, 2010. The Tehnopol science and technology park and the Enterprise Estonia foundation have launched a measure allowing them to help cover the expenses of trips by Estonia's IT executives to Silicon Valley for up to six months.

The two bodies have so far been arranging trips of up to two weeks for businesspeople to Silicon Valley.

"Nobody can achieve serious business contacts during a one week trip," Tehnopol board member Pirko Konsa told Eesti Paevaleht. She said the new and longer program was meant primarily for companies that already had a product or a service ready and wanted to go on the international market with it.

"The company must be able to show us that it has a concrete action plan. When it has, we can support them through covering a part of the costs of their travel and stay there," said Konsa.

The maximum size of the support has not been established yet, but presumably it will be below 50 percent of total costs.

The first such trip is expected to take place at the end of November and up to eight companies are due to take part.