The startups have demonstrated their skills to overcome the challenges of pandemic by providing quality products in affordable prices: Professor K. Vijay Raghavan

New Delhi: “The startups have demonstrated their skills to overcome the challenges of pandemic by providing quality products in affordable prices”, said Professor K. Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to Government of India in his address at India CII Global Startup Summit 2021

While delivering the keynote address at the inaugural session of ‘India CII Global Startup Summit’, Prof. K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India highlighted the need for creating unique design driven products backed with strong IPR regime.

He also elucidated on the industry driven ‘Catapult’ model of UK saying that such a model and mechanism would be of critical significance to India especially for aerospace and hi-technology sectors. Professor Vijay Raghavan also talked about the need of engagement among the industry-academia-startups triad for multi-fold development of startups.

Dr. Bernardo Calzadilla-Sarmiento, Managing Director, Directorate of Digitalization, Technology and Agri-Business, and Director, Department of Digitalization, Technology and Innovation, UNIDO-Vienna in his special address mentioned that UNIDO had played an accelerated role during COVID-19 pandemic to promote entrepreneurship skills in India. Through its strong network with CII, UNIDO look forwards to supporting and working closely with CII Centre for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups.

In his special address, Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Industry & Commerce and Information Technology, Government of Telangana congratulated CII on setting up the Centre for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups in Hyderabad. He appreciated the contribution of startups during COVID-19 period in overcoming the challenges such as delivering home based education system, providing remote healthcare solutions and skilling programme through e-portal. He highlighted ‘CII Startup-Corporate Connect’ programme, wherein startups can have access to about 9000+ CII members for mentorship and other support.

In his theme address, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Past President, CII and Chairman, CII National Startup Council mentioned that startups have been playing an important role towards building a resilient India during the COVID-19 crisis. He said that with more than 9,100 members and about 30,000 indirect members of CII, startups can have unique opportunity through Startups–Industry engagement programme.

In his opening remarks at the Conference, Dr. Gopichand Katragadda, Co-Chairman, CII National Startup Council and Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Myelin Foundry mentioned that mentioned that this Summit will bring together policy makers, government, academia and startups to build robust startups ecosystem.

During the Inaugural Session, CII has released three Thought Leadership Reports on Performance Parameters for Academic linked Technology Business Incubators, The Social Entrepreneurship Landscape in India and The Way Ahead and an e-compendium on Journey of Innovative Organisations.

The Summit also witnessed an exchange of letter between UNIDO and CII to promote startups to reach global market and develop top order entrepreneurship ecosystem in India.

An MoU was also signed between Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University and CII with an objective to promote and scale up agri based startups to help Indian farmers by addressing the supply chain problems, augmenting income generation and bringing agri products directly to the users.

In the concluding remarks, Mr. S Raghupathy, Deputy Director General, CII conveyed his vote of thanks and stated that CII Centre of Excellence on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups launched in partnership with the Govt. of Telangana and Pratiksha Trust will give the much-needed fillip to an innovation driven entrepreneurship.

The first ever Global Startup Summit was organized today on a digital mode in partnership with UNIDO, ITPO Bahrain and Arab International Centre for Entrepreneurship & Investment, Kingdom of Bahrain, The Kingdom of Netherlands and Australia India Business Council. Other summit partners included Atal Innovation Mission and various State Governments including UP, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab and Telangana. Several ecosystem partners were Amity Innovation Incubator, T-HUB, UnLtd India, K-Tech, SR Innovation Exchange, CCMB, FiiRE, Kerala Startup Mission, Innovate Karnataka and several others.