CII organises conference to bolster the Startup ecosystem

Hyderabad: CII Telangana in collaboration with CII Centre of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups (CII-CIES) organized a conference 'Start-up Movement: Telangana: Leading the way for Start-up Ecosystem' on 28 October in Hyderabad.

ICONN is one of its kind, industry-led platform for the startup ecosystem. ICONN promotes Corporate - Startup Connect, Strengthen Startup Ecosystem in India and Strengthen International Engagement. The idea is to help build an ecosystem that encourages innovation-driven entrepreneurship by facilitating strategic conversations between these groups.

Dr Jayesh Ranjan, Telangana' Principal Secretary for IT said: "The State government is committed to strengthen innovation and start- up ecosystem in the State. We have Telangana State Innovation cell to promote grass root innovations, RICH works with Research & Development institutions, TASK work with the students in academic institutions, We Hub works with women entrepreneurs, T-Hub is the second largest incubation centre in the world and T Works which is the largest proto typing center in the country." He also quoted few of the industry led interventions such as Intel's Innovate for Digital India Program, Carrier's Corporate Innovation Program. He also said that partnerships between corporates & start-ups will help in realizing our digital India dream.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder of Infosys and Chairman of CII CIES said: "Start-ups are contributing for the nation building process. High risk and high growth is being achieved by start-ups. The corporates need to support the innovation outside their organization. We need to develop or strengthen the vibrant angel network as Hyderabad start-ups received around $ 900 million investment. Rural Entrepreneurship ecosystem need to be strengthened and this requires grants support." He also mentioned that World requires India to become a developed economy and need to develop affordable innovations to produce products for 7 billion people.

Vagish Dixit, Chairman of CII Telangana & MD at ALPLA India, said: "The state had launched an Innovation Policy in 2016 that aimed to boost innovation and entrepreneurship, leveraging upon its natural demographic assets with the help of skilled technology and research professionals. The state has a unique model in the country for developing a robust startup ecosystem and runs with an objective to foster an innovation driven economy. The state continuously strives to establish itself as the most preferred technology investment destination in the country by spawning a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem."

Sanjeev Deshpande, Convenor - CII Telangana & MD & CEO, NTT Data Business Solutions said: "Tier 2 and 3 cities and rural areas represent the real 'Bharat' and are India's gateway to 1000 unicorns by 2030. Identification of social problems will lead to creation of new startups – the closer we look at the problems around us, the higher the number of startups that will emerge to solve those problem. The future belongs to massification and tech related startups in sectors such as Healthtech, FinTech, AgriTech, MediaTech, eCommerce, Web 3.0, etc."

M Srinivas Rao, CEO of T-Hub said: "The success of start-ups depends on a complete innovation and financing ecosystem, comprising incubators providing appropriate technology and hardware systems, effective mentoring, access to easy finance, assistance in the marketing of products and services. Telangana has a robust startup ecosystem and startups are empowered through institutional support, incubation support and capacity building of entrepreneurs." He adds: "The State has an established network of more than 6000 startups. The State Government has created a vertical for emerging technologies to develop the ecosystem required for the industry as well as to make the Government departments adopt emerging technologies."