Six chosen startups to solve civic issues of Kolhapur
They will get support from incubation centres of Kolhapur, IIT Kanpur
image for illustrative purpose
IN an overwhelming response, the Kolhapur Startup Mission received more than 600 entries from different startups between January 15 and 31, 2021. Kolhapur Startup Mission is aimed at inviting and empowering start-ups to solve the city's civic issues through innovative ideas and technology, and supporting new entrepreneurship.
The winning startups are Acquafront Infra, Riverbin, Samudhyoga Waste Chakra, Kolhapur-based Eco Green India and innovations by Tejaswini Mali and Ronak Sutaria.
The Mission was launched in partnership with Kolhapur Incubation Center (KIC), DY Patil Education Group and Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC) of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur on January 15. The idea is the brainchild of Maharashtra Minister of State for Home, Housing & IT, Satej Patil, who is also the guardian Minster of Kolhapur.
Based on the eligibility criteria, the organisers selected 133 applications for the second round and the same were evaluated on the relevance and innovations by the SIIC team. Of these, 60 entries were further selected for the third round and evaluated by a panel of experts. After a detailed assessment, 15 entries were selected for the final presentation held on March 3. Over 100 startups from Kolhapur participated in this Innovation Challenge.
The esteemed panel members for the final round included Prof Amitabha Bandopadhyay, Mithun John, CD Lokhande, Abhijit Sathe, Jai Shankar Sharma and Aditi Kumar. After detailed deliberations and discussions, the panel chose five startups that will receive technical, financial and co-incubation support from Kolhapur Innovation Center and SIIC of IIT Kanpur.
Commenting on this, Minister Satej Patil said, "I am extremely happy to see such an overwhelming response for Kolhapur Startup Mission. Thanks to the support of our Municipality Commisioner Kadambari Balkawade and MLA Ruturaj Patil, will able to provide all the administrative and local support to these startups to test the ideas in Kolhapur. I am confident that this initiative will make Kolhapur one of the top start-up destinations of the country."
The focus areas for which the entries were invited included Water Management, Waste Management, air quality management, education, public health, e-governance, agriculture and mobility and transportation.
