Principal Scientific Adviser appreciates Indian start-ups for offering quality at affordable prices during pandemic

New Delhi, Mar 17 (KNN) The startups have demonstrated their skills to overcome the challenges of pandemic by providing quality products at affordable prices, said Professor K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to Government of India.

While delivering the keynote address at the inaugural session of ‘India CII Global Startup Summit’, on Monday, Raghavan highlighted the need for creating unique design driven products backed with a strong IPR regime.

He also elucidated on the industry driven ‘Catapult’ model of the UK saying that such a model and mechanism would be of critical significance to India especially for aerospace and hi-technology sectors. The Professor 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 forward to supporting and working closely with the CII Centre for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups,'' he added.  

In his special address, 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 systems, providing remote healthcare solutions and skilling programmes through e-portal.

He also highlighted the ‘CII Startup-Corporate Connect’ programme, wherein startups can have access to about 9000+ CII members for mentorship and other support.

In his theme address, 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 opportunities through Startups–Industry engagement programmes.

Dr. Gopichand Katragadda, Co-Chairman, CII National Startup Council and Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Myelin Foundry mentioned that this summit will bring together policy makers, government, academia and startups to build a robust startups ecosystem.

The summit also witnessed an exchange of letters between UNIDO and CII to promote startups to reach global markets and develop a 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.