Union Minister Piyush Goyal inaugurates 'Startup India Innovation Week', outlines these 3 goals for Indian entrepreneurs

Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, inaugurated the 'Startup India Innovation Week Launch' virtually from New Delhi today. At the event, the Union Minister outlined three goals for the Indian entrepreneurs.

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At the launch, Goyal called upon stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem to strive to take India to the top 25 in the Global Innovation Index. He added, "Our startups are the key reason behind India’s meteoric rise in Global Innovation Index from 76 in 2014 to 46 in 2021."

Expressing his delight at being able to participate in the first-ever Startup Innovation launch week, Goyal said that ‘Celebrating Innovation Ecosystem’, as a part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, was also a call to action for all of us to strengthen our startup ecosystem further.

One must note that the startup and innovation festival's primary goal is to bring together the country's key startups, entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, funding entities, banks, policymakers, and other national and international stakeholders to celebrate entrepreneurship and promote innovation.

 Furthermore, to exchange knowledge on nurturing startup ecosystems; to develop entrepreneurial ecosystem capacities; to mobilise global and domestic capital for startup investments; to encourage and inspire the youth for innovation and entrepreneurship; to provide market access opportunities to startups; and to showcase high-quality, high-technology, and frugal innovations from India.

The Minister emphasized that the event has been organized with whole of government approach and in collaboration of 30 departments.  He also announced that the participant registration for the Innovation Week had already crossed one lakh.

Terming the startups as the harbingers of change, the Minister said that our startups have changed the mind-set from “Can do” to “Will do”. Startup India, which started as a mission to promote Innovation has today become a revolution of National Participation and National Consciousness, he observed.

Expressing confidence that the Prime Minister’s interaction with startups on the completion of 6 years of Startup India will encourage our entrepreneurs to dream big and achieve bigger, Goyal said that our Startups turned COVID-19 crises into an opportunity and made 2021 the 'Year' of unicorns, with 3rd largest number of Unicorns (82) in the world.

He further outlined three goals for Indian entrepreneurs, ‘Make in India’, ‘Innovate in India’, and ‘Mentor the next generation of entrepreneurs’. He also said that there was a need to make our startups much more resilient so that they are well prepared to mitigate and overcome crisis situations like the pandemic.

Zee Business reporter Ambarish Pandey has reported on the highlights of the week-long celebrations. They are as follows are as follows:

• Prime Minister’s interaction with startups
• Result Declaration of National Startup Awards 2021
• Launch of Doordarshan Startup Champions 2.0 show
• Roundtable with Global Investors and domestic funds
• Launch of Open Network for Digital Commerce Digital Strategy
• Launch of ‘Fisheries Startup Grand Challenge’ by Department of Fisheries

Furthermore, it has to be noted that on the sixth day, PM Modi is expected to interact with startups and address Startup India Innovation Week at 10.30 AM via video conferencing in closed-door event.

For this interaction, 150+ startups have been divided into six working groups based on themes such as “Growing from Roots; Nudging the DNA; From Local to Global; Technology of Future; Building Champions in Manufacturing; and Sustainable Development. The aim of the interaction is to understand how startups can contribute to the national needs by driving innovation in the country and how government can assist them with the same.