Smaller cities to get industrial boost

Hyderabad: Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC), under the Ministry of ITE&C, is launching Startup India Telangana Yatra in collaboration with Invest India and SingEx on September 15. Startup Yatra is an attempt to promote entrepreneurship in Tier II and III cities of the State. The Yatra will happen in 12 districts between September 15 and October 5 and will spread awareness about the State Innovation Policy and the initiatives taken by the State.

During the tour in boot camps, budding entrepreneurs will get a chance to be mentored by successful entrepreneurs and active players of the startup ecosystem and can pitch their idea and, if selected, entrepreneurs will get incubated under the acceleration programme and give wings to their entrepreneurial dream, according to a press release issued here on Sunday. While addressing a huge gathering consisting of technology and IT companies from across the globe at WCIT 2018 in February, Telangana’s IT Minister KT Rama Rao had appealed to companies to look beyond metros and Tier 1 cities and invest in Tier 2, 3 towns.

The Telangana government has identified five locations including Warangal that will be grown as tech destinations. Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Khammam and Mahbubnagar are the four other towns apart from Warangal. In alignment with KTR’s vision to promote innovation and entrepreneurship beyond Hyderabad Startup Yatra is being done in the State. To ensure the Yatra benefits every individual across the State, a ‘Startup India Mobile Van’ will stop at 12 colleges across the destinations between September 14 and October 1. It will spread awareness about the initiatives taken by the government to promote entrepreneurship in Telangana.

The vehicle will have experts on board who will provide an opportunity for entrepreneurial talents to pitch an idea. It aims to scout grass root level entrepreneurs in the smaller towns of India, providing a platform for budding entrepreneurs. Active ecosystem players are invited to be a part of the Jury to each and every boot camp to inspire students from tier ⅔ cities to become innovators and entrepreneurs. Also, there are exhibits by rural innovators in all the boot camp locations in collaboration with Palle Srujana, Honey Bee Network under NIF.

This aims not only to scout grass root level entrepreneurs but also to disseminate grassroots innovations. These innovations cater to rural consumers and mainly, farmers. “Through this Yatra we aim to make entrepreneurship and innovation as a colloquial term in Telangana where everyone knows about and speaks about it,” the release said.

As said by Principal Secretary, Jayesh Ranjan, during Educate to Innovate 1.0, Startup Conclave, “When the new State of Telangana came into being four years ago, we made a very prominent announcement, we took a very conscious decision that this will be a State which will welcome startups, entrepreneurs and will encourage them, will design policies, will help them do their businesses effectively, efficiently, successfully and in the last four years we have done quite a number of things but we are always conscious of the fact that in this momentum has to go forward we do require a strong pipeline a supply pipeline because startups won’t emerge overnight unless you train them, orient them over a period of time, the pipeline will run dry at some point in time and this claim that we want to make of being the startup state of the country the startup capital of India these will only be tall change these will not be actually backed by ground realities.” Thus, to keep the pipelines functional, startup Yatra is one such initiative that has been taken up by the state and central government, according to the release.