Narendra Modi’s Digital India brought many prospects under its wing & Startup India was one of them.
Welcome to our series Digital India, where we talk about various initiatives taken by the government to transform India into a digitally sustainable nation.
In case you haven’t read our previous blogs we will leave a link down below.
India’s UPI BHIM – Bharat Interface for Money
Make In India – $286 Billion FDI Inflow!
PM Modi’s Big Plan Digital India – At A Glance
This campaign was first announced by Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi during his 15 August 2015 address from the Red Fort, in New Delhi.
To understand the whole concept of Startup India we need to get what is it & why it was formed.
What is Startup India?
According to their website “Startup India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation and Startups in the country that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities.”
The government presented Startup India as a gift to “young people” in our country who wants to set up an innovative new business.
The whole scheme was based on three main pillars:
- Simplification and Handholding.
- Funding Support and Incentives.
- Industry-Academia Partnership and Incubation.
What are the main objectives of Startup India?
Narendra Modi wanted to initiate Startup India not just to promote the IT or digital world, but it was a planned effort to assist new minds who want to do entrepreneurship to enhance the innovation & ultimately economic growth of the country.
Some of its primary objectives are:
- To reduce the regulatory burden on Startups thereby allowing them to focus on their core business.
- To create a single point of contact for the entire Startup ecosystem and enable knowledge exchange and access to funding.
- To serve as a single platform for Startups for interacting with Government and Regulatory Institutions for all business needs and information exchange among various stakeholders.
- To promote awareness and adoption of IPRs by Startups.
- To facilitate them in protecting and commercializing the IPRs.
- To provide an equal platform to Startups (in the manufacturing sector) vis-à-vis the experienced entrepreneurs/ companies in public procurement.
- To make it easier for Startups with operations.
What initiatives are taken by the government under Startup India?
To make the program a success the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Department of Science and Technology have agreed to partner in an initiative to set up over 75 such startup support hubs in NITs, IITs, IISERs & NIPERs.
Recently, the Reserve Bank of India is taking steps to improve the ease of business in India & thus contributing to help the growth of startups in the country.
Even some of the stats in the country has steadily contributed to Startup India.
Like Kerela, who has initiated a government startup nodal agency called “Kerala Startup Mission” (KSUM). This organization particularly supports the startup ecosystem by means of different components such as Infrastructure, Human Capital Development, Funding, Governance, Public-Private Partnership, Global collaborations, Scaling Existing and Establishing New startup ventures.
Some of the promotional strategies of Startup India
A pivotal component for the growth of Startups is regular communication and collaboration within the Startup community, both national as well as international.
Entrepreneurship cannot be done alone. To further the cause of this initiative, the Government proposed start-up fests at both the national & international level.
Odisha was one of the first states to have a two-day start-up conclave in Bubhaneshwar in 2016.
Through these fests, the startups can showcase their ideas and work with a larger audience comprising of potential investors, mentors and fellow Startups.
The launch of AIM & SETU program
To further promote the cause, the government actually came up with another sub-schemes for new entrepreneurs.
Under AIM or Atal Innovation Mission, new entrepreneurs will get supported and mentored to become successful entrepreneurs.
Also, along with mentoring these schemes will
- Organize Institution of Innovation Awards (3 per state/UT) and 3 National level awards
- Provide support to State Innovation councils for awareness creation and organizing state level workshops/conferences
- Launch Grand Innovation Challenge Awards for finding ultra-low-cost solutions to India’s pressing and intractable problems
The National Startup Awards
Every year the government organizes National Startup Awards, a competitive platform where startups from all over India compete with each other for a grand prize of 50 lacs. The competition has 6 challenges where they select 6 winners, each will get 50 lacs along with other benefits.
Investments
In terms of investments, one of the major investors is SoftBank, headquartered in Japan, who invested around $2 billion dollars into Indian startups.
Moreover, the firm has pledged to invest another $10 billion. Can you imagine the potential growth India can achieve with this amount of steady flow of investments?
Even Google declared to launch a startup, based on the highest amount of votes in which the top three startups will be allowed to join the next Google Launchpad Week. The final winner would win a prize of $ 100,000 in Google cloud credits.
The Result:
Startup India has been active for 4 years now, with almost 370000+ Users. This initiative also gave rise to around 27000+ Startups already with many others to go in the future.
A lot could be done under this initiative if done successfully.
One of the vital things about any start-up is its branding. A proper branding can be extremely essential & could win you a suitable funding.
Want some help regarding the digital branding of your startup?
Contact us at Skyram Technologies. We will provide you with a proper digital guideline that will help your business take the next big step! Contact us here!
If you want to enter the National Startup Awards here is the link: Startup India.
And for our other blogs on Digital India read here!
