“There are huge opportunities for Startups that can impact the development of the country. India is not following the best practices elsewhere, it is setting the next best practices, according to Ms Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, who was the Chief Guest at the launch of CII’s Startups Coalition Portal, organized at New Delhi today.

She added that the opportunity for Startups in India is huge as  there is no other economy of comparable size that is so underserviced in each and every sector – be it healthcare, agriculture, education, transport or any other.  Since the scale of under servicing is so large, the opportunity is even larger – with innovations and technology that can be uniquely leveraged in India, Ms Sundararajan pointed out.

Mr Rajan Anandan, Vice President, South East Asia and India, Google India, shared that the internet user base has increased dramatically in India, the quality of entrepreneurs has also shown an upward trend and investing in startup ecosystem has increased. He added that Start ups in  India should focus on addressing India’s biggest problems and address not the first 50-100 million users, but the rest of India. He further stated that India should have an open light touch regulatory environment and build on cross functional skills to convert each problem or an issue into an opportunity.

India is placed amongst the top three countries in the number of Startups in the world. It is of utmost importance at this juncture to provide the support system necessary to ensure a high degree of success. CII’s Startups Coalition is this platform to interconnect different stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and build a stronger nurturing environment for startups in India, according to Mr Kiran Karnik, Chairman, CII National Mission on Digital India.

The Coalition is uniquely placed as a common platform as a means to encourage and promote not just the big cities, but the small towns of India, by connecting them to get online guidance, mentorship and the way forward for establishing their startups.  Mr Karnik added that upcoming startups need to create new business models to address the untapped opportunities which will solve the bigger problems of the larger population base of the Indian subcontinent.

12 December 2016

New Delhi