It’s a return invitation of sorts for Silicon Valley technology and startup biggies.
Chief Executives of companies such as Google’s Sundar Pichai, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in San Jose last September, are among the 2,000 startup invitees expected for unveiling the government’s Start Up India initiative on January 16. The global workshop on startups will be held in the capital, a senior government official said.
Prime Minister Modi is expected to address the concluding session of the workshop, where he will unveil the government’s action plan for promoting such enterprises based on a slogan he coined in his Independence Day Address last year — Start Up India, Stand Up India.
“The Start Up India launch would be similar to the start of the Make In India campaign in September 2014, with CEOs and other stakeholders attending. But it will be an event driven largely by the startups, for the start-ups and invitations have already been sent out to Indian CEOs who will get an opportunity to interact with their Silicon Valley peers,” the official said.
Indian startups received $9 billion in funding in 2015, which is half the total amount they could raise in the five years preceding 2015, the official pointed out.
The event is being organised by the department of industrial policy and promotion in partnership with Nasscom, the industry body representing software and IT firms and a few think-tanks in the start-up ecosystem.
Among the various initiatives that the PM could announce include a new law that makes it easier to start and exit a venture and additional support for ‘innovative startups’.
The government has had talks with venture capitalists and incubator firms, as well as start-ups and higher education institutions such as IITs and IIMs on the strategies that can be deployed to promote new business ventures and the regulations that can be eased to facilitate risk-taking.
