A year into its ‘10,000 startups’ programme, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has decided to take 25 promising startups, chosen from over among 7,000 applicants in the first phase of the initiative, to the U.S.
The idea is to give budding entrepreneurs some global exposure. The programme called Innotrek aims at allowing startups to have a first-hand experience of the product ecosystem there, access to global venture capitalists and an opportunity to interact with big tech firm representatives. Participants would be taken on a three-city tour, NASSCOM representatives said. Recounting the programme’s achievements over the past year, NASSCOM announced that it had, over this period, processed, in two batches, over 7,000 start-up applications, indicating the huge startup interest and potential in the country. Another 3,000 applications had already been received for phase-II, NASSCOM said.
NASSCOM president R. Chandrashekar said a major development was the launch of the Start-up Warehouse in Bangalore to create a micro-ecosystem where startups and entrepreneurs could work together, share their learning and best practices with each other.
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NASSCOM’s startups programme was started in March 2013 with the support of Google, Kotak, Microsoft and Verisign. On the anvil are programmes that will focus on nurturing entrepreneurship among women such as ‘Girls in Technology’.