Youngsters demonstrate 15 startups at Start AP Fest

Vijayawada: Several hundreds of youngsters studying various professional courses enthusiastically participated in the fifth edition of the StartAP Fest organised at Kshetrayya Kalakshetram on Saturday.A total of 15 Startups have pitched in their products at the event. Out of which six startups Isthriwala, Fopple drones, Napanta, Mentor Mind, Kulfy and Fountane Labs competed to win the prize money of Rs 2 lakhs.

The StartAP, Amaravati, hosted the two-day event on Friday and Saturday to encourage young entrepreneurs to launch the startups with innovative projects. The StartAP was launched in Vizag in 2014 with an objective of promoting startups in the State. Since then, it conducted four summits in different parts of the State and fifth summit known as Andhrapreneurship was organised on Friday and Saturday at Bhavani Island and Tummalapalli Kalakshetram respectively in Vijayawada.

 Siddhartha Maripeddi, the CEO of StartAP, said, ``We want to encourage the young entrepreneurs and help them to enhance entrepreneurial skills. He felt the capital region of Amaravati is yet to get boom in startups.Shobhu Yarlagadda, producer of Bahubali movie and one of the guests for the event, said every Indian movie is an Indian Startup as the challenges faced in marketing them are very similar to talking at StartAP fest.

 He suggested the youngsters to be bold and innovative in their ideas to achieve success. Sudhakar Reddy, the founder and CEO of AbhiBus has inspired young Andhrapreneurs by sharing his journey from selling 4 seats online to selling 1.4 million seats currently.
Gopi Raja, young engineering graduate and entrepreneur created a drone for sprinkling pesticide in the agriculture farm lands.

 He displayed the drone at Tummalapalli Kshetrayya Kalakshetram.  He initially created a drone with the title 'Drone Raja 1' three years ago and now developed Drone Raja 2, which can carry 70 litres of pesticide and sprinkle in the farm lands in 70 acres. Drone designer Gopi Raja popularly known as Drone Raja told The Hans India that the drone is controlled by remote and smart phones and sprinkles pesticide with pinpoint accuracy on the crops.

He said the Drone Raja costs Rs.10 lakh and covers 70 acres. Giving details of its benefits, Gopi said the drone can be used for fogging also. Two youngsters--V Varanya and S Hemanth--were trying to develop the autonomous driving software which can be used to drive vehicles like cars, mini trucks, buses and trucks. They displayed the software at Andhrapreneurship summit.