“Entrepreneurship is more of an attitude, than a skill” Dr. Sunil Shukla, Dir-EDII

(Start-up Mentorship Program 2018 at AICTE)

Speaking on ‘Making Innovations & Start-ups a Culture in India’, at the AICTE-auditorium during the final rounds of Start-up Mentorship Program 2018 organized by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi, Dr. Sunil Shukla, Director of EDII Ahmedabad, said, “Entrepreneurship is more of an attitude, than a skill or talent”. Encouraging budding women entrepreneurs and young start-up teams, Dr. Shukla highlighted how there was an appreciable increase in the admission of girls i.e. from 10% to 25%, at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII).  

“AICTE’s focus on empowering women to lead start-ups by providing them with an opportunity to showcase their business ideas and offer Student Innovators and Early Stage Start-ups, mentorship support and access opportunity to get connected with Incubators, Angel Investors, VCs and start-up ecosystem enablers, attracted participants in large numbers”, emphasized Dr. Shukla. 

A total of 2969 registrations and 714 applications of early stage Start-up/teams were received out of which 82 teams were finally selected to participate in the Start-up Mentorship Program and 2nd round of evaluation of female lead tech start-ups. Out of the invited start-up teams, 55 teams were female lead innovations or start-ups. 

Speaking on the occasion Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi highlighted the role of a conducive ecosystem in promoting innovative technology – based ideas and said, “For start-ups to become successful one needs institutional support”. 

The program to Support 100 Women Led Student Tech Start-ups over a period of Five Years was Jointly Announced by AICTE and Carleton University earlier this year during the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s India visit.  This acceleration program will facilitate meetings with Canadian ecosystem enablers to give start-ups an opportunity to explore innovative and emerging market opportunities in Canada while accessing the acceleration facilities at Canada India Centre of Excellence (CICE) at Carleton University. 

The selection process of women lead start-ups for Canada India Acceleration program, a Start-up Mentorship Program was organized at AICTE, New Delhi on 25th and 26th of June 2018. The first cohort of 10 women led tech start-ups from India will visit to Carleton University, Canada to take part in the 2 week long International Acceleration Program, during the month of August 2018. 

Five South Korean start-up teams were part of the Indian Start-up Ecosystem and also participated in Start-up Mentorship Program at AICTE.  Incidentally, a team of Nine Indian Entrepreneurs representing five Start-ups had visited South Korea to participate in the International Start-up Exchange Program held earlier in 2017.

Top picks among the start-ups which made it to the final rounds: 

•    Solar energy run Micro Oven powered by IoT, which can be operated through smart phones
•    Wearable monitors for pregnant couples
•    Virtual Rape Alert system
•    Affordable and effective Testing tools for Chikungunya
•    Drone spraying pesticides and  other solutions for the farmers
•    Effective and harmless solutions for people looking forward to quit smoking
•    Assisting people in depression through Virtual Reality – by one of the Korean Team
  
Also present in the session were H K Mittal, Member Secretary, NSTEDB, DST, Dr. H Purushotham, Chairman & MD, NRDC India. 

Also present were the mentors to the participants Prof. Satya Acharya, Prof. Amit Kumar Dwivedi and Shri Uttam Lalwani from Entrepreneurship Development Institute India (EDII), Ahmedabad, Ecosystem partners of the program.