Innovation, digital economy on agenda

PM to address India-US Konnect

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the India-US Startup Konnect and share his vision on “Start up India, Stand up India” as part of his US visit later this month.

IT industry body Nasscom, TiE Silicon Valley, and IIM Ahmedabad’s CIIE India will host the first India-US Start-Up Konnect in the Silicon Valley on September 27 to showcase the strengths of India’s start-up ecosystem, a statement said.

The day-long event will highlight multiple dimensions of Indian innovation capabilities, represented by more than 30 start-ups across sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, energy, financial inclusion, and biotechnology, as well as leading technology business incubators in the country.

The start-ups will exhibit products, prototypes and achievements to their investors and other potential valley partners, it said. The Prime Minister will visit the exhibition to encourage the Indian start-ups exhibiting their products there, it added.

During his visit, Modi is expected to meet Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and electric car maker Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, among others.

At the event, Nasscom will sign an agreement with TiE Silicon Valley to facilitate a start-up exchange and collaboration programme. IIM Ahmedabad’s business incubator CIIE will also sign MoUs with corporates and academic partners in the US to collaboratively build and scale-up disruptive innovations for India, through financial assistance and collaboration.

“Crafting the India of tomorrow is our collective responsibility. With India-US Startup Konnect, we aim to showcase success stories of Indian entrepreneurs to highlight the rapidly rising global impact of technology innovation from India,” Nasscom president R. Chandrashekhar said.

Nasscom also aims to further accelerate the strong interface that exists between India and US start-up ecosystem, he added.“These start-ups are representative of the changing India where apart from just creating solutions for the upper middle-class urban consumer of India,

the innovators are leveraging technology and their experiences to create massive impact by solving some tougher problems,” CIIE CEO Kunal Upadhyay said.