MeitY Startup Summit: IoT, AI/ML To Help India’s Socio-Economic Growth

With a vision to discuss how leveraging emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT) would catalyse the socio-economic growth of India, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) on Monday inaugurated MeitY Startup Summit 2019. The summit is seen as a step forward towards bringing together key stakeholders and startups under one roof.   

During the course of the summit, startups and entrepreneurs will share techniques and strategies that they find effective with one another. Further, they will work with practitioners to capture viable techniques to bring the focus of venture capital and government around their processes and strategies.

At the summit, the telecom minister also launched MeitY Startup Hub (MSH). The startup hub has been set up in order to facilitate MeitY’s vision of promoting technology innovation, startups and creation of intellectual properties. 

As a nodal agency, software technology parks of India (STPI), an organisation under MeitY, is entrusted with the implementation of MSH in the country. 

STPI working for the creation of a startup ecosystem in India has so far created 28 centres of excellence (COE). During the MeitY Startup Summit 2019, STPI further signed four Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with Intel India Pvt limited, IIM Calcutta Innovation Park, Pontaq and IBM. 

The MoUs are expected to help in promoting innovation in information and communications technology during the MeitY startup summit 2019. Additionally, these MoUs are also expected to connect technological institutions, venture capitalists, industries and government agencies. 

These MoUs can also be seen as  a massive step forward for various STPI CoEs like IoT OpenLab at Bengaluru, ESDM incubation centre at Bhubaneshwar, VARCoE at Bhubaneshwar, Autonomous Connected Electric Shared Vehicles, CoE at Pune, MedTech & health informatics CoE at Lucknow, Rural & Agri IoT CoE at Guwahati,  BlockChain CoE at Gurugram and IoT in Agri CoE at Patna-Motihari and others. 

Further, STPI has initiated the activity of setting up of various domain-specific CoEs across India. Moreover, IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP), has been engaged for providing their expertise in the call for application, screening, onboarding & review of startups across STPI CoEs. 

Government’s Push For Startup India 

The Union government has been continuously working towards building the startup ecosystem of the country and make it easier to grow.

Recently, showing confidence in the ability of startups to bring innovation and drive business in the Indian economy, Modi said that the Indian startup ecosystem will help India achieve the $5 Tn target for the economy set by the government.

Modi also highlighted that India is one of the top three startup ecosystems in the world and lauded startups for powering the startup ecosystem. The Prime Minister also claimed that the world is looking at new India as a land of unique opportunities.

The Startup India scheme has played a significant role in channelling the entrepreneurial spirit of India’s innovators and has penetrated Tier 2 and 3 markets as well. With plenty of initiative from the central and state governments, startups and early-stage businesses have been given every encouragement and incentive to grow and innovate.