Odisha Govt To Partner With Google To Boost Its Startup Ecosystem

The Odisha government is looking to collaborate with Google to boost the startup ecosystem in the state. The government has selected 250 startups, which will partner with Google for guidance.

Odisha had announced in the month of June that it would recognise 20 startups every month in order to boost the state startup initiative.

A media report cited a government official as saying, “The Google Startup programme has partnerships with three states — Karnataka, Goa, and Telangana — where it is supporting startups. We are exploring a similar partnership with Google.”

Odisha aims to emerge as one of top three startup hubs in the country by 2020. It aims to facilitate the growth of over 1,000 startups in the next five years.

Google has started the Cloud Startup Programme, under which free credits will be provided to startups so they can focus on building a business. Google will take the responsibility of scaling and securing the infrastructure of startups under the programme.

Recently, Google Play launched its first Indie Games Accelerator Programme, which is a special edition of the Google Launchpad Accelerator. With the help of this new accelerator programme, developers from Asian countries will be taught how to build, scale, launch, and market the next generation of popular mobile games.

Odisha Government’s Efforts to Boost The Startup Ecosystem

Earlier this year, in April 2018, the Odisha government approved a series of amendments to its Startup Policy 2016. In the amendments, provisions were made to promote the entrepreneurship culture among women, transgenders, and people from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the state.

Prior to that, in February 2018, the chief minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, launched the Startup India Yatra, which was to travel to 60 educational institutions across the 16 districts of the state.

Other efforts made by the Odisha government to boost the startup ecosystem in the state include:

• August 2017: The government recognised 80 startups under the Startup Odisha initiative. It processed 32 applications in this regard and have INR 20,000 each to eight recognised startups.

• May 2017: The Odisha government launched a startup portal with the aim of promoting ease of doing business for budding entrepreneurs and to create an ecosystem for startups in the state.

With the DIPP state startup ranking framework in place, state governments are speeding up their efforts to improve their startup infrastructure and to nurture ecosystems in their states. Recently, the Jammu and Kashmir state government also announced that it would launch its startup policy soon.

[The development was reported by Business Standard.]