Earlier this year in January, at the one-year completion of Startup India’s anniversary, the government continued its commitment to helping startup entrepreneurs by launching an educational initiative – the Learning & Development Module.
The interactive online learning and development module aims to educate startups and aspiring entrepreneurs, through various stages of their entrepreneurial journey. As per the most recent Startup India status report, till date, over 123,000 applicants have signed up for the course. Of which, 69% is the active user base and around 3,980+ applicants have reportedly completed 100% of the course successfully as of April 30, 2017.
Launched in association with UpGrad and developed by InvestIndia, the L&D module is a collaborative initiative by the DIPP.
Enrolled participants also get a chance to learn from the real-life successes and failures of top entrepreneurs. Some entrepreneurs who shared their journey as a part of the L&D Module include –
Rishi Malhotra– He is the CEO and co-founder of Indian music streaming company Saavn. As per his LinkedIn profile, he is currently Managing Partner at New York City-based media incubator, 212MEDIA.
Girish Mathrubootham – He is the founder of cloud-based customer engagement software provider Freshdesk.
Bhavish Aggarwal – Along with co-founder Ankit Bhati, Bhavish founded Ola in January 2011. Till date, it has raised total equity funding of $1.25 Bn in eight rounds from about 20 investors such as Tiger Global, DST Global, and Softbank.
Bipin Preet Singh – Founded in 2009 by Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, MobiKwik is a wallet that enables users to make mobile recharge and bill payments instantly.
Kunal Bahl – Kunal founded Snapdeal in February 2010, along with Rohit Bansal. The ecommerce marketplace claims to offer over 65 Mn products across 1000+ categories with more than 300K sellers on its platform.
Kunal Shah – Kunal founded FreeCharge in 2010 as a mobile recharge and coupon firm where the customers get coupons worth the recharge amount. After studying Philosophy at Mumbai’s Wilson College, Kunal, an MBA dropout, started his career as a junior programmer at a startup. This is where Kunal met Sandeep Tandon, who not only invested in the company but also became its co-founder.
Pranay Chulet– Pranay founded Quikr in 2008, which claims to have a user base of over 30 Mn per month.
Other entrepreneurs who appear on the sessions include OYO Rooms CEO Ritesh Agarwal, Deep Kalra, CEO of MakeMyTrip, Housing co-founder Advitiya Sharma, Pepperfry CEO Ambareesh Murty,; Bharat Matrimony Founder Murugavel Janakiraman, and Grofers co-founder Albinder Dhindsa.
Apart from these, other entrepreneurs who shared their journey include Unicommerce co-founder Ankit Pruthi; JustDial founder VSS Mani; InMobi CEO and founder Naveen Tewari; Ketan Kadam, founder and CEO of Maroosh; Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah; Lenskart CEO and founder Peyush Bansal; Delhivery co-founder Sahil Barua; MuSigma founder Dhiraj Rajaram; GoQii founder and CEO Vishal Gondal among others.
Participants also get an official Startup India, Invest India, and UpGrad certificate upon completion of the course. Click here to check out the programme!
