Department of Science & Technology and Technology Startups – The Mismatch
It’s frustrating. Forget about media moms & dads, even the central agency – Department of Science & Technology – is clueless about how to manage Tech Entrepreneurship in India. In July, last year we covered how DST is thinking and working on door-to-door basis to bring the NCR-Delhi based startups together.
During my discussions with MSME then, I’d indicated that implementing a representative platform for tech entrepreneurship by limiting oneself within the physical boundary of Delhi/NCR or any other part of India is simply lame if not self-defeating for the least.
And look after seven months of physical door-to-door labor, one-to-one calls, hundreds of emails (I am aware of some, who have marked this spam too) we’ve have gotten only this far: Quoting MSME … “FMC has been able to list around 250 start-ups in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) domain based out of NCR region and has been able to communicate personally with around 80 of them so far”.
Seriously? Is a list with 80-250 range of startups gonna represent not less than a few thousands of technology startups from NCR itself? Is anyone in DST even aware about the actual number services & product oriented Technology Startups in NCR and in India?
Wait, a minute. Can Department of Science & Technology make out the difference between a technology product startup and a technology services startup in the first place? Looking at the quality of the DST website it seems safe to assume that international terms like social media, web 2.0, crowd-sourcing, gov 2.0, cloud computing etc. are going to fly overhead the leadership of Science & Tech in our country. Anyday.
And email from MSME goes further to say that a “… prominent issue ( among others) expressed by start-up entrepreneurs is need of a sounding board and regular guidance (Not GYAN Sessions) specific to their business challenges.” To address this prominent issue MSME is organizing a few workshops in partnership with SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) and IBM and other industry experts – i.e. the traditional GYAN way. Well let me stop the cribbing at this point.
Consider this: Startups are venture by people who broke off from the expert-driven Indian industry with one’s own dream & drive. What was lacking was money, networking, experience & definitive numbers to validate one’s business plan. And what was required (essentials) from the Government/Society was the availability of a startup promotion forum – which tracks, allocates and supports entrepreneurs with resources like money & policies. No money is fa*t.
It is damn important to lower barriers and subsidize sustenance costs for a high-risk-taking individual. And to encourage junta thereby to venture out and create value that would inspire the coming generations. Youth of a country. And the last thing that a serious tech startup would wanna do is spend 16 * 16 hours on funda workshops & training for time is an extremely valuable & short resource.
Besides, look at a typical technopreneur: That individual is highly skilled & is completely aware about the global technology issues. And to a good probability, such a person would be much more informed than the experts of juggernaut industries of our country (though I know a few quality exceptions too). A technopreneur prefers reading international tech news on blogs like TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and national Tech news on Pluggd.in etc. and prefers internet over any offline masala news daily.
Now will such an individual like to spend time to attend funda session without a business interest – i.e. money or networking?
The concept that creating a local representative body on behalf of the NCR based technology startups, that would interact with statutory agencies and help alleviate them over the common issues faced by startups, is flawed at the root level. Only an inclusive model with proper online fora supported by both money & encouraging policies will lead the tech eco-system into streamlined existence. And benchmarking oneself (DST) to past record of creating a textile industry at Ludhiana surely does not apply the same way into the realm of Internet. Get over it, please.
I want to write more on how DST can assist the eco-system so that Technology startups (both services & products) get a boost, but that’s up next.
So much for MSME, DST, FMC & NITEE which are the names of same team vying to do something good for technology startup ecosystem. But the effort lacks the steam of the eco-system, and the monetary emphasis from the Manmohan Singh Government. Check out how the leadership (partly Indian) in Singapore has managed it.
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And why does pluggd.in have to cover such hopeless initiatives? It leads to more desperation.
Because it’s important to cover the entrepreneurship initiatives,esp the ones from govt.
?You don’t bring a change by calling it ‘hopeless’ from the day one.
Give it some time, let it seed and then share the feedback – which is what Arvind did.
Arvind,
You should look at the Govt.’s motivation of making such initiatives. These initiatives are mostly sponsored and are meant to serve the sponsor’s needs. IBM being the sponsor in the example you mentioned, i suppose it is serving their purpose in which ever way it is apt for them.
You remember the good old days in college where we would be addressed with some “Gyaan” session on “Career options after Btech.?” and then it would finally turn out to be a promotion event for the likes of Career Launcher etc.
These events are no different.
We being on the receiving side would always think the whole organization is faulty but it must have been a single person who was responsible for the task but was never motivated enough to do this. He took it as a order and finished it as one. The executor is not a part of the idea and was never asked for an opinion so how can we expect him to do this effectively?
Dont worry the situation will change soon. I Even Infosys faced problems when it was starting up but now that it has grown and is contributing (along with IT peers) to GDP, govt. takes IT export seriously and has helped to quite an extent. Similarly once we start seeing few good startups in tech. product field policies would be twisted for the good. It could be more of a chicken-egg problem.
Enough cribbing on my part!
?At your age Naman, things look really beautiful n positive. N it feels good n energetice to read your qualified comment.
~ Arvind
?what was that “at your age”? Was that a compliment or telling that i have not seen the world?
?Compliment Naman, now sponsor me a burger please…:)
Very insightful. When world leaders are taking to web 2.0, Indian govt. websites are getting hacked everywhere. If i remember correctly some 900 odd websites were hacked recently with most primitive of methods.
Is that what we call the will of the government?
Awesome link at the end of the post! We should learn from Singapore Govt!
i remember when i was starting up, i had to spend two months in the fucking delhi summer looking for a place to put 3 pcs…delhi govt. was on its sealing drive and it was illegal to rent any apartments in residential areas…though they were available to small businesses like cyber cafes, tuition centers, beauty salons…truth is sarkari babus don’t just know what a “startup” is…
I can understand your pain. But it is quite some time before India wakes up to entrepreneurship. I do not know where China n rest of tiger economies would be by that time. Let’s hope for the best, though.
?I’ve been involved in this initiative partially (though I’ve not been active for a while). The intent was a “cluster-based” development of ICT startups in NCR – and DST even marked funds for the same.
I’ll highlight some key goals (which Ashish missed here):
- to give entrepreneurs a platform for networking
- to support them in various ways like legal help, sponsoring events, trainings etc.
- to give them a representation for bargaining power with Government for policy changes (like single-window startup registration process)
I got sponsored to TieCON under this initiative, so I’ve actually benefited from this initiative. However, I’ll try to be as unbiased as possible:
- the intentions are good, but like many other Government initiatives the execution is a bottleneck.
- it requires people like me to step up and volunteer (like TIE volunteers) where we’re incapable because we don’t have bandwidth
- there are no benchmarks to measure success of the initiatives; they’re pretty subjective.
Commenting on some of Ashish’s points:
- there is an online forum in the form of a Linkedin group, but it is inactive
- there is some money, but not as cash but some financial support (like my registration to TIE)
IMO the Government should focus on improving areas like policy where it is the agent of change, rather than trying to be an enabler for other agents. Finally, this is my longest blog comment ever!
@Aditya
Getting a free sponsored tkt is not something that gets counted. In the past, pluggd.in has given away tkts for TiECON, NASSCOM and several other events.
Govt body should focus on policies and not try to be an incubation center.”
Correction – post is written by Arvind and not Ashish!
?I agree. If technoprenur requires gyan from others, how will he ever beat the corporate gyaanis? Will he competete with the gyaani’s using their own gyan? Very nicely pointed out @arvind.
Thoughts from a New Age entrepreneur with a will to make in India.
The old adage was and still remains that “If you can make it India, the world is your Oyster”.
Whoever knew that there are connotations attached to this …
Here’s my little bit of adventure to the madness. I spent 4 weeks getting a company together, 3 weeks to get a PAN Number for the company (delays) and have been waiting for over 4 weeks for understanding whats taking so long for the Service Tax number to be approved. “Aap paper le kar aayein aur phir dekhte hai”.
Lovely … so now the instead of taking care of my core which is setting up the business, taking care of the technical aspects, the legal bits, marketing and everything else, it is required of us to zip down to where-ever the office is and wait till the gentleman comes back from lunch and hangs up his mobile to talk to you.
I agree with you Ashish. The Department and its Entrepreneurial Cell would make it so simple by giving us a single-window clearance for starters. All other gyaan … can wait
awesome…
Great business idea.
I think Arvind is totally confusded with what DST is doing with the help of Foundation of MSME Cluster.DST is trying to make a nodal center for IT enabled entrepreneurs in Delhi/NCR region.
This NITEE will serve as platform where one can come and lend support.Today no body knows how many entrepreneurs are there in NCR,Bangalore,Hyderabad.No body has this data, neither Pluggd.in nor Proto,Headtart,Barcamp.So if DST has to lend any support, where it should go, whom they should contact ?
So it has to start from some specific region, then only DST or any other body can come and talk.So this totally makes sense in formation of a nodal center.
In fact its short sightedness of entrepreneurs here, which are not fully participating and co-operating.
At least they are not making money from entrepreneurs pocket which others do like Proto and Headstart.
Simply sitting and blaming a system is very easy,you need to see the efforts these guys are making.
Again read the mail which you have got from FMC,which explains clearly the efforts and options.
Understand the purpose of NITEE, then only you will the get clarity in your thoughts.
Thanks.
hi bhishm,
Would call your attention to the line “its short sightedness of entrepreneurs here, which are not fully participating and co-operating”. By saying that you are self-defeating your intention of doing some good for the startups.
Secondly, the govt. already levies enough taxes on our industry (including tech fledglings) and therefore has a ‘capitalist’ duty to provide an infrastructure (policies & ideation-level funding) back into the eco-system.
It’s kinda hard to buy a story that Government has an interest any different from that of proto or headstart or other such forums, albeit in smaller form. It always works for money & with money, for the Government too.
Cheers,
Arvind
Hello Arvind
I got a call from MSME as well and have given them a list of issues faced by startups in India. More importantly there should be money available (without the endless forms and pre conditions) to help fund ideas.
Lets see how they manage to plug that gap.
As an initiative, I am all for it, and it needs the help of the entire ecosystem before it can deliver.
Cheers
Akshat
Nice work Akshat. One needs to build a horizon looking at what is happening around the world. At least in Asia Pacific region.
I do believe that the outcome will benefit several techies out there…