Dept. of Science and Technology (DST) is Thinking… and its about Technology Startups this time!
Guess what? Department of Science and Technology (DST) , New Delhi has been running door-to-door, Startup to Startup to build a ‘representation’ of Technology Startups that would take on our collective needs and represent us to the government.
And in their own words its almost like bringing up the “Looms and Textiles industries of Ludhiana” in the next 25 years!
I personally, sat with them to understand what their vision, approach and look out is and this is all what we’ve got to say about it: “the effort seems really commendable!” .
They call it creating MSME Clusters – Micro, Small and Medium Entrepreneurs, clustered in a way to not only reduce resource and training overheads, but also to be represented by an Agent who carries our voice to the Government effectively.
To this effect, DST/Foundation for MSME is also organizing a brainstorming session on 11th July, 2009 3:00 PM (IST) with all Startups at the following venue:
- Office of Foundation for MSME Clusters ,
- Conference room, USO House, USO Road,
- Off Shaheed Jeet Singh Marg, 6,Special Institutional Area,
- New Delhi – 110067
One Mr. Ranjan Singh of Foundation of MSME (the guys carrying out the project for DST) can be reached at sathiranjan[at]gmail[dot]com to know more about the session and its agenda.
Pluggd.in will be there to bring you all the nots & whats from the event. On the flip side however, the closing up of Govt. agencies on this seems to be limited to Delhi/NCR region alone. Now that seems a narrow beginning because for Web Technology Startups location based clustering is immaterial.
Indian Technology Startups are spread throughout the country, and even outside, each struggling in the same way as it true for the Delhites. So why shouldn’t we be talking about clustering Startups without the geographical encumbrances?
On the bright side of things however, are we really feeling the Winds of Change? Is the Government finally looking at Technology Startups, the alpha-crowd more seriously? Well we are quite upbeat about this.
- Marvin Danig (Arvind)
Thanks Mr. Arvind. Brainstorming session on Linkages between Engg./MBA colleges and ICT Startups is aimed at identifying activities to bridge current gaps among these two closely interdependent constitutents of ICT ecosystem in NCR region.
We invite startups from NCR region to confirm their participation in the brainstorming session. email-sathiranjan@gmail.com,klsarkar@gmail.com
Sorry what’s ICT ? I am completely devoid of jargons … it confuses me..:-(
Its Information & Communication Technology
I will never forget the 3 months I went around looking for a space to rent for my startup. Because of the sealing drive, tt was possible to run a cyber cafe and a beauty parlour from a residential area but not a startup with two guys and two laptops. Govt. just doesn’t think about guys like us.
Its true and Some of the things falling in place after meeting different stakeholders over the last few months are:
a) Space/infrastructure cinstraints for startups particularly for those who are entering and have just entered into commercialisation as host of issues like affordability,leaglity,ability to attract talent,putting the company in shape all becomes acute at this stage.
b) Awareness on supports and facilities available from different sources —- largely happens through networking on formal/imformal groupings and personal bondings. No central source i.e. kind of a desk/office/dedicated web site at NCR at any association/forum to inform/guide on such things
c) Startups in service /software products are finding lack of assistance for them as existing schemes are supporting products (hardware must )only.
d) Women entreprenuers and employees at start ups are finding eco-system harsher or at least not so conducive.
e) There is a lack/shortage of events in variety of formats to promote/focus only on startups i.e. events where startups are the main attraction and all other are coming for them.
f) lack of organisation for startups(entreprenuers) which can set these in perspective by linking all stakeholders like govt,investors, supporters ,incubators, media, lobbying etc. For example all informal gatherings are by innovators only and most of the time participant are also only innovators. In case of imformal gatherings like Barcamp participants are diverse but ambience is open sharing. In some others it is category focus. But seemingly all are missing a professional secreteriet mentored and guided by startup leaders/members addressing issues on wider scale right from education/training/skill requirements to infrastructure,govt policy inputs specific to them.
g)Seemingly there is a sense and willingness of reaching out to help others but everthing rests on a person’s resources i.e.time,money,will ,reach. Over the time; with growth of enterprise and also the reaching out mechanism’s popularity of such set ups become elite and general in their approach.
h) Issues like handholding of incubators/entreprenuership cells (at minimum standardising or advising on the basic infrestructure expected with them) , availablility of pool of experts on cross cutting issues for start ups , a common database of entreprenuers at different stages and respective addressal of issues by a representative forum, forums to involve donor and govt agencies i.e. development funds towards startup problems,involving civic authorities for infrastructure isues etc.
Can we start deliberating on the possible solution, their providers and ways to involve them collaboratively????? followed by the coordinated implementation.
[...] 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 [...]