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JA Chowdary, Chairperson and Convenor of the International Start-up Foundation (ISF) has asked the governments to tap the opportunity in providing vast volumes of data that the country produces.
“Start-ups in countries like Singapore and the US don’t have enough data to develop solutions. In India, we have huge volumes of data. We can tap this potential,” he said.
Addressing the inaugural of the ISF 2024, a three-day start-up festival organised by the ISF, he said that the ISF believed in cultivating and promoting a problem-solving mindset. He appealed to the Telangana government to set up sandboxes and create data lakes to help start-ups build solutions.
“ISF 2024 is a unique ecosystem for innovators to ignite their creative potential and transform their ideas into actionable solutions. I suggest innovators to focus on rural India, as it accounted for 65 per cent of the country’s population. But it contributed only 46 per cent of the national income. Its unique set of problems can be effectively solved by disruptive use of technology,” he said.
“Solutions for the problems in rural India can play a key role in transforming the lives of the majority of the population,” he said.
200 curated start-ups
ISF also features an expo, featuring over 200 curated start-ups, which included 30 Junicorns (school and undergraduate students) who showcased innovations.
The event saw signing of 12 memoranda of understanding between the ISF and organisations such as HYSEA (Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association); WeHub, a Telangana-government promoted organisation that promotes entrepreneurship among women; and Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH).
As many as 50 innovative start-ups were adjudged winners of the ‘ISF Pitch Fest’. They were shortlisted from over 53,000 start-ups.
The three-day ISF 2024 attracted over 250 top CXOs, over 300 representatives from venture capital funds, and over 5,000 delegates from 15 countries.
Addressing the gathering after inaugurating the festival, D Sridhar Babu, Telangana Minister for IT and Industries, said the lack of unicorns was a lacuna in the ecosystem. “Unicorns can take the economy to the next level. We are trying to become a $1-trillion economy in the decade and startups could play a good role in achieving the target,” he said.
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