Start Up India, Stand Up India India is home to some of the best ideas and innovations the world has seen in recent years. From Internet based fields of online shopping, education, or mobile wallets to grassroots innovations such as automated vacuum based cow and buffalo milking machines, a colour coded thermometer for illiterate people, a gas lighter with a gas leak alarm, we are growing at a pace the world is envious of.
On 16th January, the Indian Government sought to further our collective entrepreneurial spirit by launching ‘Start Up India’, a mission to set up over 75 startup support hubs in the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) and NIPERs or National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research.
This is a much needed move, since with 4,200 startups a year, India ranks third globally. This spirit is only growing. The economics don’t lie. Of $18 billion pumped into Indian startups between 2010-15, $9 billion came in 2015 alone. In fact, nine Indian startups have been valued at more than a billion dollars.
The event on 16th January, led by finance minister Arun Jaitley, saw five start ups shortlisted and pitch for a grand prize. These were:
Reap Benefit
Founded in July 2013, Reap Benefit is a social enterprise which aims to solve local environment and civic problems ( sanitation, waste, air quality, energy) by engaging the youth. In the last three years, they have saved more than 200 tonnes of waste, two million litres of water, 100,000 units of power, and developed low cost solutions like water less urinals, weather stations, organic enzyme to convert food waste into compost and many more.
Cardiac Design Labs
MIRCaM stands for Mobile Intelligent Remote Cardiac Monitor. MIRCaM’s suite comprises of a Bodyworn unit, Patient’s Bedside Unit, a Doctor’s Terminal and a Doctor’s mobile app. It provides real time analysis and generates instant alarms on episode detection, thus enhancing patient care and safety. It gives new possibilities for monitoring of vital parameters with wearable biomedical sensors, and will give the patient the freedom to be mobile and still be under continuous monitoring and thereby offer better quality of patient care.
Guru-G
Founded in May 2013, Guru-G converts existing content into adaptive teaching packs. These packs provide in-class guidance to teachers on different ways in which they can teach a topic. The guidance adapts to the teacher’s past behaviour, student moods and the practices that have resulted in best learning outcomes for their students.
SlamdunQ
Founded in August 2014, SlamdunQ focuses primarily on using wearable technology to unleash sporting potential. Using smartwatches and smartBands available in the market, they develop applications for these wearables to improve their clients’ sporting potential.
Sbalabs Pvt. Ltd. – Jackboy Sense & Kalink
Soot (Black Carbon) is a mass of impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons i.e. air pollution. It is produced by vehicles and industries alike. Sblalabs have been on the mission of repurposing pollution’s carbon capture to industrial grade raw material for printing industry (inks, pigments, paints etc.)
Cardiac Design Labs won the first prize and GuruG won the people’s choice award.
Let’s Desh Apnayen by celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit in all of us that will enable our country to soar as high as our dreams.
Input from:
Your Story – http://yourstory.com/2016/01/startup-india-google-pitches/ The Hindu – http://www.thehindu.com/business/narendra-modi-unveils-start-up-india/article8112821.ece
The National Innovation Foundation
