National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) today announced the start of the third phase of NASSCOM 10,000 Startups initiative, by opening-up of applications across the country.
It also announced the launch of the NASSCOM Technology Startup Registry which will act as a repository of India’s technology startups in the web, mobile, e-commerce, SaaS, marketplace space and will act as a discovery platform for investors, enterprises, media and government authorities.
In addition to this, NASSCOM also announced the roll-out of a skill initiative to create a talent pool of people with hands on skills required to excel in the tech startup market.
Speaking on the occasion, R. Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM, said “India is emerging as the hotbed for technology startups and the NASSCOM 10,000 startup program will continue to partner with all stakeholders to help India emerge as an innovation hub.”
The first two phases attracted a total of 7000 applications of which 529 were shortlisted and 125+ got funding, acceleration, mentoring, co-working space, enterprise connects and showcase opportunities through the program.
For the third phase, NASSCOM will invite domain centric applications and plans to launch app-based contests and Intel will join in this initiative as a sponsor as well as will collaborate to drive India a hotspot in the Internet of Things.
After the success of InnoTrek 2014, NASSCOM now plans to undertake more overseas start-up delegations to Israel, Singapore, Hong Kong and parts of Europe and showcase India’s most innovative Tech Startups building world class products. A special focus will also put on the NASSCOM-Google ‘Girls in Tech’ program to increase the representation of women founders in tech start-ups in the country.
Expressing his views, Ravi Gururaj, Chairman, NASSCOM Product Conclave, said, “Since the launch of the 10,000 start-ups program last year NASSCOM has been working with various stakeholders to create an inclusive ecosystem for companies in the domain”.
Recently, NASSCOM nominated 25 innovative technology start-ups from India for ‘InnoTrek 2014’ – a visit to US for entrepreneur focused events. With this initiative NASSCOM provided a global platform for young businesses to showcase their work at a global stage and get a first-hand experience of the Silicon Valley product ecosystem.
With the aim to provide a one-stop platform for start-ups, investors, government, media and other related stakeholders, NASSCOM will create a national database of tech startups and identify the areas in which they are operating. This platform would also provide the start-ups an opportunity to be discoverable for investors, large enterprises, media and government.
In a bid to address skill gap issues, NASSCOM 10,000 Startups plans to create courses and modules aimed at imparting skills like inbound marketing, app development, big data and analytics, UI/UX and product Management to create a pool of talent that could be interned/employed with the startups under the 10k banner.
NASSCOM will also undertake a pilot project within the next quarter on these lines. All courses would be curated by an advisory board comprising of subject matter experts and would be delivered by practitioners online.
There are about 15,000 technology startups and SMES operating in India and these are the set of companies that need the right thrust from the government. The Entrepreneurship Mission proposed by NASSCOM aims to address current issues in ease of doing business in India; enable a supportive policy environment; catalyse funding and incentives for IP development.
