India will celebrate January 16 as ‘National Start-up Day’, announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, saying "Start-ups are going to be the backbone of newIndia"
"To make the culture of start-ups reach the far-flung parts of the country, it has been decided to celebrate January 16 as "National Start-up Day", the Prime Minister said while addressing start-ups across the country.
The Startups gave presentations to the Prime Minister on six themes- Growing from Roots; Nudging the DNA; From Local to Global; Technology of Future; Building Champions in Manufacturing; and Sustainable Development.
More than 150 startups were divided into six working groups for the purpose of these presentations. For each theme, there were presentations by two Startup representatives, who spoke on behalf of all the startups selected for that particular theme.
During their presentation, the startup representatives thanked the Prime Minister for the opportunity to provide such a platform to share their ideas, and support to the startup ecosystem.
They shared ideas and inputs on a variety of sectors and areas including robust data collection mechanism in agriculture; making India preferred agri business hub; boosting healthcare through use of technology, tackling issue of mental health; promoting travel and tourism through innovations like virtual tours, ed-tech and job identification; space sector; connecting offline retail market with digital commerce, increasing manufacturing efficiency; defence exports; promoting green sustainable products and sustainable means of transport, among others, according to the Orime Minister’s Office.
The Prime Minister said that 2022 has brought more new opportunities for India's start-up sector and organizing ofStart-Up India Innovation Week is also important in the 75th year of India's independence.
"Start-ups are going to be the backbone of new India. When India completes 100 years of independence, start-ups will have an important role. Country's innovators are making the country proud globally," he said.
Modi also assured startups that government will support all their suggestions, ideas, innovations. He said this decade is called as 'techade' of India.
"In this decade, the decisions being taken by the government for innovation,entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem have three major aspects. Firstly, Entrepreneurship- to free it from beauracratic silos. Secondly, Innovation - Institutional mechanism needs to be developed. Thirdly, Handholding young innovators," said Modi.
Prime Minister interacted with over 150 startups to boost the startup ecosystem in the country, said the PMO.