As many as 35 fresh business ideas presented by innovators from across the State made jury members and government officials overwhelmed with potential in each of them during Y4BIZ (Youth For Business) programme on Friday.
Jharkhand Government in an attempt to drive firm and fundamental stride toward building a robust business friendly ecosystem organised Y4BIZ in Ranchi through its Information and Technology Department in association with a business incubator 99 leap and a local Start-Up named Ranchi Mall.
Out of these 35 great business ideas which were selected from 66 Start-Up ideas during an event on November 11, 10 most workable and suitable ideas will get a chance to be groomed by an online capacity building programme run by the IC2 Institute, University of Texas (Austin).
Notably, the US Consulate (Kolkata) in collaboration with the social enterprise Contact Base has launched a youth entrepreneurship initiative Y4BIZ in four cities in East India (Guwahati, Patna, Ranchi and Kolkata) which is on a hunt to identify 50 young emerging and early stage entrepreneurs from these four cities.
Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma reassured participants and the audience of all supports from the government in nurturing and mentoring Start-Ups and to create and preserve eco-system. “Youths are the backbone of the society. It is important for youths to become a job creator rather than a job seeker. Government will develop ecosystem for the development of Start-Ups and promising entrepreneurs,” said Verma. She added that the government was in process of putting various data in public domain which could help Start-Ups working in those segments a lot in planning and execution.
The US Consulate (Kolkata) Officer Jay Treloar said, on the occasion, that youth entrepreneurship development was a proven strategy that positively impacted the lives of young people. “This Y4BIZ project seeks to foster a culture of entrepreneurship in eastern India and to strengthen linkages between American and Indian youth leaders,” said Treloar.
IT Secretary Satendra Singh put the things in perspective during inaugural session of the programme that Start-Up culture is the need for inclusive growth and development of our State. “It brings, Innovation, solutions of various state and the national soil problems, it will result in millions of job opportunities, increase SGDP, and boost wealth creation by and in society at large. Department of IT has undertaken a unique initiative of supporting and facilitating new ideas, plans, research and development and facilitate it with promises made in Jharkhand Start-Up Policy 2016,” said Singh.
Notably, Y4BIZ was launched during the celebration of the November 13-17 Global Entrepreneurship Week, and is part of a series of activities leading up to the upcoming Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) that is scheduled for November 28-30 in Hyderabad.
IT & e-Gov Department Director Umesh Prasad Sah said that the government was providing help to Start-Ups through Jharkhand Innovation lab (JIl), an organisation set up in association with IIM(A) for the purpose. He also mentioned that Government has also signed an MOU with GVFl for establishment of a 250 Cr Jharkhand Venture Capital Fund set as Fund of Fund to promote start-ups in the state.