Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 20: The Advisor to Governor K Skandan today urged financial institutions to give a thought for ‘positive policy’ to fund startups by associating them with innovation ecosystems to guide them in their early stages of business.
The Advisor stated this during a launch ceremony of ‘Smart JK Hackathon’—the first State-level Innovation Competition—at J&K Entrepreneurship Develop-ment Institute (EDI), Pampore.
The one-and-a-half-month long innovation competition is aimed to institutionalize a model for harnessing the creativity and technical expertise of students and innovators to an already defined problem statement. There are six focus sectors including Agriculture, Horticulture, Solid Waste Management, Tourism, Handicrafts and Handloom and Smart City for which innovative solutions shall be sought from the students and innovators from across the state.
Hackathon is a digital programming competition aimed at identifying new and disruptive technological innovations for solving the challenges faced by the public, businesses and the industry.
Speaking on the occasion, the Advisor said that innovation ecosystems can act as a bridge between financial institutions and startups where these ecosystems provide the accessibility to superior technology, mentors, talent, corporates, customers, and government agencies, investors, etc.
He said that not all startups need investors while some need nurturing mainly during their early months or years, adding by this there can be balance by providing incubators to young firms. He also stressed on the need to link the innovative startups to other parts of the country so that they get the real exposure they require to scale heights.
He also urged EDI and institutions like Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) to do workshops in collaborations so that experts would share their expertise with young entrepreneurs. The Advisor also cautioned that doing a startup would not be an easy thing but a small innovation can make a big impact where it makes individual to feel that he or she done something for society and for him or herself.
The Advisor while felicitating JKEDI said that the institution has done a good work on ground which has helped the aspiring entrepreneurs to come up to a level where they can compete at national and international level.
Other who spoke on the occasion included Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Dr Shanta Thoutam, Vice President Corporate Innova-tion and BD at T-Hub, Hyderabad and Director Agriculture, Kashmir, Dr. Altaf Andrabi.
Earlier, Director JKEDI, Tufail Matto presented an overview of the programme and said it would pave way for the state of Jammu of Kashmir to move ahead and help the innovators from the state to compete at national and international levels.
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