Startup Yatra travels to Uttarakhand, aims to impact over 2k entrepreneurs in the hill state

With an aim to foster entrepreneurship across small cities of the country, Startup India Yatra travelled to its fourth destination – Uttarakhand. The yatra van will be travelling to 13 districts across eight cities, where boot camps will be conducted to handhold entrepreneurs to scale their idea to the next level.

In less than a year since the launch of the Tier II/III initiative, Startup India Yatra has now entered the fourth state to search for entrepreneurial talent and help develop its startup ecosystem.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat flagged off the yatra, a 27-day tour of the State aimed at promoting entrepreneurship across the region from the capital city Dehradun on Monday (April 2, 2018).

At the launch, Rawat also unveiled Startup Policy 2018 and asked officials to prepare an action plan so that budding entrepreneurs would be motivated to work on innovative ideas based on rich natural resources the hill state is endowed with.

Speaking on the occasion, he highlighted that the State’s ranking in ease of doing business has moved up and assured that the ranking will improve going ahead.

“The State’s ranking in ease of doing business has moved up from ninth to sixth position and the State government is making every effort to further improve it. The startup Uttarakhand policy has been created to encourage the youth of Uttarakhand to become job-creators rather than job-seekers,” he added.

What does Starup India Yatra have in store for Uttarakhand?

The Startup India Yatra van will travel to eight cities of Uttarakhand starting from Dehradun and will travel around the State to spread awareness about Startup India and Uttarakhand Startup Policy. The vehicle with experts on board will provide an opportunity for entrepreneurial talents to pitch an idea and get incubated, scaling it from idea to enterprise.

The van is expected to travel to nearly 22 colleges and one-day bootcamps will be conducted in all the eight destinations.

Startup India Yatra’s technology partner, Shrofile, a video-based personality evaluation platform, will record ideas of entrepreneurs from all over Uttrakhand via ‘The Startup India Mobile van’. Entrepreneurs will record their ideas on Shrofile screens, which will be shared with the Startup India team for evaluation and selection.

“We at Shrofile believe that humans are the factory which has the capacity to produce multiple ideas and change the world for good. We are glad that Shrofile is being used by the Central and State governments to convert these ideas to enterprises. We aim to encourage at least 2,000 entrepreneurs to be a part of this unprecedented event," added Neha Lal, CEO and Founder of Shrofile.

The impact so far

Prior to Uttarakhand, the Yatra travelled to three other States, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha.

In Gujarat, the initiative reached five cities, Anand, Vasad, Mehsana, Jetalpur, and Ahmedabad, witnessing the presence of more than 5,000 participants. Around 1,000 startups pitched their ideas and 22 incubation offers from IIM Ahmedabad and MICA were made.

In Uttar Pradesh, the Yatra travelled to seven cities, including Agra, Bareilly, Kanpur, Lucknow, Sultanpur, Varanasi, and Noida. Selected startups received incubation offers from IIT BHU, IIT Kanpur, iB Hubs, BIMTECH, IIM Lucknow, and others. The event witnessed a participation of over 6,000 people; around 1,000 startups pitched and 100 startups were selected for incubation.

In Odisha, the initiative claims to have impacted over 8,000 potential entrepreneurs while travelling across 10 destinations.

Click here to apply for Startup India Yatra - Uttarakhand edition.