Ludhiana Startup Ecosystem is shaping up to Make Ludhiana a Startup Hub

InCube Accelerator came into existence in March 2016 after getting mentoring from Mr. Sumeer Walia known as a Startup mentor representing quintessence wisdom in entrepreneurship. Sumeer has been successful in curating a Startup Community in Chandigarh/Punjab region, and has conducted over 300 entrepreneurship promotion events in Chandigarh and Northern region in the last 5 years.

In initial days, we covered many institutes of Ludhiana, to name a few like Guru Nanak Institute of Management & Technology, Guru Nanak Khalsa College of Women, Sri Aurobindo College of Commerce & Management to know the outlook of students towards entrepreneurship. Ludhiana being an entrepreneurial city since ages, it was a surprising find as per survey results that 69% students want to go for Job and more surprisingly, 73% of these students interviewed belong to business families. When students were asked if would they like to go for Entrepreneurial events which can help them to begin their own startups , 94% said ‘Yes”.

This analysis gave us the motivation to mentor students towards startups. So we came up with the initiative by the name “Student Startup Initiative” through which we started conducting meetings, sessions and events for students to make them realize the value of entrepreneurship and how they can become a successful entrepreneur.

Our first event through which we were able to sensitize first batch of 25 students was “Runway to Success” which was sponsored by Lufthansa Airlines and jointly organised by Delhi chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and Mr. Kamal Wadhera, Founder & CEO of TCY Learning Solutions (P) Ltd., Ludhiana’s leading edu-tech company. This mentorship camp was organized at city’s Park Plaza and mentors who guided the students were Mr. Deepak Goel (Founder & CEO of KarmaCircles), Mr. Jagdish Rai Singal (Founder & MD of Eastman Group), Anuj Aggarwal (Chairman & MD of Altruist Technologies), Mr. Aayush Munjal (Executive Director of Majestic Auto Ltd.) , Mr. Jaskirat Singh (Founder & CEO of Webrosoft Solutions (P) Ltd.) & Mr. Kamal Wadhera (Founder & CEO of TCYLlearning Solutions (P) Ltd.).

Our second event, “Start-up Weekend” was conducted at Sri Aurobindo College of Commerce & Management (SACCM) from 29th to 31st July’16 where the idea was to build the spirit of entrepreneurship among the students through learning, networking and startups. For this event 800 students of SACCM were sensitized in their respective classes with high on energy sessions. The activity conducted during the sessions brought an enthralling response from the students, giving them a glimpse of the three day main event and approx. 40 students were given chance to participate from the institute. Even some students from Dheradun, Chandigarh & Rajpura also participated in the main event. So in the final event 41 ideas were pitched by the students on the first day, 10 ideas got selected by participants only which were able to make their minimal viable product (mvp) during the event. Out of the 10 ideas, The Foodibles team emerged winners, Honey Leaf and The Chai were declared the first and second runner-ups, respectively. About 15 mentors were also present during the event which mentored the students on their ideas. TCY CEO Mr. Kamal Wadhera, Chitkara University Incubator Director Sumeer Walia and Founder & CEO Robochamps Akshay Ahuja were the jury members for the final day event.

Our third event “Entrepreneurship Vibes” which was jointly organized by RoboChamps and InCube Accelerator on 13 Aug 2016 at INNOV8, a co-working space for startups in Chandigarh. More than 100 students from Chitkara University, Chandigarh University, Panjab University, GGDSD College and from different colleges of Ludhiana participated in a day-long mentoring session. The key speakers were Akshay Ahuja (Founder, RoboChamps), Palak Saboo (Misfits), Divya Kothari & Heema Singla (Co-Founder, Techcronies), Munish Kumar (Founder, MobiProbe), Sulakshna Bramta (media strategist and motivationl speaker), Vineet Khurana (VP Operations, Chandigarh Angles Network), Dr. Madhuri Sharma (Associate Director, Chitkara University-CEED). The event covered various sessions on “Entrepreneur & Entrepreneurship”, “How to Start a Startup”, “Time to Scale Your Startup”, “Team Building”, “Mastering Networking” and “Women Entrepreneurship”.

Our fourth event, “Start-up Weekend” was conducted at Gulzar Group of Institutes (GGI) from 7th to 9th Sept’16 where the idea was again to build the spirit of entrepreneurship among the students through learning , networking and startups. For this event approx. 2,000 students of GGI were sensitized in their respective classes with high on energy sessions. The activity conducted during the sessions had an enthralling response from the students, giving them a glimpse of the three day main event and approx. 80 students were given chance to participate from the institute. So in the final three day event 63 ideas were pitched by the students on the first day, 11 ideas got selected by participants only which were able to make their minimal viable product (mvp) during the event. Out of the 11 ideas, eHub team emerged winners , Innovation into Automation and Easy To Order were declared the first and second runner-ups, respectively. About 9 mentors were also present during the event which mentored the students on their ideas. TCY CEO Mr. Kamal Wadhera was the Guest of Honor for the final day event along with Executive Director of GGI Mr. Gurkirat Singh. Mr. Sandeep Gandotra Managing Director at Radeus Ventures Private Limited and Mrs. Mandeep Kaur Sidhu , Founder & CEO Simbacart were the two jury members for the final day event.

Apart from this, we have co-found “Ludhiana Start-up Association” where few of the Ludhiana startups like ExEyes Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (which has invented QuaaR.com to establish better connection between people and brands) are registered. Through its patent-pending QR code technology, and mobile marketing platform, they aim to help businesses to connect with their customers both online and offline while having a fun mobile experience. Apps developed in the city, viz “Let’s gosociall™" through its innovative platform brings various Social Networks, viz. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn etc on common platform. There are more such startups, one being “HUMhain“ & “Aapkachhotu.com” which aim to deliver any stuff you need even at Midnight. And many more startups are adding day by day in Ludhiana Community….

Very shortly, ExEyes Technologies Pvt. Ltd. will be the first startup from Ludhiana to get funding from DST (Department of Science and Technology) & MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development) through Technology Business Incubator setup by Government of India.

Very Soon, Ludhiana will have its first ever co-working space for startup minds. This will be the most attractive workspace to setup your Startup with the help of collaboration & freedom.

And lots of more stories will be published soon from Ludhiana region……..

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InCube Accelerator

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Participants at SW GGI

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