India has the third largest Start Up ecosystem globally, after the US and China with over 65,000 recognised Start Ups and five times the figure for unrecognized ones. Total employment generated, direct and indirect, is expected to be 1 million. Yesterday, one national bank opened a branch exclusively for Start Ups in Bangalore. The policies towards entrepreneurship have been institutionalized. The incubators under Atal Innovation Mission provide all support to supporting a new business of budding entrepreneurs.
However, to sustain the Indian Entrepreneurship drive, we need to invest more in Science & Technology, because:
· Without a base layer of R&D, our ecosystem will keep delivering in IT-ITes, where we have an expertise, but areas such as biomaterials, space, applications of genomics to agriculture may remain under explored
· Without innovation and creation of new patents on a large scale, new enterprises would not take off. Cutting edge entrepreneurship only exists atop a base of publicly funded scientific knowhow
· No society has delivered sustained GDP growth over long periods without massive investment and gestation time in Science and Technology
One critical factor is that we need to provide a ready market platform for the new entrepreneurs to help them to grow and all existing corporates have a role to play here. Last, but not the least we need to encourage and incentivise more women entrepreneurs to sustain inclusive growth.
How else, we can support Indian Entrepreneurship? Do let us know
