Providing a platform to aspiring entrepreneurs to showcase their ventures, Lufthansa in partnership with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) on Saturday (23 April) held a first of its kind Startup Expo in Gurugram.
The expo brought together startups, mentors, investors, industry partners and the government supported by a corporate in partnership with TiE.
The event witnessed many small and medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs) showing their business blueprints to further implement their business plans.
“The Startup Expo pays tribute to the entrepreneurial energy in India driving one of the largest startup systems in the world. It is another link in Lufthansa Runway to Success, which has grown over the past four years into one of the biggest SME platforms in the country,” said Wolfgang Will, Director, South Asia, Lufthansa Passenger Airlines.
More than 2500 startups attended workshops on entrepreneurship and engaged with mentors at a local level. The Expo also attracted over 50 investors, 100 partners, and 500 mentors looking to explore partnerships with a pool of entrepreneurial talent across various sectors.
Attending the event was Niti Aayog's CEO Amitabh Kant who said that new age entrepreneurs should think of innovative ideas which are global in nature.
On the role of government to foster startup ecosystem in the country, he said, “Government should create a better model for domestic startups to compete with global ones.”
The Startup Expo provided an opportunity to entrepreneurs to showcase their ventures, attend insightful workshops, expert talks, mentoring sessions and interact with investment decision makers in investor zones.
“It is a natural progression from the government’s Startup India initiative and, as the largest global entrepreneurship fostering network, this is core to our philosophy of providing startups and SMEs the right platform, opportunity and mentorship for success,” said Geetika Dayal, Executive Director, TiE Delhi-NCR.
India which is currently going through a startup boom phase is the 3rd largest base for startups in the world with over 3,000 of them registered in India and over 800 setting up annually. By 2020, India is expected to be a home of 11,500 startups employing over 250,000 people.
BW Reporters
The author is Senior Correspondent with BW Businessworld
