Guwahati: The Assam Startup – The Nest under the aegis of Industry and Commerce Department of the state government- has incubated 75 Startups in the first year of its foundation. These Startups with a turnover of around 11 crores have generated 1690 direct and over 40 thousand indirect employment so far.
The Nest was state government’s dream project to handholding young entrepreneurs to cope up with the changing trends in the global business market.
To achieve the goal, the Assam government set up the Assam Skill Development Department in 2017 under which the Assam Skill Development Mission is being implemented to enhance the skill of the youth.
Marking the success, the state’s Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal called for innovation to add value to the traditional products of the State to capture the global market. He said, “The 21st century is a technology-driven society. With technology dominating everyday life, people’s choices are changing. Therefore, to draw their attention and capturing the world market, there is an urgent need to be innovative. The young entrepreneurs should, therefore, focus on incorporating innovative ideas with traditional products to give added value to them”.
The CM was participating in the “Udyam Assam – celebrating success, supporting Startup dreams”, a celebratory event commemorating the success of Assam Startup – The Nest at Ambari in Guwahati on Sunday.
Sonowal underlining the uniqueness of traditional textiles, bell metal products etc. of the state, said that these products have all the ingredients to draw people’s attention. However, in view of changing consumer behaviour, there is a need to be more innovative and IT-enabled services would help in giving marketing advantage to these products, he added.
Stating the latest success of the entrepreneurs as a strong testimony of innovative ideas of the youth of the State, the CM urged the young generation to come up with more innovation to position Assam more visibly in the global market. He also viewed that achievement made by the young entrepreneurs would encourage the youth in the State to take up Startup as a career.
Besides, Sonowal launched a new initiative titled ‘Udyam – Youth Entrepreneurship programme’ for the homecoming migrant workers.
As part of the event, Assam Startup – The Nest signed MoUs with ‘The IndUS Entrepreneurs’ (TiE), a Silicon Valley non-profit organization and Bangalore based Sangam Ventures, a seed and early-stage venture fund that invests to improve access to sustainable energy and resource productivity solutions.
