AMN WEB DESK
A two-day inception meeting of the Startup-20, the new engagement group of G20 initiated by India, has begun in Hyderabad. Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy, G-20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant, Startup-20 Chair Chintan Vaishnav, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, DIPTYCH secretary Anurag Jain, G-20 Secretariat JS Asish Sinha JS participated while about 180 delegates from G-20 member countries and nine special invitee countries besides stakeholders including Startups, investors and innovators attended the inaugural meeting.
The Union Minister asked the delegates to visit tourist places in India and places of cultural importance during startup meetings. Speaking on the occasion, G-20 Sherpa said the country has achieved considerable growth in the field of startups due to massive disruption in the fields of Science & Technology. This has led to the development of Digital identity and digital public platforms, he added.
Mr. Reddy mentioned that the number of startups was about 250 in 2016 and increased to over 90 thousand at present during the vision of Prime minister Narendra Modi. Stating that India has a rich ecosystem of startups out of which 50 per cent are led by women, he said, the country is going to be one of the largest economies in the world in the coming decades and the role of startups is immense.
Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal also addressed the delegates taking part in the Startup-20 inception meeting through a video message. He said, innovation will be the strongest pillar to make India a developed nation. Stating that innovation will be the catalytic force for economic and social development, he said, the startup ecosystem has grown tremendously in many sectors since its inception in 2016. He said innovation will find solutions using creativity to the challenges like climate change, poverty and inequality. He added that it is the collective responsibility of all nations to mitigate these challenges and hence, the Startup-20 group will help build an ecosystem to incubate Startups worldwide and encourage innovation.
Startup-20 Engagement Group will work to harmonise the global startup ecosystem through consensus-based definitions and promote a global community of knowledge sharing among startup ecosystems to explore opportunities. Three meetings will be held in Sikkim, Bangalore and Andaman before the Summit to be held in Gurugram in July.