The ‘Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for Policy Research & Analysis and Incubation and Enterprise Support Centre’ at IIM Shillong hosted a two-day virtual workshop-cum-roundtable discussion for ‘Business Incubators of North East India’ on July 16-17.
The event was attended by representatives of various incubators from the North Eastern states. Several topics were covered during the sessions, such as status of business incubators in the region, managing incubators in an Indian context, technology commercialization through incubation, offering specialized services, implementing a mentoring program, raising finance for incubated start-ups, and marketing and stakeholder management.
Gaigongdin Panmei of the Union Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region graced the event as the guest of honour and emphasized the significance of value addition on regional products. He also underlined and highlighted the importance of the ‘3Rs’ – Reuse, Reduce and Recycle – of waste management.
R Ramanan, formerly of NITI Aayog, delivered the keynote address, focusing on how several government schemes are brought in and how a lot of incubators have been established pan-India to support the start-up movement in the country.
In the technical session, Biplab Bhattacharjee of IIM Shillong and Sanjeev K Ningombam of the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Centre brought forward the key challenges that the incubators in the North East face in achieving their stated goals. Viiveck Verma of the Telangana State Innovation Cell, in his technical session, emphasized that the Covid-19 world has generated many opportunities for incubators. He also stressed upon the opportunity for virtual mentorship for incubators.
Atul Kulkarni, a member of the Board of Governors at IIM Shillong, stressed upon the fact that along the years, the North East has moved from a land of opportunity to a land of deliverables. He also mentioned a few barriers for scaling-up for North East start-ups, such as a lack of skilled manpower, lack of technology up-gradation, lack of interventions, lack of backward and forward linkages, and lack of value addition for products.
The incubators agreed on working in close coordination to build a robust incubation ecosystem in the region. It was also agreed that in the coming days the best practices will be shared to support emerging incubators. Similar kinds of handholding, mentoring and supporting initiatives will be taken up by IIM Shillong.
