PANJIM: The business community complains of depressed sales across sectors and economic indicators reveal that the state’s economy will remain depressed for the foreseeable future. In an attempt to boost the economy the state government presented a new industrial policy. It highlighted the need to focus on certain sectors and more importantly on creating entrepreneurs amongst the youth of the state. There could be good news on that front with the youth in the state looking at various options as well as exploring the uncertainty of entrepreneurship.
Officials at the Centre for Incubation and Business Acceleration (Ciba) which has two centres in the state reveal that the youth in the state who are keen on staying in Goa are looking at starting businesses. The businesses were all centred around an idea which meant these businesses stood a good chance of standing out of the crowd.
Amey Karmali, Manager at the centre said young people were generating ideas and there now start-ups in engineering colleges like Bits Bilani and other engineering colleges. Start-ups in the state he said were hampered by the absence of an entrepreneurial start up eco system.
He said “Unlike in the rest of the country where there are individuals who can help you with technical assistance and more importantly with seed funding, this is absent in the state”.
A start had now been made with Innovation summit scheduled to be held in the state in September and Ciba would support the winners as incubation partners. The centre he said was conducting workshops and business identification workshops to generate awareness in the state. These efforts he said were paying off with students creating products that were unique.
Nagarjun Kinare from PCCE raised $38,000 in crowd funding for a product he named Pulzee which converts any speaker into a blue tooth enabled speaker.
Another start up from Bits Bilani called Absentia which is a head gear which converts 2D images into 3 D images. Presently there are 5 startups in Ciba and what is now interesting is that the institution is now prepared to provide seed funding up to Rs 50 lakh. Ciba has invested Rs 25 lakh in Transerve Technologies which is presently incubating with Ciba.
The company was incorporated to use and promote technology enabled solutions to improve the decision making processes of the activities that impact lives. The company’s survey solutions help the customer get information faster with improved accuracy. The company has already acquired a reputation for being amongst the very best multi disciplinary geospatial solutions company in the sub continent.
Amarsh Chaturvedi, director of the company has been commended by various national institutions.
Another start up being provided assistance is Plain codders which is a platform for professional and amateur cricketers to network with each other. Then there is Kirit Ranjan who is working to clean ground water as part of his initiative Jeevandhara. Ciba intends to invest in two more start-ups and will provide support with funds, networking and infrastructure support.
The institution is focussed on companies who intend to scale up and more importantly provide job opportunities. This is an important aspect of this initiative. The investment policy had talked about generating around 50,000 jobs in the state so as to ensure that its smartest young men and women stay back and not be part of the migration that has blighted the state for years.
To ensure that good ideas do not fall through the cracks, the institution is setting up E Cells and will focus on the three areas of enabled services, food processing and mixed technologies. More importantly the decision to provide funding for a start up is done only after all due diligence is done by the Centre for Innovation Incubation ad Entrepreneurship based at the IIM Ahmedabad.
Jonathan and Sudhir Shetty of Espressotive a start up operating out of the offices of Ciba takes care of all the web services and software requirements for start-ups.
Jonathan said “ Look at ERP as a software which is very expensive and which is ideally suited for companies with a staff strength of over 300 or above. Start-ups usually a staff strength of anywhere between 4 and 5 employees and that is where we come in. We design software for companies of such size. The sky is the limit as far as I can see and I want to stay in Goa and do this”.
Another of their company is Espress which connect the various dots in the state by delivering products across the state within 24 hours. Right now it is just mobiles which are ordered from the company website. The company intends to shift to white goods and other heavy goods. Finally the goal is to deliver perishable goods and also deliver goods in the night. The company is looking for investments to help increase the scale of its activities. Yet another startup E Techserve intends o connect labs and doctors online.
Ashish Kamat, founder and CEO said “This product in the health space will be launched in September and will be Goa centric at first but we will eventually go all India”. The company has been working for over a year and has been getting the technology sorted out.
To further help local businesses Ciba has purchased a 3D printer which is one of two such printers in the state. Purchased at a cost of Rs 22 lakh, the printer is available for commercial use. The cost of running the machine per hour is Rs 2000 which Karmali claims is a bit disconcerting for local businessmen.
He said “The local businessmen believe the cost is very high though they don’t seem to understand the elimination of several steps make life so much more easier. A fault in the design can be corrected immediately and the command to print given immediately. I suppose in time the younger generation will understand better and use it.” Time will tell on that score.
The ball seems to be rolling slowly but steadily and this trend could be the only bright spark in what is otherwise a very difficult landscape.
