Goa govt puts its mind to market

The government of Goa, has logged onto the market by taking it from planning rooms. Ideas will now have a destination. The Department of Information and Technology, Government of Goa, is planning to help those ‘ideating’ start-ups by initiating the concept of “mind to market”. Different departments of the government have sat together to discuss internally and our focused on studying the existing models within the country like Hyderabad, Bengaluru etc.
“We tried to see how those governments have gone on to facilitate their start-up ecosystems. Our vision is very clear. We do not want to be implementers. We want to be a facilitator. We want to create the right kind of environment and provide the right kind of incentives by which these ideas and companies can bootstrap themselves and take themselves to the next level,” director of DOIT, Ameya Abhyankar told Herald.
After a series of brainstorming meetings and sessions within the government and then consultation with IT industry and start-up groups, the government has decided that it will not invest in building incubators.
“We want incubators to be managed by private entities. We don’t want to get into the business of creating and managing incubators. A draft of the scheme is already at a final stage and it will be sent to the finance department for approval. Under this scheme we will ask bodies like EDC and others to run a start-up competition twice a year, which will help in discovering of ideas. Our vision is to begin incubating 10 companies per year (5 ideas every six months),” added Mr Abhyankar.
Soon a memorandum of understanding will be signed between the government and existing incubators in the State. There is an incubator in Goa College of Engineering, STPI too will be launching an incubator this August 15. Also, CIBA has two incubators at Assagaon and Verna, GITIC too has an incubator at Verna and there is one in the campus of BITS Pilani.
“With the MoU we will try to link them together so that those ten start-ups discovered per year, are then channelised into these incubators where the government will take care of the rent-fee for the space for a period of one year. Hence, the government will use the existing infrastructure and see that their business model becomes successful,” added Mr Abhyankar.
The government is also planning to create a common services backbone. The Goa government in its budget has already earmaked Rs 20 crore for IPB to set up a start-up hub. According to the budget, every start-up which comes through the proper channel to the government can receive a seed capital of Rs two lakh each.
“Start-ups require mentoring support. We are examining whether mentoring networks can be plugged into for the start ups. Vertical linkages like funding through Start-Up India too can be built and then we will have two committees at the level of incubator and then another committee will review the progress every quarter. We want people to become successful and mature as soon as possible,” said the director DOIT.
A large number of start-up companies have made Goa their home and talents here are a plenty. Competition is getting tougher day by day. This is creating the right template for exchange of ideas through this confluence among the start-up companies themselves too.
Questions are also raised that the educational hubs curriculum are not attuned to the market requirement. University Grant Commission (UGC) has a big role to play in this area to ensure that the courses dynamic and are aligned with the market requirement. However, the State government of Goa is willing to facilitate a dialogue between the education department and the start-ups if there is an interest generated by various start-ups and companies to let the government know about the skill sets required from the young pass outs.