Congress holds meet with startups for manifesto inputs

Startups in Bengaluru unbundled their woes at the first ‘Your Voice - Manifesto 2019,’ a consultation meeting on startups organised by the Congress party on Sunday.

Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Gowda, convener of the Congress manifesto commitee, chaired the meeting at the WeWork office, to understand more on the aspirations and expectations of the startups.

Speaking to DH, Gowda said the meeting was held primarily to understand the pulse of youngsters who have innovative ideas.

“Indian startups have been creating an impact on the society with their innovations and they can achieve much more. Here, we have to understand more on their inherent strength and what their major problems are, to fuel further growth,” he said.

Gowda said healthcare and transport sectors are looking at startups to resolve many problems and regulatory frameworks will be modernised to enable startups transform these sectors.

He said Congress president Rahul Gandhi had mandated that the manifesto must reflect the voices and views of the people of India.

“The manifesto committee has launched Jana Dhwani (people’s voice), a nationwide programme of consultations to get ideas and suggestions from a wide cross-section of society,” he said.

The committee is headed by P Chidambaram.

Ravi Gururaj, president of entrepreneur association TiE Bangalore, emphasised the need to promote start-ups in three stages.

“We should help them at the starting, take-off and expansion stages and that regulation should be minimised to help them succeed,” he said.

Sharad Sharma of iSpirit emphasised the need for government to create digital public goods to enable the start-up ecosystem. “We have seen over the past many years active engagement with government and it should be further cemented for the growth of startup companies,” he said.

Ravi Narayan, former global director of Microsoft startup programme, said Indian startups should work with global innovation centres (GICs) of big companies so that they can address the demand side.

“We have enough startups as we have resolved may supply-side problems. Now, we should give them revenue-making opportunities. We need the support of experienced people to formulate policies in this regard,” he said.