Riddhinil Roy creates a platform for student entrepreneurs from the seven sister states
Starting a business in the North East is very difficult. Even to open a momo shop, one would need to convince hundreds of people,” says Riddhinil Roy.
But this young engineering graduate had the perfect solution for the problem. He initiated NE8 Startups, a start-up accelerator platform for young entrepreneurs in the North East to come together.
“North East is a backward tag that has been kept, hasn’t it?” asks Riddhinil, who hails from Assam. A resident of Bengaluru, he was quite depressed to see very few or no entrepreneurs from the North East and began research on the cause. He already owned two startups back then. His reasons were quite valid and in fact, very interesting.
Riddhinil’s research led him to understand that, “Even if you find an investor, people who take start-ups seriously are very few. It might be something like a side business and the key reason is that there is no one to support them. The only apps popular are Facebook and Whatsapp.”
With his start-up, Riddhinil and his team were surely able to bring some positive changes. They collaborated with IIT Guwahati and IIM Shillong to organise quite a few events in colleges in the North East.
They have organised various certification courses for students and were also successful in educating locals about how entrepreneurship is different from owning a regular business. “Earlier there weren’t many start-up events, but now they get to attend these and I’m happy to organise them. We also have an online library,” he says. “Entrepreneur is a difficult word to even spell, isn’t it?” he jokes.
Apart from start-up acceleration and incubation, this group is active in social service too. During the recent Assam floods, they had initiated a fund-raiser on Instamojo to help the flood victims. They were the first to put up a donation link on Instamojo, a web-based startup payment gateway based in Bengaluru. It attracted many donors. They collaborated with NGOs, and donated money and clothes to the victims.
The four-month-old initiative is currently headed by Riddhinil Roy, Aman Bajaj and Swapnanil Talukdar. They have around 200 registered members and as many as 35 corporate partners.
Reach Out: www.ne8start-ups.com