HYDERABAD: What happens when a room full of start-ups meets a minister who loves talking about start-ups, technology that drive industries and calls his state a ‘start-up state’ having a government which thinks like a start-up? You get The New Indian Express’ edex 40 Under 40 Start-up Awards, which had Minister K T Rama Rao in full swing. Questions of all sorts - inquisitive, critical, probing and even downright quirky were thrown at IT, Industries, Municipal and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao who conducted a townhall as the centrepiece of the entrepreneurship summit, for which the minister was chief guest.
When a young entrepreneur from Hyderabad, whose start-up has developed an air conditioned helmet asked the minister as to what kind of support the government plans to provide entrepreneurs looking to move out of incubators and scale up, Rao was quick in answering as he spelt out a new programme called ‘Pink book’, a “yellow pages for start-ups”. Rao said that the Pink book will be a comprehensive list of manufacturers working in various industrial sectors, a sort of a directory, which can be referred to by any Indian or a foreign company looking to collaborate and manufacture in the state.
A woman entrepreneur from Vanasthalipuram present in the audience, who did not pose a question heaped praises on the Telangana government for making the city safe for women even at night, especially travelling through Hyderabad Metro Rail, Rao thanked her and announced that metro rail from LB Nagar will be inaugurated next month.
TNIE Editor GS Vasu felicitated KTR on the occasion.
Delivering the keynote was novelist Ashwin Sanghi. Ashwin delivered a humorous, anecdotal address on 13 Steps to Bloody Good Luck. But before he started off with how he started writing the stories. “My wife said that manuscript (The first cut of The Rozabal Line) was an excellent cure for insomnia,” he said to a lot of sniggers and laughter.
“She suggested that I pour out what I have in my head in the form of a story. So I sat down and wrote all my theories, except this time I did it as a story” he said.“So what were those lessons? One of them included patience where he mentioned that “everyone is lucky but to get that ‘bloody good luck’, one needs to wait for the right time.’ According to Sanghi, planning and persistence are something that will keep one going in the long run. The event was sponsored by MEIL, Telangana Tourism, ICFAI Group and supported by T-Hub, Prayaana, Startup Byte and Notion Press.