CHENNAI: The FICCI TNSC Technology Panel together with The New Indian Express, came together to recognise, reward the best in class, most promising and aspirational start-ups across India, through a stringent evaluation. The process included a Technical shortlisting of the nominations received and then a LIVE pitching in front of the Jury across 10 categories covering Most innovative, Fintech Startup of the year, SAAS startup of the year, Startup with deep social impact, Startup of the Year, Agri Tech Startup, Energy Tech Startup and others.
At a glittering function held on December 29, 2021, at the Taj Clubhouse Hotel, IT Minister of Tamil Nadu, Mano Thangaraj delivered the chief guest address and presented 16 awards for the final awardees selected by the jury. Outside of these jury awards, he also recognised a few others who have been doing cutting-edge work in various areas and supporting multiple initiatives. The principal secretary of IT Department of Tamil Nadu, Neeraj Mittal, delivered the presidential address, while Shankar, founder of CAMS — a highly successful company which recently went public — delivered the keynote address sharing nuggets of wisdom from his experience. Velan, center head, Chennai City Operations of Capital and delivered the special address, jury chairman P Sekhar shared his experiences of pitching by the start-ups and how a $5tn economy is not far away for the country if we move in this pace and traction.
GSK Velu, chairman, Trivitron Group and chairman, FICCI Tamil Nadu State Council, joined virtually and thanked the minister and reassured that FICCI TNSC would work along with the Government of Tamil Nadu to promote and catalyse the start-up ecosystem.
Rajaram Venkataraman, convenor and head, FICCI TNSC Technology Panel and the key architect of the event spoke about how FICCI and TNIE conceived this theme of “Sustenance-Excellence-Scale-Impact” in terms of addressing a larger problem of sustenance of start-ups (because of the high failure rate of 90% in the start-up world) and how if it is properly addressed or improved by 10%, the productivity benefits, the IP benefits, job losses etc. can be effectively addressed. He explained how we can move up on the Global Innovation Index.
Rajaram shared the process adopted to facilitate a wide reach enabling receipt of good number of nominations from across India as well as the selection through multidisciplinary jury over the last month. Vignesh Kumar, senior VP of The New Indian Express, shared the happenings in the start-up industry including Tamil Nadu and some of the initiatives of the TN government around the start-ups. Sudharsan, state co-ordinator of FICCI TNSC thanked the sponsors including Tata Tele, EPIKIndifi, 5K Car Care, 7 Miles per Second, Kesar Gift Mart (P) Ltd, Harsha Toyota and CERCLE X, all guests and dignitaries including Mano Thangaraj, Neeraj Mittal, other officials from the government and all awardees.
The awards was preceded by a conference which had discussions around the theme of “Sustenance-Excellence-Scale and Impact” and perspectives of “Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors” anchored by Mahesh Ramachandran and the team including Subra Iyer, Subbu Ramasubramanian and Ramesh Kumar. The panel discussion by some of the experienced start-up co-founders was anchored by Manu Iyer and the panel comprised LN Rajaram, Rajendra Awasthi and Sridharan. The event included a fire-side chat around dos and don’ts for start-ups by eminent industrialist and entrepreneur Mike Muralidharan which was anchored by Prabhjot Kaur. The exhibition displayed products and services of Tata Tele, EPIKIndifi, FICCI and TNIE.
One of the highlights of the event was the “Meendum Manjappai” which the organisers gave to all the dignitaries to symbolise the recent launch theme of the chief minister. The event was supported and sponsored by Tata Tele Business Services as Telecom Partner, EpikIndiFi as Awards & Recognition Partner, Digital SEO Marketing Pvt Ltd as Digital Outreach Partner, 5k Car Care as Associate Sponsor, Kesar as Gift Partner, 7 MPS as Production Partner and Harsha Toyota as the Auto Partner.