The ‘jugaad’ culture in innovation will skyrocket startups in India to great heights, US-based Asha Jadeja, managing partner at Dot EDUventures, said here at the Startup Village on Wednesday.
She added that startups in the country had the same professional quality and accountability as those in Silicon Valley, but lacked venture capital.
She was in the village for announcing a contest, the winners of which, will be given a tour of Silicon Valley in California. The contest had been mentioned earlier by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
She said that there were more links between Silicon Valley and Startups in India. She was all praise for the Startup Village and said that the innovation present in the service sector, should also happen in the product sector.
She announced that she was investing in three ventures in India and said that this was her first visit to the state.
She also advocated promotion of green thinking and warned against institutionalisation of startup villages, which would curb freedom and creativity.
The five students, selected from the contest, will tour Silicon Valley in March and meet IT wizards including founders of Facebook and Google.
The trip will be supported by the state government and Dot Eduventures.
The contest, named SV Square (Startup Village to Silicon Valley) will commence on February 1 and will be open to school students from Class Eight upwards and to college students. They will have to upload a three-minute video about their innovative ideas on the Youtube.
Applications can be send to www.svsquare.in till February 10. A jury comprising of Prof Anil Gupta of IIM-A, former NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik and heads of the Startup Village, will announce the winners on February 15.
The five students will get to interact with revolutionary IT minds at the Rajeev Circle gathering on March 24, a meet organised by Rajeev Motwani Foundation in memory of Asha’s husband Rajeev, a former faculty of Computer Science at Stanford University.