BHUBANESWAR: India has become the third largest startup economy in the world and is ranked behind the USA and China, said executive chairman of Start-up Odisha Omkar Rai here on Saturday.
Speaking at the inauguration of ‘SOA E-Summit-2024’ at Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) here, Rai said it is time for students to evince greater interest in startups to become self-dependent and position themselves as job providers instead of seeking employment themselves. The startups had been creating enormous opportunities for students who can make their initiatives profit-oriented with less investment, he said while expressed happiness over SOA laying emphasis on nurturing incubation centres.
Odisha has 1,,940 recognised start-ups, which included 151 in agricultural sector, 25 in artificial intelligence, 27 in automotive, 13 in telecommunication and networking, 133 in education sector, two in conventional energy and 22 in renewable energy. SOA vice-chancellor Prof Pradipta Kumar Nanda said the university had organised such an e-summit for the first time. The university is laying stress on innovation not only in engineering and technology but other curriculum as well. Atal incubation centre in SOA would soon come into prominence, he said.
Recently, IIT-Hyderabad had lauded two projects of SOA, one of which belonged to agricultural sector while the other pertained to dental sciences, he added. CEO of Kaynes SemiCon Raghu Panicker, additional dean (student affairs) of ITER Prof. Renu Sharma, and ITER director Prof Manas Kumar Mallick also spoke. Rai also inaugurated a start-up expo and 24-hour idea prototype hackathon on the occasion.