Hon’ble Minister for IT K.T.Rama Rao at India Economic Summit

Indian startups should think beyond mere problem solving to scale up,

Minister KTR at India Economic Summit; Meets heads of business and industry on the sidelines 

For the Indian start-ups to scale-up and go multi-national, they have to move beyond the mindset of mere problem-solving and inculcate the art of articulating their products better, Minister KT Rama Rao stated at an interactive session at the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit being convened in New Delhi.

Quoting the examples of how Silicon Valley and Internet have come to be, Minister Rama Rao underlined the Government’s role in fostering them in the initial stages. On the similar lines, he added, Telangana Government has also started T-Hub, India’s largest technology incubator, which is providing aspiring entrepreneurs access to mentorship, investors, markets and Governments. Telangana Government, Minister said, has given the start-ups an opportunity to dabble with the pain points that common man confronts and to come up with solutions. The widely popular RTA m-Wallet is one of the outcomes, he quipped, adding that T-Hub is being further expanded to make it the world’s largest technology incubator. “Ideas generally get nipped in the bud, but at T-Hub innovators walk in with an idea and walk out with a product.”

When asked to comment on the Government of India’s Startup India initiative, Minister KT Rama Rao opined that it is not enough to just pump in money. “Governments cannot spur entrepreneurship; it has to come from private sector. However, Governments have to create infrastructure, platforms and regulations that don’t come in the way of doing business. There is a good number of investors worldwide looking for investing in great ideas. There're not enough ideas. The way forward for an initiative like Start-up India would be to encourage kids to innovate from a young age. Catch them young. Give them the pain points of a common man and ask them to come up with solutions. Just allocation of money will not help. Governance is not about being seen or heard, it's about being felt. We need to aid innovation and don't meddle with it,” he concluded.

Earlier in the day, Minister KT Rama Rao met several industry and business leaders on the sidelines of India Economic Summit. Mr Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Group; Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, Executive Vice Chairman, Infosys; Mr Sumant Sinha, Chairman and CEO, ReNew Power; USIBC's Senior Directors Messrs Jay Gullish and Abhishek Kishore; Mr Vineet Mittal, Chairman, AVAADA Group; Mr K. Dilipkumar, President, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud & MD, SAP Labs India; Mr Yusuff Ali M. A., Chairman, LuLu Group International; Ms Dipali Goenka, CEO Welspun India; Mr Kazunori Konishi, MD, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries India Pvt Ltd. were among those who interacted with Minister KT Rama Rao.

Minister detailed on the transparent, progressive and investor-friendly industrial policies and the plethora of opportunities available in the State and welcomed them to invest, expand their operations. Minister’s invitation evoked positive response from the heads of business and industry. Minister Rama Rao presented Pochampally handloom stoles and Telangana handicrafts to the business and industry leaders.

-Press note