Hyderabad: Among some of the interesting startups presented during the “August Fests Start-up pitches”, was the educational games making start-up “Kitki”. Started by young entrepreneur P. Pramod, a pass-out of BITS Pilani, Kitki is aimed at making leaning a fascinating experience. It currently has three high-quality games designed for students. There was also “edible cutlery” by BAkey foods, trying to address the issue of the large quantity of plastic cutlery ending up in dump yards. There was also Ahmedabad-based start-up MyWedstory which aims to make the entire wedding experience an easy and enjoyable affair for the hosting couple.
OyeHAppy (founded by Harsh and Varun) works around the concept of gifting a “surprise experience” to a loved one. Some of the other start ups showcased at the August Fest include Printnama, LeapZen, Invilogic, CelermentisUpdrad, Radix, Cough Potato, Ride on Cab, Art from Heart, Pixotica, Pepi Post.
Startups need to be innovative
The increasingly digitised world is changing businesses as well as startups given the need for instant gratification by everyone. Cyient managing director and Nasscom chairperson B.V.R. Mohan Reddy highlighted these new challenges for startups and innovators at the August Fest on Saturday.
To find a customer is very difficult although they are on social media. “For young entrepreneurs, I would like to say that you need to have a product or service which can be differentiated from the other available products and secondly, innovation is important. It is important to have a distinct difference from competitors to have a disruptive advantage. What has changed in the Internet era is that people are looking for instantaneous gratification. Therefore the challenges to manage is completely different,” he said.
Speaking on the topic “Is innovation possible in the government?” IT secretary Jayesh Ranjan pointed out that the state government’s pet project, the T-hub, was slotted to be the incubator of incubators. The T-hub, apart from hosting startups and providing free office space, will also be giving ideas to the state government.
The incubation and startup policy charted by the state government is targeted at students. “As a startup state, we place a lot of importance on innovations and we will encourage app developers. Equivalent credits will be given to students who launch a startup. The state government will give preference to startups). Also, entrepreneurial certificates will be given to students,” said the official.
