Hyderabad: Amitabh Kant, the CEO of NITI Aayog, on Monday, said that the eighth edition of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) would help create an ecosystem that would promote the growth of start-ups in the country.
Addressing a press conference along with Kenneth Juster, the US Ambassador to India, Mr Kant said that Union ministers Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman and Suresh Prabhu would participate in the Summit.
He said that the GES was especially significant for India because the Centre was giving entrepreneurs the opportunity and the ecosystem to thrive. He said that the Summit would focus on four main sectors – energy and infrastructure, digital economy and financial technology, health and life sciences, and media and entertainment.
“Women will represent 52.5 per cent of the entrepreneurs, investors and ecosystem supporters at GES 2017. It is for the first time that women will form a majority of the participants at a GES. Women from 127 countries are participating in it. Over 10 countries will be represented by an all-female delegation, including Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Israel,” Mr Kant said.
After the inauguration of the GES by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ivanka Trump, the daughter and the advisor to the President of the USA, and Nirmala Sitharaman, the defence minister of India, will participate in a panel discussion on the emergence of opportunities for female entrepreneurs, Mr Kant said. He added that the discussion would be moderated by John Chambers, the chairman Emeritus of CISCO.
Mr Kant said that the GES closing session would bring together key influencers who supported, promoted and funded female entrepreneurs, and it would be moderated by commerce minister Suresh Prabhu.
This year’s GES has the theme Women First, Prosperity for All. “The theme demonstrates the commitment of the governments of the USA and India to the principle that when women are economically empowered, their communities and countries thrive,” Mr Kant said.
He added that female entrepreneurs helped drive innovation and job creation, as well as address the world’s greatest challenges.
Mr Juster congratulated Mr Modi for the ranking recently accorded to India by the World Bank on the ease of doing business. “The economic reform process will obviously increase American investments in India,” he said. He said that investment decisions were, however, made by the private sector and driven by market forces.
Mr Juster said both India and the USA were focused on innovation, and events such as the GES would serve to give that process a boost.
He refused to comment on the recent H1B visa issue and said that the Government of USA was conducting a comprehensive review of the visa policy and was yet to announce any changes.
He added that the policy would not be specific to any country; it would be aimed at attracting talent and innovation to the USA.
