Startup Odisha Empowers Entrepreneurs with Successful Pre-Incubation Program and Strategic Partnerships with Technolplat Ltd, Wadhwani Foundation, and Her Money Talks

Startup-Odisha, an initiative of the MSME Department of the Government of Odisha, is thrilled to announce the successful completion of its first cohort of the pre-incubation program. With an impressive registration count of 62 aspiring entrepreneurs, the program saw 23 participants successfully complete the rigorous training and mentorship curriculum. Among them, 9 talented individuals showcased their innovative ideas, and 3 exceptional startups have been selected to receive comprehensive support from Startup Odisha to propel them to the next level.

The pre-incubation program, initiated by Start-up Odisha , aimed to empower and equip emerging entrepreneurs with the necessary skills, knowledge, and resources to transform their ideas into successful ventures. The overwhelming response received during the registration phase is a testament to the vibrant entrepreneurial spirit and potential that exists in the state.

In another exciting development, Startup Odisha is also proud to announce strategic partnerships with Technolplat Ltd, Wadhwani Foundation, and Her Money Talks. These partnerships are poised to further strengthen the startup ecosystem in Odisha, bringing in valuable expertise, global networks, and access to capital.

Dr. Omkar Rai, the Executive Chairman of Startup Odisha, expressed his enthusiasm about the collaborations, stating, "We are delighted to join forces with Technolplat Ltd, Wadhwani Foundation, and Her Money Talks. These partnerships will foster an environment of innovation and provide invaluable support to our budding entrepreneurs. Through collective efforts, we aim to unlock the full potential of the startup ecosystem in Odisha, driving economic growth and creating opportunities for our talented youth."

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed today between Startup Odisha and these esteemed partners marks a significant milestone in the journey towards building a robust and dynamic startup ecosystem. The collaborations will facilitate knowledge exchange, mentorship programs, access to funding opportunities, and international exposure for the selected startups.

With a vision to nurture and empower the startup community, Startup Odisha along with Technolplat Ltd, Wadhwani Foundation, and Her Money Talks, is committed to driving innovation, fostering entrepreneurship, and creating an enabling environment for startups to thrive in Odisha.

About Start-up Odisha: Startup Odisha, an initiative of the MSME Department, Govt of Odisha to promote Ideas/Innovations/Startups of budding entrepreneurs in the state. It is also working towards innovation, development and improvement of products, process and services. In addition, Startup Odisha also working towards the scaling-up of ideas towards a sustainable business model with a high potential of employment generation and wealth creation in the state. With an ever-evolving ecosystem, Start-up Odisha works with a wide range of 1600+ registered startups out of which 600+ are led by women.

Tata Power Acquires 51% Stake in Odisha's TPCODL for Rs 179 Cr

Tata Power on Monday said it has completed the acquisition of 51 per cent stake in TP Central Odisha Distribution Ltd (TPCODL) for Rs 178.5 crore.

TPCODL carries out the business of Central Electricity Supply Utility of Odisha (CESU). The acquisition paves the way for taking over the power supply business of five cities in Odisha by Tata Power.

"Tata Power has today acquired 51 per cent equity stake in TPCODL at a consideration of Rs 178.5 crore," a Tata Power statement said.

According to the statement, GRIDCO will hold the rest 49 per cent stake in TPCODL.

TPCODL was incorporated on April 6, 2020 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of GRIDCO to carry out the business of CESU.

Tata Power said it has taken over the management of CESU, after receiving the Letter of Intent from the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) for the distribution and retail supply of electricity in Odisha's five circles consisting of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Puri, Paradeep and Dhenkanal.

As per an order issued by OERC on May 28, 2020, Tata Power will hold 51 per cent equity with management control and state-owned GRIDCO will have the remaining 49 per cent equity stake in the company.

Tata Power has committed to improving and modernising the distribution system in the five circles. The priority of the company is to improve reliability, reduce AT&C losses and offer excellent customer service.

As per the agreement, the company will retain all the existing employees of CESU and will govern them by their existing policy structure.

Tata Power will provide better opportunities and facilities to the employees to update their knowledge and skills along with an exposure to best practices and cutting edge technologies as part of the changed management in CESU.

“Our tie-up with CESU is a huge development for Tata Power. We are committed to provide reliable, affordable and quality power supply along with superior customer service, backed by innovative technology. The success of our Delhi, Mumbai and Ajmer distribution businesses are testament to this fact,” Tata Power CEO & MD Praveer Sinha said.

Sanjay Banga, President - T &D, Tata Power said the company endeavours to bring about a positive transformation in Odisha by deploying smart grid technologies to supply reliable and quality power.

"Our customer-centric approach aims to enhance all aspects of customer services with smooth and efficient power distribution operations,” he added.

EDII to Create 12,000+ Rural Enterprises in Orissa under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP)

Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), an acknowledged national resource Institute for Entrepreneurship Education, Research, Training and Institution Building will generated over 12,000 rural enterprises under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) in Orissa (Odisha) over a span of four years.

EDII is the National Resource Organisation for Startup Village Entrepreneurship Program. The Institute is implementing this program in eight blocks of Odisha, has trained and supported around 3,500 enterprises under this project.

SVEP is a sub-scheme of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development. The main objective of the programme is to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty & unemployment in the villages by helping start rural enterprises. The eight blocks in Odisha are Ranpur of Nayagarh, Morada of Mayurbhanja, Mahakalapada of Kendrapara, Puri Sadar of Puri, Angul Sadar of Angul, Kuarmunda of Sundergarh, Umerkote of Nabarangpur and Danagadi of Jajpur district. Among the eight blocks the former two blocks Ranpur and Moroda were piloted in the first phase (2016-17) and based on their performance 6 more blocks were added in the later stage (2017-18). This project is being implemented in collaboration with the Odisha Livelihoods Missions (OLM).

Professor Rajesh Gupta, Faculty, EDII and Head-SVEP Programme, said, “Under the long-term vision of SVEP, the Government of India aims to start and support rural enterprises, thereby providing employment opportunity to rural people and help them come out of poverty; while simultaneously resolving the issue of immigration. The entrepreneurs are provided skill training, support in maintaining books of records and credit and market linkages through a cadre of resource persons, these resource persons are village youth who along with the community leaders and community organisations ensure sustained support to the SVEP entrepreneurs at the villages”.

SVEP was approved during 2015-16 and the enterprise formation started in 2017-18. As on 30th November 2018, a total of 30,352 enterprises were formed across 20 States where the scheme is operational. Skill building support is provided to all the entrepreneurs supported under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme through Community Resource Persons for Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EP).

Orissa based Aerospace Tech Startup Tzar Raises Massive $15 Bn from Singapore's Dreamvision Overseas

Bhubaneswar, Orissa-based aerospace technology startup, Tzar Aerospace Research Labs, has raised whopping US$ 15 billion for 37% private equity from leading Singapore based company, Dreamvision Overseas, reported several media outlets including Outlook and The Week.

The size of funding of this amount is massive, we are trying to reach the startup to verify the details on our end.

Founded in 2016, by Priyam Mohanty, Tzar Aerospace designs and develops conceptual unmanned Hypersonic Research Aircraft with new computational approaches and methods. The startup aims to be a catalyst in the development, exploration, and commercialization of emerging aerospace markets by providing innovative, entrepreneurial aerospace solutions to commercial and civil customers.

The technical competencies of Tzar Aerospace include product/system development, aerospace system design, rapid prototyping and business analysis. The scientific approach of the organization is Systems of System based learning (SSBL) coupled with spatial reasoning.

Speaking on fund-raise, Mr. Priyam Mohanty, Founder of Tzar Aerospace said, "It’s a matter of tremendous pleasure and great pride for us that we have successfully marked our presence in the field of Aerospace market. Our startup has been very successful in establishing the trust among its clients and because of this trust recently we have raised $15 billion USD for 37% private equity from leading Singapore based companies, Dreamvision Overseas."

According to Registrar of Companies details, furnished by SGP Business, Dreamvision Overseas Pte. Ltd. is a exempt private company limited by Shares, incorporated on 23 January 2018 (Tuesday) in Singapore. The company, which has current operating status as live and has been operating for only 1 year 108 days. The Company's principal activity is wholesale trade of a variety of goods without a dominant product with other holding companies as the secondary activity.

Last month, Tzar Aerospace has also signed an MoU with Central Tool Room & Training Centre (CTTC), Bhubaneswar, to explore and execute technology development and finding best possible solutions by using the later's expertise of designing and manufacturing of high precision components and assemblies

Odisha-based ThinkZone Raises $104K from Gray Matters Capital to Create Jobs for Women Micro-Entrepreneurs

ThinkZone, an award winning social impact start-up from Cuttack providing high quality, low-cost education to under-served children in low resource communities, has today announced its plans of expanding its footprint in the state of Odisha by creating jobs for 300 women micro-entrepreneurs.

The startup currently employs 100+ women catering to over 2,800 children in 375 villages across nine blocks of the districts of Cuttack, Kendrapara and Bhadrak will be looking to deepen its engagement in the most backward districts of the state, besides expanding into coastal Odisha through these women.

Using an innovative ‘School-in-a-Box’ education solution, offline technology, proprietary teaching activities and class management tools, these local women would deliver quality early-grade education programs following the Teaching-at-the-Right-Level approach (an MIT evidence-based pedagogy) to improve learning outcomes of 10,000 children in the state by 2020.

This plan for expansion comes on the back of it closing post seed stage round of funding of $ 104,000 from education sector focused impact investor Gray Matters Capital under its edLABS initiative.

The prospect of ThinkZone empowering women entrepreneurs as teachers to impart quality education using innovative low cost and scalable technology which can potentially benefit nearly 2 million students in the next five years is outlined as the rationale behind the gender-lens investor’s bet on this Odisha based start-up.

ThinkZone will use the funding towards 4 key strategic initiatives of automating teacher training, refining curriculum, improving performance monitoring by integrating analytics with technology and forging partnerships with the objective to scale.

The World Bank awarded start-up had previously raised funds from BPCL, UnLtd India, D-Prize (US Distribution Inc), INVENT(Villgro) and Startup Odisha.

Throwing light on the expansion plans, Binayak Acharya, Founder – ThinkZone said, “The work we do at ThinkZone is unique because we are developing a tech-based pedagogy for first generation learners and empowering women entrepreneurs who come from a limited education backgrounds with facilitation skills to provide tech-driven quality education in rural India. We’re creating a scalable model of technology and local community interventions that can be adapted to the local context. We plan to scale our expansion through greater decentralization and partner with select public sector organizations and private MNCs to implement our early-grade learning enhancement and teacher-training programs.”

Team ThinkZone

The social enterprise is in talks to implement its pedagogy in government run primary schools as well the local Anganwadis (early-childcare centers) in the next one year.

“For any education model to be successful in India, it has to have four prerequisites: Low cost, high quality, scalability, and focus on barriers to education for poor. When I started working on ThinkZone, whoever I spoke to equated good teaching with good education. On the contrary, good education is about good learning. ThinkZone’s model emphasises learning-based education instead of teacher-centric learning. ThinkZone has a strong backend design and management team to support the relatively under-skilled community teachers. ThinkZone’s pedagogy, which is the core process of any education model, has undergone extensive reengineering to provide education delivery that is built on highly standardised elements”, Binayak said.

ThinkZone has recently partnered with Learning Equality for its Kolibiri Hardware Grants Program, which is a Google.org funded initiative. This will enable it to upskill teachers and help students learn at their own pace.

Odisha Govt Sanctions ₹38 Lakh to 9 Startups in the State

Odisha Government has sanctioned financial assistance of Rs 38 lakh to nine startups of the State. The Task Force of 'Startup Odisha' has sanctioned product development and marketing assistance of Rs 28 lakh to five startups in the State, while four startups receive Rs 10 lakhs as ‘Monthly Assistance’.

Chaired by ACS LN Gupta, the Task Force sanctioned Rs 28 lakhs to -- Phoenix Robotix, working in the area of IoT and Smart Sensors, Orbonix Labs (Health-tech), Iservu Technology, a Fin-Tech Startup and Inksand Art and Crafts India (handicrafts) and Santan Fertility Centre and Research Institute (Healthcare).

The Task Force also sanctioned monthly assistance of total Rs10 lakh in favour of four startups namely -- Inhof Technologies, Basal Initiatives, Krushaco Services and Sarala Powertech Consulting Engineers LLP. Notably, Basal Initiatives were led by women entrepreneurs. With these benefits, the number of startups getting financial benefits has gone up to 61.

The Task Force also accorded recognition to two new incubators namely, CTTC- Innovation and Incubation Centre, Bhubaneswar and Incuvations Foundation, NIST, Brahmapur.

With these, the number of incubators approved under the Startup Odisha has gone up to 11 having total incubation space of more than 4.2 lakh square feet.

Odisha, which launched its Startup Policy in August 2016, has inaugurated "STPI ELITE", a new incubation centre for electronics and IT startups in Orissa state, in August this year.

Source - Orissa Diary

New Incubation Centre and Fab Lab 'STPI ELITE' Launches in Orissa for IT, Electronics Startups

The Software Technology Park of India (STPI), an organization under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, has inaugurated a new incubation centre for electronics and IT startups in Orissa state.

The state of the art new facility named as "STPI ELITE" is located at Gothapatna locality in Bhubaneswar City and was inaugurated on Saturday by Mr.Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for MeitY, and Mr Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship.

Sprawling across around 3 acres of land at IDCO Knowledge Zone, Gothapatna with investment of approximate Rs. 50 Crores, the STPI ELITE will also house STPI’s Fabrication Lab (Fab Lab) and ESDM Incubation, data centre in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) of USA, ESDM Incubation & Data centre to cater the need of the IT, ITES and ESDM (Electronic System Design & Manufacturing) industries.

The facility can accommodate more than 100 entrepreneurs and offers many facilities beyond plug and play models, which are new in the state.

STPI ELITE's Incubation Program will offer other modern facilities like Network Operation Centre, High Speed Data Communication, Cloud services, Plug & Play, semi furnished & Co-working IT space, Convention Hall, Conference, My Space, Language Lab, Cafeteria, Business Lounge, Bank/ATM, Amphitheatre & modern Building Management& other common Services. Recently STPI ELITE has been included in the Rental Subsidy Scheme of Government of Odisha under which the Incubatees can avail the facility at an affordable cost and ensure a sustainable growth.

It will also offer a strong platform to leverage STPI’s rich experience in technology implementation, creation of incubation, Industry facilitation, linking to Industries & Industrial Mentorship and facilitate smooth flow of knowledge and sharing of infrastructure between STPI Incubates/IT/ITES/ESDM start-ups for to promote entrepreneurship & innovation.

The Integrated facilities will work as an Innovation Hub which would encourage Innovation, IPR creation, Product Development and offer a vibrant ecosystem for building a maker culture among the young techno-entrepreneurs, Start-ups and boost the IT exports from the region.

In last five years gone by, STPI had made many announcements for promoting electronics and IT startups in India and back in 2015, STPI made Rs.22 crore partnership with India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) to set up an ‘Electropreneur Park’, aimed at supporting 50 startups working on electronics product designing and development over the next five years.

In August 2016, STPI did open an Electropreneur Park at University of Delhi, South Campus with an aim to incubate 50 early stage start-ups and create at least 5 global companies over a period of 5 years.

Source - Business Standard | Orrisa Diary