Hyderabad: India Startup Foundation, a not-for-profit organization supporting the growth and development of the Indian startup ecosystem, will host The India Startup Festival (ISF) 2023 from August 10 to 12 in Bengaluru.
ISF will be a platform for startup founders to connect with peers and investors. The theme of ISF 2023 is ‘Innovation at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ with a focus on rural healthcare, education, agritech, food technology, fintech, rural innovations, said JA Chowdary, chairperson and convenor of India Startup Festival.
About 10,000 startups across idea, early, and growth stages will participate virtually. About 500 members from the investor community will also be part of it, he said. A delegation from London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, United States and France, and others will also be part of ISF.
ISF also inked MoUs with T-Hub, TiE Hyderabad, HYSEA & AgHUB, to partner in driving a common goal of developing a robust ecosystem to create, incubate, fund and mentor startups from the region. The startup ecosystem in Hyderabad is vibrant and growing rapidly, he said.
Elaborating on the theme, he said rural India has plenty of challenges to be addressed. Rural entrepreneurship in agriculture, food security, skilling, financial inclusion has the potential to bring in incremental and scalable improvements in the country. The ISF will strive to build networks and devise effective measures to solve the current development problems in various impact areas through rural entrepreneurship for the benefit of the rural poor.
“The India Start-up Festival (ISF) is complementary to the initiatives of Government of India (GOI) such as Startup India, Digital India, Make-in-India. It will bring together more than 10,000 startups to drive towards an Atmanirbhar Bharat. We are committed to empowering entrepreneurs and fostering a startup community,” he said.
In connection with the ISF, an Investor Connect Workshop was held at T-Hub on Thursday. It had received good response and set new record of participation by the startups, the investors and CXO,” he said
The guests include Lord Loomba, House of Lords, UK – founder and chairman of Loomba Group, Madhusudan Sai, founder of Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence, Meenakshi Lekhi, minister of state for external affairs and culture, and former cricketer and chairman of Heart-to-Heart Foundation Sunil Gavaskar among others.
