NEC in association with IIM Calcutta Innovation Park organises Notheast India’s biggest Startup Summit

Guwahati, Jan 30, 2024: The North Eastern Council, in association with IIM Calcutta Innovation Park, organised the "Northeast Startup Summit" on the 29 January, 2024, at Hotel Vivanta, Guwahati. 

Deemed as the biggest startup summit in the region, the event aims to showcase and celebrate the evolution of the startup ecosystem in Northeast India while providing a platform for innovative minds to connect, collaborate and flourish.

This ground-breaking event saw the convergence of more than 500 startup founders from Northeast India, providing a platform for interaction, networking and collaboration. With an emphasis on drawing a Pan-India focus on Northeast India's startup ecosystem, the Summit attracted key stakeholders from the national startup ecosystem, fostering a conducive environment for meaningful connections and bolstering the entrepreneurial fabric of the region.

The Secretary of the North Eastern Council, K. Moses Chalai, IAS, graced the summit.

Some of the renowned startup founders of the country who present are Shradha Sharma, Founder & CEO, Your Story Media; Sagar Daryani, Founder & CEO, Wow! Momo; and Pratap TP, Founder, QwikCilver Solutions. Some of the top-notch investors like Vikram Gupta, Founder & Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures; SP Singh, Chief General Manager, SIDBI; Anuj Sharma, Founder, ALSiSAR IMPACT; Hari Balasubramanian, Member, Indian Angel Network; and Anil Chhikara, Head - Global Strategy, Marwari Catalysts, to name a few were present at the summit along with the Chairman and Managing Director of NEDFi, PVSLN Murty. Besides, top corporate leaders like Aditya Aggarwal (Executive Vice President - Digital Enterprise, Maruti Suzuki India Limited) and Jayanta Das (Area Director, North East, Darjeeling, Bhutan and Nepal, Indian Hotels Company Limited) graced the event.

A key highlight of the mega event was an eclectic exhibition by over 80 startups from across the eight states of Northeast India, serving as a testament to the unique products and innovations emerging from the vibrant region.

The startup ecosystem in Northeast India has progressed remarkably in the last five years, as evident from the Northeastern states' remarkable performance in DPIIT's States' Startup Ranking in recent years. And a platform like the Northeast Startup Summit is likely to catalyse the growth of the region's startup ecosystem by garnering national-level exposure and recognition for the startups from this part of the country.

North Eastern Council :

The North Eastern Council, under the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER), Government of India, champions the economic and social development of the North Eastern Region.

Over the last five decades, it has been instrumental in setting in motion a new economic endeavour aimed at removing the basic handicaps that stood in the way of normal development of the region and has ushered in an era of new hope full of great potentialities.

IIM Calcutta Innovation Park :

IIM Calcutta Innovation Park is a Section 8 company under the aegis of IIM Calcutta, focussed on fostering innovative and impactful entrepreneurs and enabling livelihood creation. It has been playing an active role in developing the entrepreneurship landscape in Northeast India since 2017 and has, to date, supported more than 750 startups from the region.

The B-School incubator has worked collaboratively with the state governments of Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram to conduct immersion programs and lend knowledge support, creating awareness about startups and instrumenting the germination and growth of many startups from the region. Currently, it is working with the North Eastern Council to drive the North East Entrepreneurship Development Program (NEEDP) - a first-of-its-kind initiative supporting 270 promising enterprises from Northeast India with well-laid incubation and pre-incubation programs.