During the week of January 10-16, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will host the first-ever Start-up India Innovation Week.

According to DPIIT Secretary Anurag Jain, who briefed the media via virtual press conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would interact with entrepreneurs and address Startup India Innovation Week at 10.30 a.m. on January 15 through video conferencing in a closed-door session.

The 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav,' a virtual week-long innovation festival, aims to celebrate India's 75th year of independence by highlighting the breadth and depth of entrepreneurship across the country.

Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal will kick off the week-long event, which will be attended by Ministers of State (MoS) for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash and Anupriya Patel. Prof K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India, Dr K Radhakrishnan, Ex-Chairman, ISRO, Nandan Nilekani, Non-Executive Chairman, Infosys, Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, and many other industry experts will talk at the opening session.
Over 150 companies were grouped into six workgroups based on topics such as growing from roots, shifting the DNA, moving from local to global, future technologies, manufacturing champions, and sustainable development.

The goal of the discussion is to learn how startups can help meet national needs through promoting innovation in the country, and how the government can help them do so. The recipients of the National Startup Awards 2021 will be announced on this day, honouring exceptional companies and ecosystem facilitators that are establishing scalable firms with significant potential for job creation, wealth development, and social impact.

Jain said, "2021 has been recognised as the 'Year of unicorns', with over 40 unicorns added in the year. India is emerging as a global innovation hub, boasting the world's third-largest startup ecosystem. DPIIT has recognised more than 61,000 startups as on date. Our startups representing 55 industries, spread across 633 districts with at least one startup from every State and UT of the country have created over 6 lakh jobs since 2016. 45 per cent of the startups are from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and 45 per cent of them are represented by women entrepreneurs. Startups have the potential to accelerate India's integration into global value chains and create global impact."

The major purpose of this startup and innovation festival is to bring together key companies, entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, financing agencies, banks, policymakers, and other national and international stakeholders to commemorate entrepreneurship and encourage innovation. Furthermore, to share knowledge on fostering startup ecosystems, developing entrepreneurial ecosystem capacities, mobilising global and domestic capital for startup investments, encouraging and inspiring the youth to innovate and start businesses, providing market access opportunities for startups, and showcasing high-quality, high-technology, and cost-effective innovations from India.

The week-long programme will address key aspects of the startup ecosystem through interactive sessions, workshops, and presentations based on themes such as incubation and acceleration support to startups, funding and international avenues to go global, academia and mentorship support to startups, and market access through corporates and government to startups, with the participation of States/UTs and various departments of the Government of India. In addition, there will be numerous parallel events based on the specified topics, such as Experience Booths, Innovation Showcases, and Pitching or Reverse Pitching Sessions.

Various sessions included participation from the Ministry of Education, Niti Aayog, Office of PSA, DBT, MeitY, DST, Ministry of Defence, and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, among others.