Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik To Flag Off Two Startup Initiatives Today

Bhubaneswar: To promote startups and entrepreneurship at the grassroots level, Chief Minister of Odisha will flag off Odisha Startup Yatra and Startup Express 2023 on Monday.

It is being organised by Startup Odisha, an initiative of  Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) department.

To achieve its mission of 5,000 startups by 2025, the state will engage with educational institutions across the 30 districts, involving over 25,000 students from more than 200 colleges and 60 schools, through a series of programmes like van camps and boot camps. Over 260 van camps will be conducted in colleges and schools followed by 120 boot camps, generating over 3,500 ideas, department sources said.

At least  50 top ideas will be shortlisted and invited for a 3-day acceleration programme at the upcoming edition. Of these, top 25 ideas will be invited to O-Hub for the demo day and the best 10 will be awarded seed funding worth Rs 3 lakh each to develop their ideas into viable startup ventures.

This apart, the top 20 ideas from Startup Xpress 2023 will be invited for final pitching and 10 will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 10,000 each.

A dedicated mobile application has been developed to collect innovative ideas from young innovators, the sources added.

In the last edition of Startup Odisha Yatra, 10,270 students from over 100 colleges had participated. A total of 22 top ideas were selected for the acceleration programme, culminating in the demo day, where 11 finalists were awarded Rs 1 lakh each.