Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh presented the First National Entrepreneurship awards 2016 in New Delhi. The Minister of State (I/C) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy was the guest of honour on the occasion. The awards have been presented in order to recognise the entrepreneurial spirit of India’s youth and encourage more young Indians to become entrepreneurs.
The Entrepreneurship Awards system has been created through a partnership between MSDE and a number of reputed institutions across the country including, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT – Delhi, Mumbai, Kanpur and Chennai), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and XLRI, Jamshedpur. Every year, one such institution will play the role of the lead institution to anchor the awards. For 2016-2017, the lead institution is IIT, Delhi.
Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh in his speech highlighted the role of Entrepreneurship in making India a leading economy globally. He also congratulated the winners and praised them for their exceptional achievements.
During the ceremony an overview of MSDE’s entrepreneurship initiatives were outlined by Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy. He also said that the Awards Ceremony will not only recognise budding entrepreneurs in India, but will also serve as a platform to showcase the transformative potential of entrepreneurship to young Indians and inspire them to become entrepreneurs.
This was followed by inspiring speeches by successful young entrepreneurs – Varun Khetan (Founder, Urban Clap), Shrikant Bolla (Founder Bollant Industries) and Ritesh Agarwal (Founder Bollant Industries) – who shared their experiences. Their entrepreneurial experiences were encouraging examples for the youth present at the ceremony.
Subsequently, Awards were presented in 11 categories under two selection tracks – Award Track and Recognition Track. These winners have been selected through a three stage rigorous selection process. An overview of the winners in these categories, under Award Track is given below:
- Agri, Food, & Forestry Products – Wow Momo Foods Private Ltd
- Chemicals, Pharma, Bio and other processed material – Saral Design Solutions Private Limited
- E-commerce, Logistics, Transport & other Services – JETSETGO Aviation Services
- Engineering Services – Swadha Energies
- IT &ITES, Financial – Lucideus Tech
- SC/ST – JeevAnksh Eco Products Private Limited
- Women – S V Engineering and Consultancy Services
Under recognition track, Awards were presented under for categories
- Education institute – RSETI, Karnataka
- Incubator – TREC-STEP Tiruchirappalli Regional Engineering College- Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Park
- Mentor (Government Sector) – Dr. Harkesh Kumar Mital, Head, National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, (NSTEDB), Department of Science &Technology, Govt. of India.
- Mentor (Private Sector) – Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, CyberMedia Group
Winning individuals/ enterprises were given a prize amount of Rs. 5 lakhs, while winning organisations were given Rs. 10 lakhs.