It’s women first at Entrepreneurship Summit

The Global Entrepreneurship Summit, which gets under way on Tuesday with the inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is expected to catalyse entrepreneurship, the growing start up community, help forge linkages and pave way for investments. Significantly, the eighth round of such summit hosted for the first time in the Asia Pacific region at Hyderabad will see over 52.5 per cent participation from women entrepreneurs.

The theme, “Women first, prosperity for all,” has brought together about 1,500 entrepreneurs from across the world with more than 400 from the US alone, another 500 plus from other parts of the world and about 500 entrepreneurs from India at the three day mega event, which is seen to serve as a platform for networking, build bridges and consolidate the start-up sector.

Addressing media a day before the event inauguration, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant and recently-appointed US Ambassador to India Kenneth I Juster, said the event co-hosted by the governments of the US and India, in partnership with the Telangana government, would see Ivanka Trump, Advisor to US President, leading a high-powered delegation. Kant said, “Women have taken centre stage in various development activities and when women are empowered, countries thrive. In tune with this thought, this summit will have a large contingent of women, who will be in majority.”

Significantly, more than 10 countries, including Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Israel are represented by all-women delegations. The participants will be exposed to breakout sessions and master classes which include talk by Google’s Vice-President Diana Louise Patricia Layfield, on Next Billion Users.

Kenneth I Juster said this is the largest such US delegation to take part in an event in India where representatives from 38 States in the US are taking part.

Asked about recent Moody’s upgrade of India rating, the Ambassador said, “I want to complement the Prime Minister for the ongoing reforms process which have put the economy in strong growth path.” Mentioning about the strong trade relations between India and the US, Juster said, “We expect this to go up but there is no target. The accent is on stimulating entrepreneurship, job creation where women will play significant role. And India can play a larger role in the region.”

On questions about the recent debate on various visa categories and efforts to slap curbs, the Ambassador said, “The rules governing the visa policy are now under discussion and it would not be appropriate to comment on it at this point.” Kant said funding is no problem for start-ups as the government is keen to encourage entrepreneurship. Mentioning about sops extended to start-ups, Kant said SIDBI has created a corpus of ₹10,000 crore to fund new entrepreneurs and start-ups. As a part of the GES, a grand gala dinner will be hosted on Tuesday by Prime Minister in Taj Falaknuma to its participants, and by the Telangana government at Golkonda Fort on Wednesday.

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