BioNEST-Panjab University organised the “National Start-up Day: Start Something New”

Chandigarh, January 31, 2024: BioNEST Panjab University has always been driven by the vision of turning ideas into reality. As a part of the Make-in India and Atma Nirbhar Bharatcampaigns, Prof. Rohit Sharma, Project Leader, BioNEST, Panjab University, Chandigarh is dedicated to promoting a start-up culture in India. BioNEST celebrated National Start-up Day with the inspiring vision of Starting Something New. The session was graced by the presence of Vineet Khurana, a startup builder, Vice President of Chandigarh Angels Network and social capitalist with over 14 years of industry experience in building and scaling startups from the ground up.

He shared his journey with the teachers, students, innovators, and future entrepreneurs, how he started in his early days with a simple engineering degree and how he found himself more inclined towards building a start-up and enterprise. He said that he has been contributing towards the start-up ecosystem from 2010 and has always helped start-ups and entrepreneurs in overcoming their value of death from their initial days. He encouraged the innovators to keep moving forward with their ideas to believe in them even if someone says its not possible because not everyone is going to understand their idea. He shared stories of his start-ups who have become large successful enterprises. He provided a major tip for pitching your idea in front of investors that’s being confident in your speech. It’s the confidence of innovator that attracts investors to invest in their idea.

The event was also honored by the presence of Prof. Navdeep Goyal, Dean Faculty of Sciences and Prof. Kewal Krishan, Dean, International Students of Panjab University, Chandigarh. They both inspired the audience and shared their views on how in previous times start-ups were looked down and how there were limited families who would support them. They both concluded that now the times have changed and every laboratory is doing innovations and pushing their innovators towards entrepreneurship and economy elevation.

BioNEST had small Innovator ki Kahani segment where Dr. Sudhir P. Singh, Scientist D, CIAB, Mohali shared his journey how he created alternative for diabetic and obese patients with his first student who has now joined ICT, Mumbai as Scientist C. He was joyed to share that they have transferred their technology to industry. They also shared the collaboration of NABI and CIAB where they will be setting up scale up bio manufacturing unit.He was also felicitated with the Technology Transfer award at the event.

There were some pitches done by the innovators at the event where pitchers talked about their MAD ideas and the dignitaries on the dice bombarded them with their valuable insights related to scientific upgradation of their idea, having a proper market research about an idea, having to address a good problem statement and being open about the idea and criticism.

BioNEST gave awards to its innovators who have contributed significantly in the journey of BioNEST from last 5 years. Among them were some established industries like M/s Biobridge Healthcare Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Pune and M/s Bioage equipments and services, Mohali who were awarded for their innovation and being an invaluable incubatee at BioNEST, Panjab University, Chandigarh. Start-ups such as This Life Matters Pvt. Ltd. and Jaggercane superfoods Pvt. Ltd. were also felicitated with the commercialization award. Mrs. Shivanshi Vashist was felicitated with IP award for filing 7 patents in just five years. The last award i.e., The All-Rounder award was presented to Shallu Goyal for her consistent efforts for being an active researcher, innovator, an achiever in scientific, Intellectual property and administrative fields.

The event concluded with the remarks of Prof. Rohit Sharma how he has guided, mentored, hand held the innovators for achieving their goals and how BioNEST has played a massive role in creating an entrepreneurial system at northern region of India. The event was conducted to bridge a gap between a Venture capitalist and innovators that have a decent product for scale up and that wants to increase their market size.