Colloquium on Building a Supportive Community for Startups in Punjab

Ludhiana, July 16, 2022: The Munjal-BCU Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MBCIE) aims to become a leading centre for education, research, and innovation engaged in facilitating growth and the transformation of business and enterprise. It aims to provide a common platform where the businesses of tomorrow can be conceived, created and nurtured. The Centre also endeavours to explore solutions to the declining competitive advantage of industrial clusters in Punjab, low Innovation and diversification and lack of attractiveness and inspiration to the youth of the Sate.

One of the objectives of MBCIE a joint venture between Munjal Family Trust B.C.M and Birmingham City University is to develop a start-up ecosystem in Punjab. The MBCIE Start-up platform has over three hundred members who have joined the community in a short period of one month. The forum organized the first virtual Startup Colloquium on "Building a Supportive Community for Startups in Punjab". The event was held this afternoon in a blended mode where a large number of players from the startup ecosystem in Punjab participated to discuss issues related to startups. The Startup Colloquium discussed support for early stage businesses and how to build a collaborative environment supporting the Startups community in the State ensuring the startups succeed in their mission. 

Caroline Rowett, Deputy High Commissioner, British Deputy High Commission, Chandigarh inaugurated a state-of-the-art AR/VR Lab on this occasion. This is the first AR/VR lab of its kind having multiple applications in the domains of industry, education, healthcare, fashion etc. The Centre aims to train a large number of professionals capable of creating and working in the high end Metaverse being established by organisations across the world.

The speakers at the Colloquium included Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman Hero Enterprise and passionate startup promoter. 

Munjal narrated the evolution of entrepreneurship in modern India. 

He explained how entrepreneurship has transformed the country after independence and how startups are creating wealth through innovation and enterprise. 

Bernard Curren from Birmingham City University, UK is a serial entrepreneur, Startup Coach, Advisor to UK Government and having experience in building successful incubators, science and innovation parks discussed various aspects of startups in the global context.

Taranjeet Singh Bhamra started AgNext in 2016. He has innovated & developed a full-stack integrated algorithms, software & hardware platform, which addresses quality assessment issues across the Agri value chain, enabling businesses to analyse food on-the-spot.

Deepindar Dhillon, Joint Director, Startup Cell, Invest Punjab explained the Government of Punjab initiatives in the area of Startups. He shared the policy perspective on building the Startup ecosystem in the State.

Saurabh Munjal presented the success story of Lahori. The beverages company is the brainchild of Saurabh Munjal as well as two of his cousins - Saurabh Bhutna and Nikhil Doda. Realizing there was hardly any player in the desi drink segment except the top two players, the startup hailing from Punjab launched its brand. The name for the brand was inspired by the ingredient which is most commonly used in their drinks which is rock salt. Hence, the name Lahori.

Swati Goyal, COO of Volaverse, Ludhiana is a community driven metaverse on blockchain for Web 3.0 enthusiasts around the globe. The metaverse platform intends to contribute to the flourishing fast growing ecosystem by providing a learning, teaching and socializing activity through gamified and immersive experiences to its users.

Caroline Rowett, Deputy British High Commissioner, Chandigarh presented the closing remarks. She praised the spirit of entrepreneurship in Punjab and expressed her desire to see Punjab emerging as a new hub of startups in the country. 
Other prominent experts who participated in the discussions included S.K.Rai, Vice Chairman, Hero Cycles Ltd, Dr Prem Kumar, Executive Director, MBCIE, Ajay Sinha, Director, STEAMhouse and Dr Vijay Venkatesh from Birmingham City University, UK.

Later, Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman Hero Enterprise while interacting virtually with the media persons said that the idea was to create a place for innovation, ideation and bringing together different forces which allow the ecosystemto pitch startups. He added startups are the lifeline of enterprise and enterprise itself is the energy which drives the industry. Industry itself drives oureconomy. He said the idea was to create sustainable economic opportunities in Punjab. He said their initiative will allow multiple new initiatives to start which will ultimately multiply the economy and new job creation.