We plan to launch 1 million startups in India. Go on, ask us how!
She was one of the 23 participants that day.
The classroom counted neatly packed number of 23 girls, a sure sign of the remarkably positive change we witness in India.
When initially asked about her feedback the first thing she said was — I wasn’t blinking. All I felt is an urge to jump from my seat and start building something immediately…
Rachayita was one of the participants at Indira Gandhi Technical University for Women where students attended a session by Kryptos Mobile, the tech engine behind Indian government’s i-Made program aiming to transform India into the world’ biggest product nation.
I feel pride and hope whenever such initiatives flourish across educational institutions in India.
In this case, my excitement drove me to to personally surprise Rachayita with a phone call. We kept our conversation around motivation and challenges she encountered while building her first app ever.
Some girl talk happened as well. You’ll get nowhere if you formally “interview” a millennial.
What follows below is a short excerpt of what Rachayita shared with me:
The thought of building something others will use excites me. And there are so many things, so many problems to be solved in India. I heard the class by the folks at Kryptos and got incredibly motivated. Our college didn’t have a formal app for curriculum update and that was the first project I had in mind. So I built mySyllabus app. I tried my hands on Kryptos and I was amazed at how easy it was to work with. I managed to build an app within hours instead of weeks. I could not believe it when I submitted it to the College Board and they approved it!
I was left with two thoughts…
An app within a few hours!
One startup within a few hours!
Three founders plus 2 more employees right from the start. A startup within a diploma course! The joy of building things and watching others use it to solve their own problems.
I was reminded of my former self 13 years ago and my first startup ever, followed by 5 more. It wasn’t nearly as easy as today.
One startup within a few hours.
How much further can we take this?
How big can we dream?
How many startups can our next generation of builders — students! — establish once given the right tools and be allowed to be focus on a problem in hand?
How about 1 million startups?
Too audacious?
No! Not if:
- You invest in a super-scalable, technological platform to fuel the process of innovation across the whole nation and every single university
- You have an Internet user base of at 232 million users and Internet penetration second only to China
- You operate side-by-side with a startup-oriented government which intends to skill 1 crore youth in the next 3 years and launch 1,500 multi-skill development centers
- You bring a $50 million fund to take the best to the global markets
Rachayita’s testimonial is a harbinger of the change, the real explosion of energy that is set to transform India. Change is already underway…after five years pushing and fights against the odds, it’s uplifting to see Indian startups take flight.
And no figure in millions sounds too much of an utopia for the upcoming Indian startup chrysalis.
Not today!
