IIM Shillong holds ‘round-table discussion’ for N-E business incubators

Shillong: The ‘Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for Policy Research and Analysis and Incubation and Enterprise Support Centre’ at IIM
Shillong hosted a two-day virtual workshop-cum-round-table discussion for ‘Business Incubators of North East India’ on July 16 and 17, during which several topics were covered including the status of business incubators in NE, technology commercialization, raising finance for incubated startups among others.
Financial Adviser, North Eastern Council (NEC), Gaigongdin Panmei emphasized the significance of value addition on various regional products and underlined the importance of “3Rs- Reuse, Reduce and Recycle” of waste management.
R. Ramanan, former mission director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, delivered the keynote address, focusing on how a lot of government schemes are brought in and how a lot of incubators have been established pan-India to support the startup movement in the country.
Biplab Bhattacharjee, faculty, IIM Shillong and Sanjeev K. Ningombam, coordinator, Dr APJ Centre brought forward the key challenges that the incubators in North Eastern Region are facing achieve their stated goals.
Atul Kulkarni, management consultant and member, Board of Governors, IIM Shillong stressed the fact that over the years North East has moved from a land of opportunity to a land of deliverables.
He also mentioned few barriers for scaling-up for NER-Startups such as lack of skilled manpower, lack of technology up-gradation, lack of interventions, lack of backward and forward linkages, and lack of value addition for the products,” an IIM spokesperson said.
“There was also follow-up round-table panel discussions with representatives of different incubators from Sikkim, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, and Mizoram. The incubators agreed on working in close coordination to build a robust incubation ecosystem in North Eastern
Region,” Kulkarni added.