Young minds nurturing ideas, the ideas taking shape, investors funding the companies, a success story born again. Sounds familiar? It does sound like a start-up story. The kind which eventually builds an MNC, perhaps.
To encourage, listen and collaborate, every start-up needs a platform. The World Start up Expo (WSE) that culminated on 23 November did just that. In order to grow the creativity and build resources, the 3 day World Start up Expo 2016 was held from 21st to 23rd Nov.
It was a great platform to hear about a brilliant plethora of stories and dreams. Though I would’ve loved to document all the stories, I will have to limit myself to a select few.
The highlight was definitely the WSE Main Conference. The event included participation from thousands of start-up entrepreneurs, investors, thought leaders, influencers such as Ravi Belani, Managing Director at Alchemist Accelerator; Baybars Altuntas, Global Entrepreneur, Best-Selling Author; George Molakal,Chief Executive Officer at Alcor Fund; H.E. Sara Al Madani, Board Member at UAE SME and enterprise council; Sabina, Co-Founder & COO-Corporate Hotels, Yatra.com; and Kunal Kapoor, Actor & Co-founder at Ketto.
Other events included fireside chats, master classes, world tech hackathon, panel discussions and pitch competitions.
The expo was truly a place to listen to some of the stalwarts in the start-up space.
“Money is the main motivation for the entrepreneur at the beginning. At the end it changes”, was one of the witty comments made by Baybar Atluntas during the Fireside Chat.
Baybar Atluntas and Ankur Dinesh Garg during the Fireside chat
Matt Kuppers , Founder and CEO of Startup Manufactory a venture development firm that specializes in building start-ups, supporting corporates and educational institutions had several words of wisdom to share. “Meeting amazing people and doing something useful for myself and my team has been my favourite part of being an entrepreneur”. He also says that building a start up isn’t about quick money. It is a lot of hard work and highly demanding.
A quick talk with the youngest speaker Anubhaw Wadhwa left me awestruck. He is an entrepreneur, programmer, designer, social activist, writer, speaker. He is the founder and CEO of TechAPTO , Trends on Internet and Tyrelessly. He founded tyrelessly to aggregate tyres and recycle them in a safe way. Believe it or not, he is just 17 years old!
This extraordinary boy is not just any other teenager. He launched a software development company at the age of 12 and later on an analytical company.
Upon answering the questions showered upon him, he also mentioned that he has his exams next week. I asked him how he even gets time to prepare for his exams and he casually said that he divides time for his school work. It’s remarkable how a teenager his age wakes up at 6.30, attends school, transforms into an entrepreneur, divides his school work and works along with his team till around 1 a.m!
Apart from these amazing personalities, there were budding businesses that were showcased at the Expo.
Chatar Patar
Would you like to have pani puris and chaats that don’t make you sick? Try out Chatar Patar. Prashant Kulkarni along with his team members Aarti Sirsta and Pallavi Kulkarni started Chatar Patar to provide hawker style food as an organised business.
It all started when Prashant was working at Infosys and fell ill due to food poisoning after having the roadside pani puri. He later on researched and found out that there was no brand associated with pani puri. ‘Gapagap’ became India’s first pani puri brand launched by Chatar Patar. Chatar Patar sells pani puris in 112 different flavours that is hygienically prepared and served.
Diva’s Club
In today’s age women juggle umpteen tasks at office, home along with family friends spouse and kids. To help them unwind and pamper themselves Diva’s Club has come up with the concept of solo women travellers coming together to make new friends and unforgettable memories.
Often it isn’t possible to travel along with your kids and spouse. In such a case why not hang out with your girl gang? Diva’s Club takes care of your travel, safety and ensures you have all the fun.
Co-founded by Vidhya Madhavan and Shwetha Ramesh who are both travel addicts, they understand the issues related to travelling. Both of them have travelled extensively together and want to give like-minded women a fun and memorable experience.
Milagrow
After stepping down from the post of President and CEO of the Consumer Durables vertical of Reliance Retail, Rajeev Karwal founded Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions in 2007.
Rajeev Karwal who is against any form of corruption strongly believes that his organisation should run according to his value system. When asked about why he came up with the niche idea of robots he says,
“Whatever others don’t touch is what you should touch.”
Milagrow has set up its Human Tech division to help families and individuals function effortlessly with the help of domestic robots. They are the makers of the World’s only TabTop PCs.
If you have recently fretted about the carpet that couldn’t be cleaned regularly, then it’s time you took a look at Milagrow’s domestic robots!
LEDMAC LTD
LEDMAC is a London based knowledge services company specialising in Entrepreneurship Development and Internationalisation.
They have conducted extensive bootcamps and workshops in various cities of India as well as in London, Nigeria and Iran. Their aim is to create job givers rather than job seekers.
Co-founded by Sarfaraz Hazan, Amna Sultan and Rahul, LEDMAC focuses on entrepreneurship education, internationalisation opportunities, and incubator and incubation eco-system development.
iAccept Softwares Pvt Ltd.
A unique service to say the least, iAccept Softwares Pvt. Ltd. is a collaboration of three platforms that have been creating eco-systems to promote ethics and values in business transactions and eliminate non value added processes. The three platforms namely iAccept, Thijori and Pehechano provide safety to citizens.
Started by Mohan Kumar and Ravi, Pehechano is an identity wallet that checks the identity and credibility of individuals, job seekers and recruiters in several ways.
Often we hear about cases related to absconding, false documents and unwanted incidents. Pehechano comes as a blessing for companies, employees and recruiters in such scenarios. One can be assured of a safe and comfortable job at hand. The recruiter also feels confident about the person hired.
Mayflower Language Services
Madhuri Hegde converted her love for languages and culture into a business venture. Her idea grew from her previous work experience and passion.
Mayflower specializes in Software, Document, e-Learning and Video Localization, Staffing Voiceover and subtitling.
Mayflower has ventured into international markets and has a vision to put India amongst the top linguistic service providers.
The exhibition area
The start- up expo truly gave it’s participants a great ground to network and build relationships. We wish all the best to the budding start-ups, businessmen and women and hope to have many many more big names in the years to come!
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