The Vidarbha Industries Association (VIA) in association with Lemon Ideas celebrated the fifth edition of ‘National Entrepreneurs Day’ on Saturday. Chief Guest of the virtual felicitation ceremony was former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis who said, “India really needs to convert ideas into capital to leapfrog towards realizing our aim of becoming a $ 5 trillion economy.”

 

He urged the young entrepreneurs to work towards generating a new ecosystem that connects agriculture to marketing and helps farmers in making better decisions in a sustainable way with the help of technology. Sixteen startups were selected by eminent juries and awarded that used the COVID-19 pandemic to improve the lives of Nagpur people and the difficulties arising from it, as the opportunity to innovate during the adversity were honored for their contributions on National Entrepreneurs’ Day.

 

The entrepreneurs awarded during the ceremony include - Dr Chandrasekhar Gillurkar – Gillurkar Hospitals; Ajinkya Shinde - Invenzee Technologies; Kuldeep Wadaskar - 3not Robotics Pvt Ltd; Pratik Gadkar - Technoventor Innovations; Prerna Chandak - Global Shapers Community Nagpur (NGO), Shipra Dawar - ePsyclinic Healthcare Pvt Ltd; Harsh Lal- Medic fibers Pvt Ltd; Sriveera M - Aparoks Tech Pvt Ltd; Dr Deovrat Begde - CURO Biosciences Pvt Ltd; Madhur Rathi – Econiture; Shalom Kingston – Carbon Hubs Pvt Ltd; Shikha Verma Thutheja - Studio Uniforms.com; Aditya Asabe –Sanishooter; Abheejit Khandagale – Ekatra and Keshav Daga - PSI Healthcare. Guest of honour was Vishal Agrawal, Managing Director of RC Plasto, an entrepreneur, who took his family business to the next big level. He guided the entrepreneurs on good habits and surrounding to build the right acumen. Girdhari Mantri, President of Udyog Aghadi BJP Vidarbha, was prominently present. Suresh Rathi, President of VIA, emphasized the need for such recognition platforms and announced that VIA will continue to celebrate Entrepreneurs Day every year. He said VIA has been putting various efforts and programmes for nurturing startups and new entrepreneurs in collaboration with Lemon School of Entrepreneurship.

 

He applauded to the hosts for not only holding such events but also for playing an active role in mentoring ideas and turning them into commercially viable businesses. Elaborating the objective for selecting January 16; Mukesh Ashar from Lemon Ideas said that this was the day in 2016 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced benefits and schemes to promote the start-up ecosystem in India: ‘Start-up India Action Plan Launch’. A special honour was conferred upon Dr Chandrashekhar Gillurkar, whose Hospital was the only one from Maharashtra out of the twelve across the country for the clinical trial of India’s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine. Nitin Gujarathi from Lemon Ideas proposed a vote of thanks.