Key Opinions of Thought leaders from TiEcon Delhi (Day 1-3)

The TiECon conducted one of the biggest Entrepreneurial Event of 2021. The event saw the participation of various world leaders. According to the event organisers, the event aims to focus on the unprecedented opportunities that will arise over the next several years for entrepreneurs. Thus, the event saw 100+ Global Speakers and over 100 leading investors.

Key Takeaways from TiECon

Piyush Goyal

In his opening note, Minister Piyush Goyal stated that Invest India will pioneer a dedicated helpdesk for startups. “It will act as a bridge and can work across ministries to sort out queries which startups may have,” he said. On the role of the NSAC, he said that the council will act as a bridge between policy-makers and startups. Thus, on a real-time basis, it will support startups to succeed. On the relevance of Ease of Doing Business scores (World Bank) for SMEs, Midsize companies and startups, Piyush Goyal commented, “We’ve had state-level rankings and now will go at the district level to rank different stakeholders and our ministry is working in close coordination with policymakers to ensure on-the-ground the impact is felt by entrepreneurs, startups and small business.”

He ended his conversation by appealing to all Indian business people to contribute to early-stage startups which are not getting enough capital. He requested them to create a focused fund for example Rs 10000 cr fund which will be professionally run and managed devoid of all Government interference.

Sameer Samat, VP Android and Google Play, Google

Sameer Samat, in his key note said, “Innovation in the creation of apps is a fast growing space. It has an increasing number of apps being developed in healthcare, education and all tech enabled sectors. As per a recent report, more than 500 million dollars on apps and games in India have been spent. This is a clear indication of how the next global app internet giants are readying to emerge from our very own ecosystem.” On Google's commitment to connect billions of Indians and future plans, he said, “ We are focused on making Android available on entry level phones. Our plans in next 5 years include bringing affordability with quality phones, our Google Friendly Digitisation Fund to partner with local businesses, build on Internet connected devices specifically starting with TV, investments in wellness sector apps,safe and secure environment and increased focus on Google for Startups accelerator.”

Digital Transformation

Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft, said, “This pandemic has fundamentally accelerated what I thought will be a decade long process of digital transformation. What we were going to think in 2030 is probably going to be true in 2025 because digital technology is becoming core to both how we think about resilience and business continuity.” On a similar note, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Group CEO, Flipkart Group said “The pandemic has completely changed how people previously integrated with technology. At Flipkart, we are focused on accelerating innovation to meet the increasing need of consumers through multilingual interfaces, digital payments, voice-enabled search and many other facets like this. With an increased interaction with technology, ecommerce was able to help keep consumption, manufacturing and distribution alive by preventing the economy from shutting down completely. Therefore, what we see now is that disruption in retail, through digital transformation is already a reality.”

EdTech

“The lockdown fuelled by the pandemic proved to be a great impetus to online education in India. Our biggest challenge was how to bring screen learning into the mainstream but this period led people to take up online education as active learners. We saw our classrooms changing for the first time in 100 years, and new teaching jobs being created on various platforms,” shared Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, Byju’s.

“Today, due to the accelerated pace of digitisation in education, re-entering the workforce is no longer a challenge for women and therefore, we feel that we are creating new teachers for the world. India has a huge talent pool waiting to be tapped into,” he added.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Gagan Singh, Country President & MD - AstraZeneca Pharma India Ltd, “The supply of vaccines for COVID-19 may meet up or even outstrip the demand in India by the third quarter of this year, given the number of vaccines being developed in the country and its capacity.”

Talking about the safety and efficacy of the company's vaccine, Singh added, “For any vaccine to be meaningful in the current pandemic, it has to be made available broadly, equitably and timely. In the month of December, Lancet enabled us to share a full disclosure of the Oxford programme interim analysis. The results clearly showed that the vaccine is effective against COVID-19, and in particular with no severe infection and no hospitalisations in the vaccine group. That is why AstraZeneca globally went around having supply agreements in place towards 3 billion doses covering 160 countries and more importantly at no profit during the pandemic.”

Meena Ganesh, CEO & MD, Portea Medical said, “Technology plays a vital role in healthcare and both of them go hand in hand. 300000 covid patients were cured at home in a period of 9 months by Portea. Only 2.5% were shifted to hospital. Remote medical care has been helping in saving public funds.”

Budget 2021

On expectations from Budget 2021, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO, OYO Hotels & Homes said, “Reforms is the one big word that every entrepreneur, every operator in this country is expecting specifically, from a travel and tourism fraternity perspective. It is the most impacted and has the capability to recover quickly as it has small businesses in this segment. Hence, it's crucial for the small businesses to get all types of motivation and help. We have already started seeing a lot of support coming in from various support programs, and we hope for more.”