In yet another of its initiatives centered on furthering innovation within the city of Vadodara and the State of Gujarat, Parul University successfully put together another of its grand start-up boosting events. Vadodara Start-up festival, one of the University’s flagship events designed to provide a strategic platform for creating an entrepreneurship ecosystem in and around Vadodara and the State of Gujarat. This year’s festival marked the second edition of this event from the date of its inception in 2019, and this year it once again lived up to its mark of providing the most engaging and effective platform for the young entrepreneurs of Parul University and the rest of the Nation. This 3-day festival successfully brought together some of the most prominent personalities within the public, corporate and industrial sectors, including the First Woman IPS Officer Honourable Dr. Kiran Bedi, Former Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, Shri. Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Director – Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Padma Bhushan Shri. Ajai Chowdhry, Founder of HCL, amongst others.
This virtual gathering of minds created the most ideal ecosystem for nurturing and shaping the thousands of budding entrepreneurs who attended this festival, towards a path of start-up success. With the ever-growing trends in the scope of Industry 4.0, coupled with the numerous socio-economic challenges, it is through platforms such as Parul University’s Vadodara Start-Up Festival where students have had the opportunity to engage in mainstream dialogues and take proactive measures towards developing effective business solutions. This festival was composed of various event tracks which include Key Strategic Input Session For Start-ups, Start-up Pitching Sessions, Industry Start-up Connect, Start-up Expo, amongst numerous sessions. Through such a multitude of activities, the student attendees bagged the golden opportunity of interacting with some of the eminent experts from the industry and gained enriching firsthand insights from their experiences in the field.
With over 20,540 attendees, 30 esteemed speakers, 25 sessions, and over 50 start-ups mentoring sessions, Vadodara Start-Up Festival successfully imparted within the students a culture of business innovation while at the same time skyrocketing the ideas of many. In addition, some of the eminent speakers of this occasion included Shri. Nitesh Patel, Head Administration – Hitachi ABB Power Grids, Sumeet Kabra, Director, RR Global, Saurabh Jain “Ex VP Paytm, Founder Fun2do Labs”, Varad Rajan Krishna, Co-founder, 100 Open Startups, Dr. Vipin Kumar, Chief Innovation Officer / Director, National Innovation Foundation, GoI, Prahsant Gade, Inani Foundation, Bhavin Bhagat Co-founder & CEO, India Biz For Sale, Vineet Parikh, Managing Director, Pima Controls Pvt. Ltd., Ashok G., CEO & Co-Founder, STARTUP360, Dr. Suresh Nair, CEO – Design Alpha, Tarun Krishnamurthy, Managing Partner, Co-Founder – Anzen Technology, amongst others.
This year’s edition of the Vadodara Start-Up Festival was held in line with the national agenda for further Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat, thus allowing the young generation to make active contributions to the overall development of the nation. Parul University’s Entrepreneurship Development Centre has been creating such unique platforms with the goal and objective of shaping a start-up culture within the University’s campus, the State of Gujarat, and the Nation of India. “ I cannot imagine a time where entrepreneurship has become a pressing matter more than today, and seeing our students and the many students around India take part in this Start-up festival is, by all means, a matter of great pride. I am more than confident that in the time to come, we shall continue seeing such strides of entrepreneurship which move in line with the national agenda for innovation”, said Parul University’s President, Dr. Devanshu J Patel.
