The Prime Minister Narendra Modi government is looking at facilitating industry mentorship and market access to India’s technology, space and telecommunications startups during their innovation and prowess showcase at the prestigious India International Science Festival (IISF) 2025, a senior minister said. <\/p>\n
“This (IISF) allows us to identify potential takers for those (startups) who have already started some kind of a venture, or they are toying with an idea. They would have an opportunity to identify mentors for themselves. Industry or market linkage is very important,” Minister of State for Space, Earth Sciences, and Science & Technology Jitendra Singh told ET. <\/p>\n
Further, Singh said that the government has been advocating substantial industry connect, and that, according to him, would be the correct approach since a startup couldn’t sustain in isolation. <\/p>\n
“So, startups can also find handholders from the industry representatives, who can sustain their project later on,” he added.<\/p>\n
In H1 2025, India’s startup ecosystem has strengthened its positioning, ranking third worldwide.<\/p>\n
The number of startups has grown from nearly a couple of hundred in 2014-2015 to as many as 1,59,157 in nearly 10 years, as per the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). <\/p>\n
The country’s startup sector has created nearly 17.28 lakh jobs between 2016 and 2024.
\nIn June 2016, the Union Cabinet approved the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) with a corpus of \u20b910,000 crore, as a part of the Startup India action plan.<\/p>\n
The country’s vibrant and diversified startup base across key sectors such as technology, healthcare, space, telecommunications, and agriculture is backed by a various government initiatives, such as access to tax benefits, easier compliance, and fast-track intellectual property rights (IPR).<\/p>\n
Singh said that the mega festival offers a platform for startups for formal as well as informal networking, and that would eventually offer a fillip to the ecosystem. <\/p>\n
“We will use this opportunity to identify potential innovators among youngsters. We have dedicated programs, targeting students, right from class 8th, and have dedicated schemes for girl students from class 9 to class 12th, called Vigyan Jyoti,” the minister said. <\/p>\n
This year, the Ministry of Earth Sciences is organising a four-day ambitious science carnival from December 6 to 9, 2025, with the theme — ‘Vigyan Se Samruddhi for Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (Prosperity through Science for Self-Reliant India).<\/p>\n
“If we have to be Atmanirbhar, we have to be prosperous enough. We need to have a self-sufficient ecosystem to be Atmanirbhar. And for that, the only way forward is through the medium of technology and innovation,” he added.<\/p>\n
Following other regions across the country, the government is hosting an international science festival in Panchkula, this year. It is expected to witness participation from nearly 200 country’s ace academic institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).<\/p>\n
Following multiple policy initiatives in high-growth areas and significant potential domestically, the Centre is also eyeing to attract Indians living abroad in sunshine sectors.<\/p>\n
The government has also started a special scheme, Vaibhav (Vaishvik Bharatiya Vaigyanik) fellowship, a program for scientists of Indian origin.<\/p>\n
“So we facilitate their (Indian diaspora) return, arrange a three-year project for them, facilitate tie up with one of the major institutes, and also find a host faculty for them.”<\/p>\n
Early this month, the Department of Science & Technology hosted a three-day merging Science Technology Innovation Conclave (ESTIC).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi government is looking at facilitating industry mentorship and market access to India’s technology, space and telecommunications startups during their innovation and prowess showcase at the prestigious India International Science Festival (IISF) 2025, a senior minister said. “This (IISF) allows us to identify potential takers for those (startups) who have already started some kind of a venture, or they are toying with an idea. They would have an opportunity to identify mentors for themselves. Industry or market linkage is very important,” Minister of State for Space, Earth Sciences, and Science & Technology Jitendra Singh told ET. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-975789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}