A National Startup Advisory Council has been formed which includes Byju's founder Byju Raveendran, and Snapdeal Co-founder Kunal Bahl, among others, who have been nominated as non-official members. The government has nominated several people representing various stakeholders such as founders of successful startups, veterans who have grown and scaled companies in India, persons capable of representing interest of investors into startups, as non-official members on the council.
The council will suggest measures to foster a culture of innovation amongst citizens and students in particular, promote innovation in all sectors of economy across the country, including semi-urban and rural areas among others.
It will also support creative and innovative ideas through incubation and research and development to transform them into valuable products or solutions, and facilitate public organisations to assimilate innovation with a view to improving public service delivery.
The council will make it easier to start, operate, and exit businesses by reducing regulatory compliances and costs, incentivise domestic capital for investments and provide access to global markets for Indian startups.
Other members on the advisory council include Lizzie Chapman of ZestMoney, Abhiraj Singh of Urban, Bhavish Aggarwal of Ola Cab, Kris Gopalakrishnan, of Axilor Ventures.
Chiefs of industry bodies are also part of the council, including Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh, and CII President Uday Kotak.
The term of the non-official members of the startup advisory council shall be for a period of two years.
The full list of members is as follows: 1. Byju Raveendran, Byju’s
2. Shradha Sharma, YourStory
3. Lizzie Chapman, ZestMoney
4. Abhiraj Singh, Urban Company
5. Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal
6. Deepak Garg, Rivigo Service
7. Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola Cab
8. Krishna Kumar, Cropln
9. Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Info Edge India
10. Sridhar Vembu, Zoho Corp
11. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Axilor Ventures
12. Dr Subba Rao Pavuluri, Anath Technologies
13. Mohandas Pai, Aarin Capital Partners
14. Gopal Srinivasan, TVS Capital Funds Limited
15. Ramesh Byrapaneni, Endiya Partners
16. Prashant Prakash, Accel
17. Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital
18. Manoj Kohli, Softbank India
19. Rajan Anandan, Sequoia Capital India
20. Amitabha Bandyopadhyay SIIC, IIT Kanpur
21. Kunal Upadhayaya, CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad
22. Renuka Ramnath, Indian Private Equity & VentureCapital Association
23. Venkatesh Shukla, The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE)
24. Sharad Sharma, Indian Software Product Industry RoundTable (iSpirit).
25. Debjani Ghosh, National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM)
26. Uday Kotak, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)
27. Vineet Agarwal, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM)
28. Uday Shankar, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI)
With IANS inputs