Six Indian enterprises present pitches in Dubai

Leveraging the UAE’s start-up eco system, at least six India-based businesses pitched their cases on Tuesday as they looked to raise funds for their nascent enterprises as part of Elevate Season II, Special Pitching Session VI.

The Elevate Pitching Series, organised by the Consulate General of India, Dubai aims at providing a platform to identify fundable start-ups in various sectors to the investors and business partners in the Middle East and other countries.

Till now, 25 sessions of Elevate have been conducted in Dubai. The pitching series has so far showcased over 700 start-ups, majorly from India and the UAE.

The special pitching session for the ‘Winners of National Startup Awards 2022’ witnessed several roadmaps from cofounders of these startups who hailed from various sectors including Media & Entertainment, Ed-Tech, Logistics, Fintech and Health & Wellness among others.

The National Start-up Awards by Start-up India seek to recognise and reward outstanding startups and ecosystem enablers building innovative products or solutions and scalable enterprises. These annual awards recognise solutions that with high potential of employment generation or wealth creation, demonstrating measurable social impact.

The Session VI of Season II hosted a special guest, Padmaja Ruparel, Co-Founder, Indian Angel Network (IAN). She is a member of the Government’s NEAC, the National Expert Advisory Committee on Innovation, Incubation and Technology Entrepreneurship.

Explaining his case to the attendees of the event, Parag Gulhane of MakerInMe Technologies, Bengaluru, India said: “We need to build a generation of problem solvers. The right time to build this is from school education. While STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education is important, it is difficult to adopt both for institutions and students as they face various challenges while adopting it. Some of them involve a steep learning curve with a lot of theoretical knowledge to gain. There is no curriculum for teachers to follow. Therefore we are looking to offer a complete STEM solution that constitutes a world-class product, structured curriculum developed around it. Every school wants to get in to the STEM space but there is no curriculum around it.”

The entrepreneurship ecosystem in the UAE has been greatly enhanced through several decisive measures and decisions taken at the federal level, which include allowing full foreign ownership of companies in all activities, providing golden visas for entrepreneurs, in addition to dozens of promising advantages and incentives.

Indian entrepreneurs who presented their business ideas to the global investors not only elucidated on their work models but also expressed their desire to collaborate with the UAE, which is known for providing a world-class environment that supports and regulates the entrepreneurship sector to incubate start-ups.

Gulhane adds, “The idea is to extend it to the UAE and elsewhere. So, we are looking to roll out education services in schools.”

Shedding light on his enterprise that focuses on mobilising eligible candidates and empowering them with right skills, Sameer Joshi from Trascender Services Pvt Ltd Mumbai India said: “We are into developing the industry-based skills development programme specifically for healthcare sector. We look at creating a paramedic workforce through existing the hospital base — a trained workforce created by the hospitals for the hospitals to serve patients. We are also looking to collaborate with people in Dubai.”

As India assumes the Presidency of the G20, and start-ups become the engine for innovation-fueled economic recovery, the nation is also dedicating a group to start-ups called “Start-up 20”.

Sharing some India-related statistics, Joshi said: “1.8 million candidates registered for the last medical entrance examination held in July 2022 [in India]. Only 100,000 seats are available. So, the balance 1.7 million candidates went for other UG programmes. After their degree graduation, they are not engaged in meaningful employment. On the other side, especially in the healthcare sector industry — i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary service providers — there is a lack of skilled workforce to cater to patient services. In India, there is a huge shortage of 0.7 million of allied health professionals. So, from a market perspective, there is a huge potential of available supply of young people who are looking out for employment and on demand side there is acute shortage of skilled and certified workforce across Healthcare service providers.”

Another participant COGOS Technologies Pvt Ltd -Sector - Logistics Tech shed light on how it uses integrated advanced sensors, IoT technology, and third-party applications to help truckers plan, execute, and control the transportation and storage of goods while providing a clear view of the fleet in real time.

Presenting his strategy while aspiring to garner audience interest in his business, Sandeep Verma of Filmboard Movie Technologies, Mumbai, said: “The habits of the audience have moved away from theatrical to OTT platforms. People are spending a greater number of hours watching on OTT platforms than going to the theatre. So, there is higher consumption and therefore the demand is also higher. We also knew that due to OTT platforms, there will be a rationalisation of cost and financial accountability. I think this is going to lead to more efficiency. But there will be some shakeup that will happen of the older order. We are far behind the technology given the ideas that we have. So, technology upgradation is important. But it’s a B2B thing so for it to launch and get adopted we need a push.”

• Business