NRL launches start-up initiative

Guwahati: Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) on Tuesday launched its start-up initiative to foster an entrepreneurial culture in the Northeast region. The initiative, IDEATION 2017, aims to focus on prospective entrepreneuers from the region by selecting promising ideas and assisting them to grow, NRL’s Managing Director P Padmanabhan said during the launch. The initiative is in line with NRL’s Corporate Vision and Mission of providing an impetus to the development of the region, he said. It is also in line with the Centre’s ambitious Start-up India Mission which fosters to build a start-up ecosystem in the country. IDEATION website featuring details of the scheme and other details was also launched on the occasion. The website would also facilitate online submission of start up ideas till August 15, 2017. To carry forward the initiative, IDEATION 2017 contest has been announced for selection of innovative ideas in the domain of technology, product innovation and business process improvement. The three categories identified for the contest include ideas requiring seed funding for incubation to make it ready for commercialization for which an amount of Rs 10 crore has been earmarked. In the second category, commercially viable innovation requiring early stage funding and in the third category funding for young start-ups would be scaled up. The IDEATION launch was attended by hundreds of budding entrepreneurs representing academic institutions like IIT Guwahati, Assam Engineering College, entrepreneurs registered under MSME and local start up clusters viz. Assam Start-up and NE8X. (PTI)