Start-Ups Incubated By DST Generated 65,864 Jobs, Created Around Rs 27,262 Crore Wealth

Start-ups incubated by the Department of Science and Technology generated 65,864 jobs as cumulative direct employment and created wealth of Rs 27,262 crores from 2014-19, according to a report launched by the DST this week. The report on the journey of the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board in catalysing innovation, entrepreneurship, and incubation was launched by DST secretary Ashutosh Sharma at an online programme earlier this week, a statement by the DST said. This activation process included a range of measures like establishment of a network of technology business incubators, scouting innovations, supporting ideas to prototypes, enabling transition from being innovators to start-ups, provision of timely seed funding to the incubated start-ups, and support to scale up the start-ups through focused mentorship, partnerships, and networks. The collective strength and power of NIDHI program, the DST’s incubator network and its start-ups was tested successfully during the COVID-19 pandemic through the Centre for Augmenting WAR with COVID-19 Health Crisis program by supporting various solutions to resolve the crisis, it added. The nurturing of 3,681 start-ups under incubation through the network of 153 incubators created by DST, generation of 1,992 intellectual property has been reported.