Airports Authority of India organised the Startup Conclave under the Startup initiative “Innovate for Airports” on February 28, 2019 at the Airports Authority of India Officer`s Institute. AAI developed its Startup Policy jointly in conjunction with Startup India Team under Invest India and the same released recently by Shri. Suresh Prabhu, the Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry & Civil Aviation during the Global Aviation Summit in Mumbai
During the event, eight Startups were awarded the “Letter of Consent” under this initiative by Pradeep Singh Kharola, Secretary,Civil Aviation and Guruprasad Mohapatra, Chairman AAI. These Startups, selected out of the 275 valid responses, will now work in close coordination with the 10 notified “Champion Airports” all over the country where they would do the testing of their products directly at the airport.
On this occasion, Suresh Prabhu, the Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry & Civil Aviation addressed the startups present through a video message. While congratulating the participants, he emphasized that the “Growth in the aviation sector depends upon the innovation, new ideas and new ideas can be introduced into the ecosystem by involving Startup community thinking differently and giving solutions to solve the issues of the aviation sector.” He assured that the Government is taking number of measures to ensure that the Startup community continues to grow in a very significant way”.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) launched its Startup policy to lays down the guidelines to help AAI as well as startups in relevant domains interact with one another. Through a reward and recognition matrix, it lists out steps towards inculcating a culture of innovation within AAI as well as on boardingstartups to drive innovation at airports. This will ultimately help the airports across India become future-ready.
While delivering the welcome address, Guruprasad Mohapatra, Chairman AAI expressed his delight and said that “Startup India, launched on January 16, 2016 by Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, set-up under Invest India, is a flagship initiative of the Government of India and is intended to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and Startups in the country.”
Mohapatra also stressed that AAI has come up with several key incentives and reforms for the startups in its policy document. One of the key initiatives includes financial funding of up to Rs. 2 crores by AAI for the first time startups, for customising their existing ideas/ products to the needs of the airports. AAI has also brought up procurement reforms to procure products from the startups. Chairman, AAI expressed confidence and stated that “this initiative will augment our efforts to make our airports world -class, support our brilliant entrepreneurs to solve challenges at airports and create high value jobs for the aspiring youth of the ‘New India’.”