Incubating entrepreneurship: BSE's Zone Startups Initiative

After being at the forefront for capital formation through various financial channels and instruments like Mutal Funds, Offer for Sales, SME Exchange and the Institutional Trading Platform, the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE)  is now also providing start-ups with resources to kick off their business. The initiative is a venture incubator called Zone Startups in collaboration with Canada's Ryerson University and aims at guiding budding entrepreneurs in their efforts to convert their idea into business.  BSE CEO Ashish Chauhan elaborates further on this.

Encouraging the spirit of entrepreneurship: The idea of Zone Startups.

Our wholly owned subsidiary BSE Institute Limited has been working with global institutions in creating offerings to help address the aspirations of the youth.  We studied the initiatives of one of our collaborating universities Ryerson University from Ontario, Canada. Ryerson has been running the Digital Media Zone (DMZ) its, flagship program in Toronto; since 2010 & incubated over 150 start-ups. DMZ is ranked #1 university led start-up incubator in Canada, #1 in North America, and #2 globally by the University Incubator Network. We found it a very interesting model and we decided to setup, Zone Startups India with the objective of encouraging and driving entrepreneurship, and helping startups, by providing them mentorship, knowledge and skills, access to the corporate network and connect with investors.

Aiming to incubate a wide range of startups.

We are focusing on scalable, technology start-ups (both enterprise and consumer)  from all domains ranging from, health care, to payment gateways to data analytics. We focus on validating early stage technology by focussing on early acquisition of customers.

Also read: Stanford's Amy Wilkinson talks about the creator's code to startups

Encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit: Ashish Chauhan, CEO, BSE

The importance of the startup revolution for women.

Women may be underrepresented throughout the tech sector, but they're still building some incredible start-ups, apps, and products. In Zone Start-up’s India we have some very bright young women entrepreneurs working in diverse areas like child care, data Analytics and health.

Focusing on startups by women.

We are working at building a stronger startup ecosystem by redefining the role of women in technology and providing young female entrepreneurs with mentorship and extended opportunities to drive investments and funds to their business.

Also read: 10 most popular startups led by women in India

The startup movement's impact on India's business landscape.

Firstly, the startup movement is providing many first generation entrepreneurs the guidance and support to realize their of setting up their own enterprise.

Secondly, interesting models like the innovation on hire that has been pioneered by our startup zone, is providing an opportunity for large business houses to outsource business problems to stirrups who now work on it and develop efficient, cost effective, solutions using cutting edge technologies.

Thirdly, and most importantly it is contributing in a major way to job creation. With India becoming the youngest nation in the world, this is truly the need of the hour.

Woman power: Their contribution to the economy.

Women have always been known for their ability to make the optimum use of limited resources to achieve the desired outcome at low costs. The startup movement is providing a platform for women to use this ability on a much larger scale to address a wide range of business problems and thus contribute to nation building activities in a big way.