Overwhelming Response To Startup Festival In Madurai

Madurai: Hundreds of youngsters and students thronged Tamukkam grounds for the two-day Startup Festivalwhich commenced on Saturday.
Startup TN Mission, under the state MSMEs department, organizes the festival to showcase the startups in the state and promote youngsters towards startups by sensitizing them about the state govt schemes for the startups.
Secretary to state govt, MSME Archana Patnaik, Madurai collector MS Sangeetha, and Madurai MP Su Venkatesan addressed the inaugural event.
Addressing reporters after the inaugural, Venkatesan said that Tamil Nadu, which was behind the startup culture three years back, has scaled up in a very big way with 9,000 startups in the state. Moreover, 25% of startups are run by women entrepreneurs, which is a big achievement.
“Startups are a big opportunity and platform for young entrepreneursand the state govt is facilitating startups. Tamil Nadu, with 12 major cities and rich human resources, is very conducive to startup culture. Though Madurai is behind Chennai and Coimbatore, 500 startups in the city is a significant growth,” added the MP.
Startup TN mission director Sivarajah Ramanathan said that there were only 76 startups in Madurai three years ago, and the number has increased to 521.
“The response to the Startup Festival is overwhelming, with 12,000 registrations. More than 1,500 people are attending the knowledge sessions. As many as 150 startups across the state are displaying their products in the festival,” he said.
The knowledge sessions were very useful and motivating, said the participants. T Saran from Namakkal, who traveled to Madurai, said that he could learn some techniques about how startups and the incubators available for startup ideas in Tamil Nadu.