India ranks 3rd globally when it comes to the start-up ecosystem and also in terms of number of Unicorns said the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh while delivering keynote address at ‘DST StartUp Utsav’ at Dr Ambedkar International Centre.
As per the latest government data, there are currently 105 unicorns, out of which 44 were formed in 2021 and 19 in 2022.
Furthermore, Dr Singh said India has increased the Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) more than three times in the last few years. India has over 5 lakh R&D personnel, the number that grown by almost 40-50 percent in the last 8 years.
The participation of women in extramural R&D has also doubled and now India occupies 3rd rank in terms of number of PhDs awarded in Science and Engineering (S&E) after the USA and China. With the shifting global powers and technology becoming the epicentre of international engagements and rulemaking, India is living up to global benchmarks.
He referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s launch of StartUp India initiative in 2015. “India in its 75th year of Independence is now home to as many as 75,000 startups,” said Dr Singh.
He pointed out that India’s startups today are not limited to only metros or big cities and added that interestingly 49 percent of the start-ups are from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. “We have startups emerging in the fields like IT, agriculture, aviation, education, energy, health and space sectors,” added Dr Singh.
He mentioned that India also ranks third among the most attractive investment destinations for technology transactions in the world as it has a strong focus on science and technology. The country is among the topmost countries in the world in the field of scientific research, positioned as one of the top 5 nations in the field for space exploration and also actively engaged in emerging technologies such as quantum technologies and artificial intelligence among others.
According to the minister India has created a massive jump in its global ranking of Global Innovation Index (GII) from 81st in the year 2015 to 46th in 2021 among 130 economies of the world. The country now ranks 2nd among 34 lower middle-income economies and 1st among 10 Central and Southern Asian economies in terms of GII. The consistent improvement in the GII ranking is owing to the immense knowledge capital, the vibrant start-up ecosystem, and some outstanding work done by the public and private research organisations.
Dr. S Chandrasekhar, Secretary, Department of Science & Technology said, “India in recent 7-8 years made some unprecedented progress in STI areas and there has been a significant rise in the country’s overall performance in terms of a number of publications (globally ranked 3rd now from 6th in 2013 based on National Science Foundation database), patents (globally ranked 9th in terms of resident patent filing) and quality of research publications (globally ranked 9th now from 13th in 2013) during the last 7 years. The NIDHI program of DST has swiftly processed the much-needed support to start-ups, catalysing the active support of Business Incubators and other business support providers.”
The event also 75 impactful incubated startups supported under NIDHI from across the country from various sectors exhibiting in 50 physical as well as 25 digital mode in the DST Startup Expo (5 Startups from NM-ICPS Technology Innovation Hubs were also part of 50 Stalls of Startups).
