By Paving the way for strong collaborations and hefty investment for the state’s startup ecosystem, the country’s flagship startup festival Huddle Global 2024, organized by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), concluded at the scenic Kovalam Beach near here today.
The November 28-30 event featured over 200 cross-sector interactions and offered significant networking opportunities, product launch, promising collaborations, particularly between corporates such as Vedanta, L&T, Bosch, and future engagements with corporates getting sorted.
Chief Minister Shri Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the three-day event held at Leela Raviz Kovalam.
The speakers on the final day included Dr Shashi Tharoor, MP and historian and writer William Dalrymple while state Finance Minister Shri K N Balagopal attended the roundtable on various policy interventions and support systems to accelerate the startup ecosystem.
Shri Balagopal interacted with major investors, HNIs and stakeholders on the occasion and visited the Huddle Global 2024 expo, featuring cutting-edge solutions and products, including value-added tribal products and healthy food items showcased by various startups.
Mr Panneerselvam Madanagopal, CEO, MeitY Startup Hub was the chief guest at the valedictory function where Dr Rathan U Kelkar, Secretary, Electronics & IT, Govt. of Kerala, and Mr Anoop Ambika, CEO, KSUM were also present.
Huddle Global 2024 featured 10,000-plus delegates, more than 250 investment connects, 300-plus mentoring sessions, 1000-plus business connects for startups, over 250 corporate and government connects, and 10 MoUs global and national partnerships, unveiling of Emerging Technology Hub Report and launch of Startup Infinity. There were 15 products launch at the event which had 200-plus speakers and expo of 100-plus startups. Around 300 women entrepreneurs attended the event, showcasing the state’s fast-growing startup ecosystem.
KSUM announced the winners of the ‘Branding Challenge 2.0,’ organized for creating branding strategies for impactful food technologies developed by reputed institutions across the country, at the valedictory session.
Selected food technologies from nine R&D institutions were showcased before designers to come up with their branding insights. The winners were given away a prize money of Rs 10,000 each along with the ‘Huddle Global Designers Award 2024’.
The winners of Branding Challenge 2.0: Ms. Agna John (freelance designer), Mr. Muhammed Shafeeq (professional designer), Mr. Adarsh Mohan K S (Government Engineering College, Ramavarmapuram), Ms. Adhila Shaireen (College of Architecture, Thiruvananthapuram), Mr. Roshan MR (professional designer), Ms. Fathimath Nesila P P (freelance designer), Mr. Fahad Salim (Yeldo Mar Baselios College School of Media and Design, Kothamangalam), Mr. Anoop Kumar V, (freelance designer) and Mr. Sreehari K N (freelance designer).
At the closing ceremony, KSUM also announced the selected nine startups under its ‘WE Start Pre-Incubation Programme’ that supports 100 women-led startups in their startup journeys. These nine outstanding startups were selected from the second cohort of 50 startups that are at the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage. The We Start Cohort-2 startups are 70mm Media Village by Ms Shibina Elayil, Anemone Naturals by Deepa P K, BeeMe Services by Beena Melbin, Coexistence by Meera R, P4K by Poojas Kanther, Petrichor Reforms By Gouthame A and Anjana Joseph, Vivify Store by Athira S, Utpala Biotech Pvt Ltd by Amritha and Urkidsparty by Rose Manacherry.
Besides, certificates were distributed to women researchers, who have successfully completed KSUM’s ‘Women Research and Innovation Programme’ organized in partnership with Sahrdaya College of Engineering & Technology. The researchers completed their one year cohort and concluded the programme through a ‘DEMO Day’ at Huddle Global 2024.
The awarded researchers are Ms. Reshma Jose, Asst. Professor, Sahrdaya College of Engineering and Technology; Ms. Vidya Mohanan, Ph.D Scholar, ICAR –CIFT; Dr. Megha P M, Founder, Shelt Innovation; Dr. Sruthi K P, Founder, B Masters Naturals; Dr. Bindiya ES, Post Doctoral Fellow, Dept. of Biotechnology, CUSAT; Dr. Jeethu Raveendran, Post Doctoral Fellow, IIT Palakkad; and Dr. Parvathy Narayanan, PG Student, KMCT Dental College.
The ‘Close the Deal’ corporate-startup matching event, held on the second day of Huddle Global 2024, featured leading organizations including L&T Digital Energy Solutions, Yes Bank, HDFC Bank, Bosch, Vedanta Spark, Saint Gobain, IDFC First Bank, NABARD, and DBS Bank. Startups presented their solutions to the attended corporate’s problem statements and the event created a platform for valuable collaborations.
Experts from reputed organizations such as Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, CareStack, Cryon, ANB Legal, NABARD, Wadhwani Foundation, Hero MotoCorp, Kerala Product Hunt, Successbrew, Bank of Baroda and others led these sessions.
KSUM is the nodal agency of the Kerala Government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.
