India can bring SCO countries together to produce startup leaders, unicorns: DPIIT secy

India can meaningfully contribute in bringing together the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) countries to produce startup leaders and unicorns, industry secretary Anurag Jain said on Wednesday.

Emphasising that new India is evolving as a job creator rather than a job creator, he said the SCO platform will help in innovation and cross-border learnings and the number of unicorns went up to three per month from two per month.

“Member states need to come together and share their experiences and learnings while developing a startup culture and co-create a vibrant start-up community in Asia and the global platform. India can meaningfully contribute in bringing together the SCO countries to produce startup leaders and unicorns,” Jain said at the second edition of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Startup Forum organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in partnership with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).


Jain said that the SCO is an important mechanism for shaping regional policies and ensuring security and sustainable development, and the startup forum aims to achieve the objectives of empowering local startup ecosystems in member states, providing value to startups through knowledge sharing workshops, enabling access to investors and corporates, and exchange best practices.

“Headwinds created by Covid-19 in the ecosystem will have a lasting impact on the ecological, geopolitical, socio-economic and health across the world,” Jain said, adding that the pandemic has created a sense of oneness in the global community and most countries’ startup ecosystem has contributed to combat the challenge posed by Covid-19.