As part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, a week-long event, "Celebrating Innovation Ecosystem", to be hosted by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), is proposed to be held in January 2022 to encourage the startup ecosystem.

The key objectives of the Innovation Week will be to bring together the country’s key startups, entrepreneurs, investors, policy makers and other national/international stakeholders for a specially curated event on innovation and entrepreneurship and to exchange knowledge on best practices on nurturing startup ecosystems.

The initiative aspires to encourage and inspire the youth for innovation and entrepreneurship and develop capacities of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Innovation week would help provide market access opportunities to Startups and aid and abet the mobilization of global and domestic capital for investments into startups. The event is also set to showcase high-quality, high technology and frugal innovations from India.

Apart from deliberating on good practices from best of the ecosystems across the world, the sessions will be designed to showcase the spread and depth of entrepreneurship based on innovation in India. 

The proposed week-long event will comprise of specific themes - International engagements, market access and incubation support, funding support to startups etc. and will cover the different areas of the innovation lifecycle.

The week-long event will be attended by startups, incubators, accelerators, mentors, venture capital funds, investors, Government e-Market place (GeM), corporates, students, entrepreneurs, ecosystem enablers, government officials etc.

The event will feature a dedicated exhibition area for select startups (including DPIIT-recognised startups, National Startup Awards finalists, startups supported by Fund of Funds for startups, beneficiary startups of Government of India ministries/states). Mentoring and incubation support at the event will also be provided in collaboration with partnering agencies such as AIM NITI Aayog, DST, DBT, MeitY, DPIIT, Invest India, and more.

Multiple pitching sessions will be organized for Startups (NSA Finalists and select startups from the Startup India showcase) across various sectors and stages, providing them an opportunity to present their innovations to some of the key investors and corporates.

Corporates would be invited to set innovation labs at the exhibition area. It is proposed to have working-models of a few technologies displayed for attendees to experience the same. Areas/sessions will be allocated for attendees to experience innovative technologies like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), 3D printing, drones, artificial intelligence (AI) etc.

The corporate connect program will be held with an aim to provide an opportunity to the Startups to work with 5 leading corporates on providing innovative solutions to the specific problem statements. A panel of high-level domain experts, incubator, investor network etc. will shortlist the most promising set of startups through a robust process.

A regulatory roundtable will also be conducted under the chairmanship of the Minister of Commerce and Industry, inviting key officials from various Ministries & Government Departments, funds, other regulators and ecosystem players to discuss important regulatory issues which are extremely critical for the startup ecosystem.