At the beginning of the year when we wrote down our thoughts in the 2016 Annual Letter about aspects such as break away from copy paste entrepreneurship, innovation bridge with Silicon Valley, progress on open market policies, etc. we thought we will score a few wins in the year. The pace of progress has surprised us. In many areas we have exceeded our best expectations.
The last few months have been particularly hectic for iSPIRT. Some of the wonderful work of iSPIRTers is captured in the four events that took place in the last five weeks:
#PNgrowth, Nov 25th – 28th: This intense 3-day bootcamp is grooming the future category leaders of our Software Product Industry. This was our second PNgrowth bootcamp this year. Read about it in Avinash’s evocative blogpost: Behind the scenes of $2 billion Indian startup movie #PNgrowth.
Startup Bridge India, Dec 2nd: This was our first roadshow in Silicon Valley and was done with TiE SV and Stanford University. We sought out strategic partners for 28 startups that traveled from India. This was organized by our M&A Connect Program, which is now led by Rajan. Read about the matchmaking event in a descriptive blogpost by Roxna: Startup Bridge India: Breaking Down Borders, Barriers and BS.
InnoFest #IndiaInnovates, Dec 8th: We are slowly and steadily building a community of hardware product innovators to cater to the needs of 100m families in ‘India 2’ (beyond metro). Financial inclusion will soon allow them to improve their lives using Indian products. Prathibha, the anchor volunteer behind InnoFest, captures the mood in her blogpost: InnoFest 2016 – Innovation celebrated in Bangalore, and how…
FinTech Leapfrog Council, Dec 16th: India is set to leapfrog the rest of the world in financial inclusion driven by India Stack. The FTLC program combines global best practices with a home-grown, world-class architecture for financial inclusion, and helps incumbent Indian banks create a “leapfrog roadmap” for their organizations. Venky, the anchor volunteer driving this initiative, describes the thinking behind FTLC in his blogpost: A Leapfrog moment for Indian Banking.
We are ending the year on a high note!
Next year will be a busy one for us given market inflections and the heightened expectations from us. This presents iSPIRT and each of us with a unique opportunity to contribute and make a difference.
With loads of best wishes for 2017 from all of us volunteers at iSPIRT.
