Investors Meet and Convocation ceremony held for WASH Youth Entrepreneurs in Bhubaneswar
By Sukanta Kumar Mohanty
Bhubaneswar, Dec. 14; UNICEF and PANTISS jointly organized an Investors Meet and convocation ceremony on Tuesday for WASH Entrepreneurs in Bhubaneswar.
In this programme, 20 youth entrepreneurs are being awarded certificates of merits under the Odisha WASHpreneur fellowship programme 2022. The objective of this programme is to attract more and more investors to get their support for the youth WASHpreneur or cohorts to make their dream into reality.
Speaking on the occasion Sipra Saxena, Officer-In-Charge and WASH specialist, UNICEF Odisha Said “the WASHpreneurs are going to start a new social revolution through their vibrant enterprises. Their social enterprises are going to create a significant impact on water, sanitation, hygiene, and climate change.
“This WASH Entrepreneur fellowship is one of its kind in the country with the objective to create more and more youth entrepreneurs who will work on the theme revolving around WASH(water, sanitation, and Hygiene)it will attract more and more youth to become an entrepreneur”. Said Stalin Nayak, CEO, PANTISS.
At the outset, Mr Pradyumna Kumar Chaudhary, Deputy General Manager, SIDBI, Odisha stated that youths with immense interest are best suited to becoming entrepreneurs in the WASH domain. With this in mind, Odisha WASHpereneur fellowship has created a new Horizon. These enterprises brought innovations, state of art, technology, and on-ground solutions.
In this fellowship programme the WASHpreneurs have gone through a nine-month-long, residential capacity-building training at Bhubaneswar. They learned to create a business model canvas, detailed project report, and business metric analysis across the program.
Over the past year, the Odisha WASHpreneur fellowship has reached out to thousands of youths through online orientation and several physical meetings were organised in ITI skill development centers, polytechnics, Jana Skihya Sansthan, colleges, and universities across all districts of Odisha.
In this Programme Mr Deepak Mahapatra, industrialist and Mr Prafulla Sahoo, co-founder, CYSD. Furthermore, several investors like KIIT TBI, Centurion TBI, C.V Raman TBI, STPI, Government of India, O- Hub, the Indus, entrepreneurs, SIDBI, and Crompton Greaves have participated for investment purposes.
The youth entrepreneurs have pitched their projects before the investors and the investors have committed an amount of Rs.10 lakhs adjusted funding for WASHpreneurs of the program.
WASH Co. App which is an integrated platform for all products and services related to WASH has launched at this event. The App will provide services like feacal sludge management, facility management, plumbing, and masonry to the rural pockets of Odisha.
A multi-billion global conglomerate, LIXIL showcased its products. Mr. Saurabh, Pandya, country head, LIXIL and shares the importance of sanitary products in rural Odisha.
In this context, Dr. Babita Mahapatra, additional CEO, Odisha, livelihoods, Mission, Department of Mission, Shakti, Odisha said “encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship in these fields like water, sanitation, and hygiene is a key thrust area for government and community these days”.
