Raipur: Chief minister Bhupesh
Baghel, on his one day visit to Bastar today, inaugurated the newly established
office of Technology Hub and Innovation Network for Knowledge Bastar (THINK-B)
at the premises of Government Polytechnic College in Dharampura.
THINK-B is an
initiative of Bastar district administration, which operates accelerator
programmes around the district under its brand to promote local entrepreneurs.
On the occasion, he
interacted the youth having startups under THINK-B and wished them good luck
for their future endeavors. He also launched the newly-built smart classes and
smart labs at the polytechnic college.
Besides, he visited the
stall of Lokabazar.in, a handicraft e-commerce startup based in Bastar, where
he inquired about the sale of local artefacts of Bastar on the online platform
from Gaurav Kushwaha. While interacting with Manoj Sahu at his stall of Moms
Food, the Chief Minister took information about his special products besides
tasting special ‘ladoos’ made of coconut and jaggery here. At the Bastar Se
Bazaar Tak’ stall of Satendra Singh Lihre, Baghel tasted products ‘Jamun Ka
Slice’ and ‘Sitaphal (custard apple) Shake’ and also ordered 10 packets.
It is noteworthy that
THINK-B has been established to encourage the youth of Bastar interested in
innovation, self-employment and entrepreneurship, besides providing them
necessary assistance including financial, technical, managerial, and legal. As
a business incubator and accelerator, it will help budding entrepreneurs to
convert their business ideas into working business models.
Interested youth will
be provided assistance in start-up infrastructure, setting up technology-based
business as well as training through online-offline paper, books, and
audio-video from the district administration as a part of this initiative.
Besides, the local youth of this tribal-dominated district will be encouraged
for self-employment by organizing seminars, conferences, and workshops.
The district
administration has also signed MoUs with renowned institutions of the state
including Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Raipur, Tata Institute of Social
Science (TISS) Mumbai, IIIT Raipur and Hidayatullah National Law University
(HNLU) Raipur. Under this, IIIT Raipur will provide technical information to
the startups while institutes like IIM Raipur will teach management skills,
TISS will give information like the market value of the business and feasibility
of the startup idea while experts of HNLU will provide legal assistance to the
startups, all this at free-of-cost.
