‘Students need hands-on exposure to startups’
Most academic institutions in India, including IIT Patna and CIMP in Bihar, now have startup focused schemes and incubation programmes, Shashank Kumar, founder & CEO of DeHaat, noted at the Technovate for India programme in Patna. But now, he said, it is time to take those programmes to higher levels.
He suggested integrating startup immersion programmes into curriculums, and offering students 1-2 months of sector-specific exposure to entrepreneurship.
DeHaat is India’s highest valued agritech startup, with a valuation of $700 million. The Patna-headquartered company is an online marketplace that connects about 13 million farmers with suppliers of farming inputs and services. It offers more than 3,000 agricultural inputs, including seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides. It provides financing and insurancerelated services. It even operates over 15,000 franchise offline centres across 12 states.
The 2012-founded startup exemplifies the trend of IIT and IIM graduates transitioning from corporate careers to grassroots entrepreneurship. Shashank, an IIT Delhi alumnus, noted that while awareness and interest in entrepreneurship are growing, deeper hands-on exposure is necessary beyond workshops and discussions.
DeHaat aims to expand its farmer network to 25 million. “Currently, our annual business is close to half a billion dollars. We aim to grow fourfold in the next five years,” Shashank said.
The farmer app provides frequent crop reminders, voice calls in regional languages, crop advisories, weather reports, and local mandi rates. Farmers can use the app to get direct consultations from agri-experts on chemical dosage, crop health advice, and the use of high-quality input products. Purchase and sale of input or output products can also be done through the app.
“We are now building AI-enabled technologies to revolutionise supply chain & production efficiency in the farming sector,” Shashank said, speaking to a large group of students at the programme. Technovate for India is a joint initiative by TOI and startup ecosystem builder Talrop.
“We fetch data from three satellites every week and have been doing this for the past seven to eight years, covering 6 million land parcels and 2 million sq km across India. Using AI and ML, our platform can now analyse farm conditions remotely, detecting biotic or abiotic stress, predicting sowing and harvesting dates, and estimating crop yields without requiring on-site visits,” Shashank said.
