FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) organised its first ever FLO Incubator Start-up Awards 2020 on Saturday, April 25, 2020. It was even more significant that these awards were presented through a virtual platform.

FLO President Harjinder Kaur Talwar said, “ We had planned these Awards on March 11, 2020 and had to postpone this due to COVID 19 situation. FLO is an ever evolving organisation and we have turned this challenge into and opportunity and here is an exemplary and pioneering move, where we are giving away virtual awards to the most innovative and disruptive start-ups from across the nation.”

 FLO Incubator Start up awards were given in  five categories – Innovation, Scalability, Business Model, Social Impact and Customer Value.  And the winners were :

·       Yeshodha & Rhea Karuturi – Founders of Rose Bazar  for  Innovation

·       Tanvi Loond – Loond Technologies Private Limited for  Scalability

·       Sharmila Raj jain -PDFC Pack for  Business Model

·       Swaty Rohit – SOCO for Social Impact

·       Pariksha Rao – Happytizers Pvt Ltd for Customer Value

Three names in the Special mentions category were:

·       Shailja Rungta – Art Rickshaw

·       Urmila Maskara – Santhushtee

·       Minal Jain – Mishrii

 

Virtual certificates and trophies were given to the winners and the same will be physically sent to them post lockdown. The winners will also received Amazon web services worth USD 1000, besides handholding and mentoring in scaling up their business ventures.

 In June 2019 , FLO under the leadership of National President, Harjinder Kaur Talwar  initiated the FLO Business Incubation Programme to handhold young businesses with high growth potential by providing them with necessary guidance. Spearheaded by Bindu Shastri and Sangeeta Lalwani as the National Coordinators , this initiative culminated this year with the FLO Incubator Start up Awards.

FLO Bangalore Chapter led by Chapter Chairperson, Shruti Mittal put together these awards and took care of the entire process.

There were 84 applicants from across the country, out of which 30 finalists were selected to make their presentation pitch to a panel of esteemed jury members who were a mix of very successful start ups, industry, Academics, venture funds and Top CEOs.

Sanjay Kalra – the Jury Foreman serves on a few boards and mentors people where he can make a difference. Was formerly Chairman of Shiv Nadar & Sanjay Kalra Associates and CEO of Tech Mahindra.

 Arvind Malhan is a partner at New Silk Route, a leading growth-stage private equity investing firm.

Shalini Prakash – Shalini is the co-founder of Epic, India’s first Rewards SuperApp.

Nayaz Ahmed is an entrepreneurial expert with extensive experience of over a decade in emerging technologies, high growth startups, enterprise sales, customer operations, partnerships and collaboration across multiple industry segments. He is the Chief Operating Officer of JUincubator

Prof Raghunath is Professor of Corporate Strategy at IIM Bangalore. He specializes in digital business strategies and models.

Akila Krishnakumar has over 30 years of experience in software product development for financial services and education markets world-wide.

Three virtual rooms were created for a closed door presentation by the finalists and  the jury panel evaluated the pitches online and scored on various parameters. With a very logical and mathematical equation done by a professional data analyst, the jury scores have been tabulated to bring out the best amongst the finalists.

Shruti Mittal said, “FLO  brings to you an innovative way to give away the most coveted awards on a virtual platform. I am sure this will be an exemplary and pioneering initiative of adapting and  being responsive to the current times.”