ⓘ Featured image: Aatmanirbhar.Live team members, from left: Yasmeen Sheikh, Bhaskar Negi, and Anis Turak
Three Indian youngsters last month launched World’s largest virtual incubator in India called Aatmanirbhar.Live to contribute to $5-trillion economy by empowering migrant workers and MSMEs. The program is inspired by a Government of India’s initiative called Aatmanirbhar Bharat and the main objective would be to provide necessary resources to workers and MSMEs to survive and boost the Indian economy in the worst time because of COVID-19 pandemic.
Launched last month by Bhaskar Negi, Anis Turak, and Yasmeen Sheikh are the team members of a startup advertising agency called Roiww.co and felt a need & desire to help India to make it Aatmanirvhar (self-reliant).
Aatmanirbhar.Live is a platform for 130 crores of Indians to showcase their ideas or businesses from anywhere in India by submitting their videos at Aatmanirbhar.Live and get a chance to develop and run their business with the required resources. The programme will also launch a virtual event in Hindi & English to help people and their businesses on how to become Aatmanirbhar during the pandemic.
In fact, the founders started their Roiww.co, an advertising and technology agency with limited resources and contacted their mentor Dr. Tausif Malik and presented their agency, and their vision of Aatmanirbhar.Live. Malik advised the team not to seek funding from anyone. They considered his advise and built their business using Maker model for startups, where different startups collaborate with each other and save on resources.
According to a report published on LiveMint, there are around 60 million MSMEs in a country and employ an estimate of 110 million. According to a survey by All India Manufacturers’ Association (AIMO), 35 percent of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and 37 percent of the self-employed respondents said their enterprises were beyond recovery.
MSMEs contribute 29 percent of the GDP of India and if these businesses fail to survive, it will adversely affect the economy. So, Aatmanirbhar.live would help the new and old businesses to fight the Coronavirus pandemic and help contribute towards the $5 Trillion economy vision. According to the Census 2001, there are 400 million workforce and 89 million of these are migrant workers.
Migrant workers are the backbone of the Indian economy and now they are hesitating to return to the city. Aatmanirbhar.Live as a virtual incubator also aims to work towards the development of the migrants.
The new startup advertising agency which is bootstrapped was established in the first quarter of 2020 with a mission to help MSMEs to recover from old and new challenges like demonetization, GST and a final nail of the pandemic. The three team members said in a collective voice that with their corporate-level branding and marketing services at affordable pricing, they were able to promote local-level brand against foreign companies. Their mission of vocal-for-local had already started in 2020.
Two upstart clients Magicklean and Pizzaronee trusted them with their marketing, branding and digital services; the new marketing campaign for Pizzaronee ‘School Time in Quarantine’ and Magicklean ‘Work from Home’ or ‘Work at Home’ was well received and helped them sustain during COVID 19 pandemic.
The team has helped and connected businesses to resources to survive amid the pandemic scenario, and this is what they really want at a national level through Aamtanirbhar.Live, a free of cost platform giving chance to MSMEs across the country to showcase their businesses.
Commenting on the development, Yasmeen Sheikh, Co-founder & Operations Director, in a statement said,
“People and businesses are not connected to the right resources, which is one of the reasons why they are not able to survive but Aatmanirbhar.Live will connect people and their businesses to the right resources. Using Maker model for startups, where different startups collaborate with each other and save resources.”
Bhaskar Negi, Co-Founder & Head of Aatmanirbhar.Live, commented,
“Whenever India went through economic trouble, a Swadeshi movement started. As we have studied from pre-Independence to post-Independence, India was able to survive and I believe that Aatmanirbhar.Live is the New Swadeshi movement of the 21st century which will help India survive again,”
Anis Turak, Co-founder & Creative director said,
“Aatmanirbhar.Live is a platform for everyone from city to village people. It will empower rural people which will really make a difference. This pandemic can be a game-changer for India to become self-reliant and swadeshi in a real sense,”
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