Thirty-one Indian student startup founders to pitch ideas at Silicon Valley

It is being supported by the Centre, US Embassy in India, among others

Thirty-one student startup founders from six states in India are on a week-long visit to Silicon Valley to pitch, network and learn from the best at the tech Mecca under a flagship #StartInCollege programme instituted by the Startup Village Collective SV.CO in partnership with Facebook.

The students from various engineering colleges, who have built their startup products while enrolled in SV.CO's digital learning program, are on a week-long visit to showcase their prototypes, learn product development and skills, and get exposure to the world-class startup ecosystem in Silicon Valley, according to a release in Kochi.

SV.CO's startup program for first-time founders is supported by the Department of Science and Technology, the Government of India, the US Embassy in India and has multiple state partners giving support to their respective students.

Startup industry leaders Paytm and Freshworks are on board as partners providing scholarships and mentoring to students.

In the US, the team, the largest single Indian student startup delegation to visit the Silicon Valley, were welcomed by the City Council of Menlo Park and housed at Menlo College.

On Tuesday (June 20) the founders will visit the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park where they will have a pitch session and get feedback from experts at the social media giant.

"At Facebook, we believe the student community has a central role to play in helping build a world-class startup ecosystem in India. We are pleased to support the Start-in-college program that cultivates a sense of purpose amongst students and enables them to build meaningful projects from their college campus," said Satyajeet Singh, Platform Partnerships, Facebook India.

During their week-long stay till June 24, the students will visit other Valley landmarks, including offices of Google, Intel, Silicon Valley Bank, Freshworks, Zendesk and Bootup Ventures; and attend startup workshops at the North Eastern University and Google Launchpad.

Leading entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Rajeev Madhavan will share with the students his insights on building two multi-hundred million dollar technology startups.

Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) is sponsoring 19 of the students as part of its international programme for startups.

"If we are to build a world-class startup ecosystem in India, as is our goal, our entrepreneurs need to get [the] first-hand experience of global best practices. KSUM's international programme is intended for promising young founders to have that experience and increase their level of confidence while in college itself so they get an early startup," said Dr Saji Gopinath, CEO, KSUM.

The Startup Village Collective SV.CO, a first-of-its-kind digital platform with a mission is to build a world-class learning platform for students to become startup professionals and explore their full potential in life.

"The Silicon Valley visit is to give the students a world-class global exposure very early in life so that they can be more confident, motivated and get the ability to dream bigger than ever before as they immerse in the startup culture in Silicon Valley," said Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman, Startup Village Collective.