Gurgaon: Chief minister Nayab Singh Saini urged Gen Z to move beyond the traditional pursuit of salaried jobs and become entrepreneurs and job creators, making entrepreneurship the central theme of the Gen H Startup Summit — Yuva Udyami Chaupal at Gurugram University.Interacting with young entrepreneurs at the summit, Saini said young people were no longer limited to looking for jobs and increasingly wanted to establish enterprises and create employment for others. “The future belongs to new technology, innovation and fresh ideas,” he said, urging youth to keep pace with rapidly changing technology and turn ideas into startups rather than leaving them at the idea stage.Haryana has generated more than 45,000 ideas through its Ideathon and currently has around 12,500 startups, Saini said, but the bigger challenge is converting that entrepreneurial aspiration into viable businesses and jobs. He called upon each existing startup to create another, with the aim of building a network of more than 25,000 startups.The govt, he said, was trying to bridge the gap between an idea and a business by creating an ecosystem involving educational institutions, industry, startups and social organisations, under the approach ‘Idea to Enterprise and Enterprise to Employment’.At the summit, six master classrooms trained around 50 youth each — about 300 in all — with successful entrepreneurs sharing their experience of setting up and scaling businesses, banks providing information on loans and financial assistance, and experts from Skill University offering training and guidance.Saini said training alone was not enough and that young people also needed exposure to the real business environment and the govt has made arrangements to connect trained youth with MSMEs for practical experience. At Startup Room, entrepreneurs discussed the challenges of starting a business while banks explained the financial assistance on offer.Saini said the govt was working towards a mechanism through which young entrepreneurs could know where to seek assistance at different stages of their journey.Saini flagged off Yuva Udyamita Yatra, which will travel across Haryana covering colleges, universities, ITIs, coaching institutes and other educational institutions. Officials have been directed to plan routes in advance and inform students of the support available to turn ideas into enterprises, with exhibitions and bank stalls also proposed along the route.Around 400 young entrepreneurs took part in the summit, sharing their experiences, challenges and ideas through roundtable discussions and raising questions on funding, technical assistance, training and future opportunities. Saini said the govt was taking their aspirations seriously and wanted talented young people to develop the capacity to establish enterprises and generate employment.
