Organised by the stalwarts of the startup industry on Saturday, April 25, FLO Incubator Startup Awards 2020 is the culmination of FLO Business Incubation Awards Programme 2019. It was spearheaded by Bindu Shastri and Sangeeta Lalwani as the National Coordinators. Amongst the 84 applicants, first top 30 finalists were selected by its esteemed panel of the jury including Sanjay Kalra, Arvind Malhan, Shalini Prakash, Nayaz Ahmed, Prof Raghunath and Akila Krishnakumar.
While the pitches were made online through virtual rooms, the jury scores have been tabulated to bring out the best among the finalists, the government body said in a release. The winners included Founders of Rose Bazar, Yeshodha & Rhea Karuturi for the Innovation category; Loond Technologies's Tanvi Loond for the Scalability category; Sharmila Raj Jain of PDFC Pack for the Busines Model category; Swaty Rohit of SOCO for the Social Impact category and Pariksha Rao of Happytizers for the Customer Value category. The jury also announced three startups: Art Rickshaw's Shailja Rungta; Urmila Maskara of Santhushtee and Minal Jain of Mishrii in the Special Mentions category.
FLO President Harjinder Kaur Talwar said in the release, “ 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 an 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.”
While the winners received a virtual certificate, the physical trophies will be sent to the winners' post lockdown. The winners will also receive Amazon web services worth $1000, besides handholding and mentoring in scaling up their business ventures.