Andhra Pradesh hosted its first annual awards night recognizing startups, entrepreneurs not just in the state but across the country. StartAP awards was organised by startup ecosystem player StartAP in Visakhapatnam on Friday. Swiggy was awarded startup of the year while Oyo Rooms founder Ritesh Agarwal won Entrepreneur of the Year. Three startups from T-Hub too, won wards at the event.
The awards were presented by J A Chowdary, who believes that entrepreneurs can create out of nothing and find opportunities in problems by finding solutions for them. “At a time jobs are hard to find, if you create an entrepreneur, you create at least 3-4 more jobs and wealth creation also happens. Therefore, it is very important to encourage entrepreneurs,” he said at StartAP awards.
Over 300 startups applied for the awards under various categories such as Social Entrepreneur, Innovative Startup, Clean Tech startup, Fintech startup and others. Thirty-five startups were finally chosen by a jury that included J A Chowdary, Special Chief Secretary, Govt of AP, Kirthiga Reddy, former MD Facebook India, Glenn Robinson, MD of XLr8 Andhra Pradesh Technology Business Accelerator, Divyank Turakhia, founder and CEO of Media.Net, Peter Vesterbacka, founder of Slush, Anurag Batra, chairman and editor in chief, BW Businessworld and Ramana Gogula, VP of Clean tech innovation at Stanley Black & Decker.
The winning startups were from across cities such as Dehradun, Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Delhi.
Here is the full list of awardees:
Entrepreneurial excellence award: Sudhakar Reddi Chirra, founder, Abhibus
Business Excellence award: Lakhsmi Putluri, co-founder, Jabong India
Woman Entrepreneur of the year: Kanika Tekriwal, Jet Set Go
Change maker of the year: Deepak Ramola, Project Fuel
Brand Excellence award: Green Gold Animations
Campus Entrepreneur award: KL University
Social Innovation award: Mission Smartride
Social Entrepreneur of the year award: Karthik Naralasetty
Student Entrepreneurship of the year award: Gopi Raja of Fopple Technologies
Youth leadership award: AIESAC India
Best Emerging startup award: Stumagz
BlockChain Startup award: Almora
AgriTech startup award: SatSure
Clean Tech startup award: Gayam Motor Works
Best Emerging startup award: Pixcy
Innovation award: H-Bots
Best pitch: Smart Port
Deep Tech Startup award: Zebi
Digital Media Startup award: Chai Bisket
EdTech Startup award: Oswald Labs
Fin Tech Startup award: Payswiff
FMCG Startup award: Popicorn
Health Tech Startup award: Call Health
Social Network Startup award: Inclov
Space Tech Startup award: Bellatrix
Media Entrepreneur award: Shilpa Dantu of Yo Vizag
Rural Innovation award: Bodha