Industries and Commerce Department, Ladakh organized the first in the series of workshops on ‘Enterprising Ladakh’ on May 8.

Teams from three IITs(IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay & IIT Delhi) were invited to assist in the development of an entrepreneurship and incubation eco-system for the entrepreneurs of Ladakh. The members Dr. Anil Verma, Professor in Chemical engineering, Head continuing education program, IIT Delhi; Dr.AnilWali, MD FITT, IIT Delhi; Dr. Amitabha Bandopadhyay, Department of Biological Sciences and bioengineering, IIT Kanpur, professor-in-charge, SIIC (Incubation centre); AnkitSaxena, incharge of social innovation, IIT Kanpur; Shakti Tripathy, Senior manager, Desai Sethi school of entrepreneurship, IIT Bombay interacted with various agencies and budding entrepreneurs from Ladakh.

Commissioner/ Secretary, Industries and Commerce Department, Saugat Biswas stated that the purpose of the workshop is to assist the youth of Ladakh to become successful entrepreneurs who can generate employment by sustainable utilisation of resources in Ladakh. He exhorted on the need for technology interventions, training and capacity building for the youth to understand the mechanism of entrepreneurship on a deeper level and plug all identified gaps.

Director, Industries and Commerce Dept, Ladakh gave a detailed presentation on the importance of enterprise in Ladakh. He informed about the milieu in which the youth of Ladakh is placed and the various challenges faced in developing entrepreneurship.

Over 40 active entrepreneurs and aspiring ones from various domains such as food processing, handicrafts, handlooms, textiles, pashmina, emerging technologies and business areas participated in the workshop. The entrepreneurs stressed to the forum for assistance in developing harvesting techniques keeping in mind the fragile ecosystem and exhorted that machinery should be developed to harvest without harming the wildlife dependent on the resources. Discussions on processing technologies, storage, packaging and marketing took place on a one-on-one basis with the experts. Many of the entrepreneurs shared their success stories with the forum. Various problem statements are posed before the experts for the development of solutions.

The team, which is on a visit to Ladakh will interact with entrepreneurs, and students of the University, Colleges, ITIs & Polytechnic both in the Kargil and Leh districts.