Yogesh Shinde, the founder of Bamboo India, recently joined NewsX for an exclusive chat as part of its special series NewsX India A-List. In an exclusive interview, Mr Shinde talked at length about the necessity to reduce plastic, which could be possible only by the advent of bamboo. Bamboo India has been manufacturing local grown bamboo, which can be the most effective solution to reduce the usage of plastic. “To contribute something to India’s economy brought me back. In any time in the future, when the history will be written, I will be known as a contributor, not as a spectator. ” exclaimed Mr. Shinde, who had been a part of the corporate culture but decided to walk on the path of social entrepreneurship owing to his growing concern over increasing pollution in India. 

Tracing the journey of the inception of Bamboo India, Mr Shinde said, “The inception of Bamboo India occurred with the vision of ‘Brush, Collosion, Awake’. The motto behind the establishment of the company has been the reduction of plastic with bamboo. India is the second largest bamboo growing country but is not contributing to the bamboo world market. We are not even in the top ten list to import the products. On top of that, we are the world largest bamboo importer. That made me very scared and I thought that we must do something about it. Our target is very simple. We want to reduce plastic waste from our mother Earth.” 

Interestingly, Bamboo India is also known to make very innovative products, one of them being the bamboo toothbrush. Emphasising on the need to reduce plastic and shift from plastic toothbrushes to bamboo ones, Mr. Shinde stated, “Plastic toothbrushes are one of the leading pollution contents in the world. As every one of us have been talking about the increasing global warming, I, as an individual, thought of manufacturing bamboo toothbrushes in India. We are one of the first companies to have started manufacturing bamboo toothbrushes with local grown bamboo”. He believes that the usage of sustainable products will be a long term affair. Applauding those individuals for their effort in promoting the principles of sustainability on social media and playing an important role in the reduction of plastic, Mr. Shinde calls them ‘the real superheroes’. 

The path to sustainability, which has been led by Bamboo India, has also provided inspiration to other companies to manufacture bamboo toothbrushes. Commenting on the journey of Bamboo India so far, Mr. Shinde said, “To convert the bamboo perception of poor man’s timber to wise man’s timber is what our journey is all about.”

When asked about the challenges one has to confront while running a social entrepreneurship enterprise, Mr. Shinde said, “The first challenge is definitely fundraising. As Bamboo is not a traditional business in India, we faced difficulties in terms of financing. None of the single companies has offered us a loan because they did not understand the potential of bamboo and that is not the end of the world for us. We get funds from friends and family”.

Sharing his vision of the company, Mr Shinde said, “In the next five years, all our products will be available at local medical stores. Till the last four years, we have been a small startup. We have reduced 14 kilograms of plastic with our own initiative. Once the media starts showing interest in the venture, it will be a wildfire and more plastic would be reduced. Bamboo toothbrushes would be available in the supermarket across India by end of this year and maybe the next year, this product will be available all across the globe”.

Disha Singla, Co-founder of Supreme Incubator, recently joined NewsX for an insightful conversation as part of its special series NewsX India A-list. In the exclusive interview, Disha spoke about the inception of Supreme Incubator, the functioning of a startup incubator, future of startups in India and how her organisation is paving the way for young entrepreneurs to lead a change.

Speaking about the inception of Supreme Incubators, Disha said, ”A couple of years ago, I went to a business school in the USA to pursue my degree with a major in entrepreneurship. I spent a lot of time around startups there. In fact, my own startup was incubated by my university. I got connected with mentors and potential investors over there while working with other startups, who were at the same initial stages. All of this inspired me to further pursue my passion. When I came back to India, I hosted some events here and received a great response. We started receiving applications from all over the country and we connected those startups to potential investors and mentors and received phenomenal feedback from them. It has been two years now since the inception of Supreme and it has been going great. We are focussing on Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, we uplift the startups by connecting them with potential investors, experts, and specific mentors so that they are able to grow in a short period of time.”

Giving our viewers an insight into the functioning of an incubator, she said, “An incubator takes action towards creating an adept ecosystem by connecting them with experts and advisors. These mentors are expert in their domains and have led their own successful ventures. They are leading large corporations so they know how to run large organisations. We at Supreme have mentors from different fields, some mentors are experts in business and technology while many of them are experts in artificial intelligence.”

Further emphasising how Supreme is different from other incubators, Disha expressed, ”We focus more on a personalised approach. Every start-up, which is accepted in our cohort, gets personalised assistance and guidance as per their industry type. We provide industry-specific mentors to them so that they receive mentorship and guidance throughout their tenure, which will help them to move in the right direction in the least possible time.”

When asked about her views on the start-up ecosystem in India and how it has changed and evolved over the years, Disha said, ”The startup ecosystem has definitely developed at a very fast pace over the last 10 years, especially over the past 5 years. When I was in high school, I used to keep up a lot with news-related to business. Earlier, when we used to hear the word ‘startup’, we had to understand what it is but now everyone seem to say that they want to get into the start-up ecosystem. Startup is all about scaling up. There are a lot of challenges and the success ratio of startups are very low. Yet everyone is excited about this term ‘startup’. We have also seen a lot of companies coming up in India, with so many success stories. I think everyone gets motivated to pursue the field that they are passionate about.”

Finally, on a concluding note, Disha shared her vision of the company and expressed that the company is looking forward to work with startups that offer different niches and who are determined towards uplifting and volunteering for a social cause. ”At this point in time, as an incubator, we accept startup applications from different industries so, in the coming years, we definitely want to get into different niche segments and to connect to those startups which are focussed on non-profit ventures and startups doing some social cause. we would definitely like to pursue startups from these niches as well,” she stated.