Union Minister of Road transport & Highways and MSME Hon’ble Shri Nitin Gadkari has launched Bank of Schemes, Ideas, Innovation and Research portal i.e. http://ideas.msme.gov.in on MSMEs through Video Conference in the presence of other Ministers & senior officers. The Portal enables access to all Schemes of Central, State & UT Governments. Through this, it also has the provision for uploading Ideas, Innovations & Researches in the MSME Sector. The portal has unique features of not only crowd sourcing of Ideas, but also evaluation and rating the ideas by crowd sourcing. It can also facilitate inflow of venture capital, foreign collaboration etc. Speaking about the importance of the portal, the minister said that this portal will prove to be of great transformational significance to the MSMEs in particular and the economy in general. He also suggested that the platform enables the category wise classification and analysis of information along with the achievements, so that the others can learn & take lessons from successful experiences personalities. The minister advised that the portal should be handled by quality professionals to keep it updated on sustained basis. He also stressed upon the need for conversion of knowledge into wealth. Shri Nitin Gadkari also stated that there is a need for greater work on Research, Technology and Innovation which can bring the cost down and improve quality. Shri Pratap Chandra Sarangi, MoS for MSME said, this portal will help the MSMEs in a big way through information sharing. He also said that this will help in the research activities (especially in the Tribal / Rural Areas). They added that the skills will get a chance for spreading their knowledge. Similarly portal can assist the farmers in planning, production, storage and marketing of their produce. Startups / MSME’s who have idea, innovation or Research with them can share it on this platform which will be reviewed by the concerned Officer and publish them for public view. Registered members can rate these ideas (Crowd sourcing) and venture capitalist can connect with user having idea, innovation and research. The online forms for Idea, innovation and research can be easily taken up in few minutes. Person can choose Areas (Credit/Finance, Human Capital Development, Technology, Infrastructure, Marketing, Policy, etc). Person can indicate his Sector (Rural Technology Innovation, Waste-to-Wealth, Agro-Processing, Manufacturing, Services, Khadi, Coir, etc) This MSME Bank has the facility to indicate the stage of Idea. For instance, Visualizing the Concept, Prototype Development or Commercialized, etc to make more user friendly. Papers and photo related to Idea along with the uploading of Video and Social Media links. The portal will benefit the potential entrepreneurs as One stop compendium of Ideas, innovation and research ready for commercialization. The Rating of Ideas can be seen publicly which will help in decision making. Venture capitalists can interact with Person and MSME having Idea or innovation. Similarly options are available for adding Banks, Government Labs, Incubators, Accelerators, Foreign collaboration in future. Source: PIB