A six-member Nepali team comprising social entrepreneurs and supporters of startup movement in Nepal is leaving for the Indian city of Hyderabad to take part in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. 

The summit, which will be held from November 28-30, will bring together emerging entrepreneurs, investors and supporters from around the world. The summit, supported by the US government, aims to facilitate entrepreneurs to pitch ideas, build partnerships, secure funding, innovate, find target customers and create new goods and services that can transform societies.  

Ahead of the summit, the Embassy of the United States in Kathmandu held an event called Tiger Pitch, where Nepali participants pitched policy ideas to create favourable business environment in Nepal. These participants also identified glitches in laws that hinder growth of businesses and entrepreneurship in Nepal and suggested measures to address the problems.

A total of six participants had pitched policy ideas and identified glitches in laws. All six participants will take part in the summit scheduled to be held in Hyderabad.

Of the six who made their pitches, two were shortlisted as the best by a panel of judges. The two are: Dibesh Karmacharya, one of the founders of Centre for Molecular Dynamics Nepal, a clinical epidemiology and wildlife genetics research centre, and Avishek Malla, SunFarmer Nepal, a social enterprise that is promoting clean energy and making efforts to making clean energy affordable.

Karmacharya said vaccines required by the poultry industry could be produced in Nepal, while Malla proposed formulation of policies to raise farmers’ access to solar energy.

The problems identified by Karmacharya and Malla and solutions to address these problems will be presented to the government, according to organisers of Tiger Pitch.

The panel comprised Michael Gonzales, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Kathmandu, Dinesh Bhattarai, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s foreign advisor, and Mridula Rajbhandari, executive director of Tara Oriental.