GO Team

LOCKDOWNS don’t have to mean nothing doing! It’s not like the Covid-19 lockdowns were breakdowns, said managing trustee of the GDP Foundation, Kishore Shah, while speaking to media people at an interesting function held at the GCCI in Panaji on June 6, 2020. He along with other GDP trustees including Ameya Salatry and Sandesh Prabhukhanolkar detailed the an online initiative called Parivartan Karo Na which was launched by them about nine months ago on April 14,2020, after they were inspired by a speech by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the subject of being self-reliant in India.
Anticipating an economy in the dumps post-long drawn out lockdowns the group of Goans came together to help facilitate startups and business ventures. Their initiative was in the form of running an online competition for business ventures and they were delighted to find it attracting as many as 125 registrations and 96 actual proposals.
According to the Parivartan Karo Na team comprising four trustees of the GDP foundation and three partners of PKN, they have selected the “hi-potential” presentations eligible for either cash prize, contribution towards prototype funding, seed funding, liasoning with investors, government, industry by end-July. Entries selected are to do with Medical Combat Readiness, Socia/Economic/Cultural Ecosystem Restoration, Envisage New Form of Operations, Smart Disaster Management System for the State and Revive, Restore, Reinvent the Goan/India/World Economy. Parag Veluskar (chief coordinator of PKN) shared the key points of the initiative while Sandesh Prabhukhanolkar (trustee, GDP Foundation) shared the results of the online competition.
Also present at function were GCCI President Manoj Caculo who observed that a lot of things are going to be different post-Covid19 lockdowns but newer opportunities would also open up. He was all praise for the Parivartan Karona Na initiative and promised GCCI help towards whatever industry, government, investor liasoning required by the GDP Foundation and Parivartan Karo Na creative teams. Prasad Deshpande, founder of Owlways Creative welcomed the gathering as also gave the vote of thanks.