CII Alpha

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) launched the online resource forum ICONN Alpha, a community-driven web/online app for connecting key players in the startup ecosystem. Additionally, ICONN Alpha is a sector-agnostic, industry-led growth platform that aids its members in scaling up by providing them with exclusive access to important opportunities and resources that would otherwise be hard to obtain. Only a small group of carefully chosen stakeholders will have access to ICONN Alpha, while CII members will have the privilege of joining the forum. CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led, and industry-managed organisation, with around 9000 members from the private as well as public sectors, including SMEs and MNCs, and an indirect membership of over 300,000 enterprises from 286 national and regional sectoral industry bodies. In addition, CII works to create and sustain an environment conducive to the development of India, partnering with Industry, Government, and civil society, through advisory and consultative processes. With 62 offices, including 10 Centres of Excellence, in India, and 8 overseas offices in Australia, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Singapore, UAE, UK, and the USA, as well as institutional partnerships with 350 counterpart organizations in 133 countries, CII serves as a reference point for Indian industry and the international business community. The Government has taken many initiatives in recent years and today India has emerged as the 3rd largest ecosystem for startups globally. To support the momentum, CII actively promotes startups across the country through its various regional and state offices. CII also established a Centre of Excellence for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Startups (CII-CIES) in Hyderabad in partnership with the Government of Telangana. The Centre is committed to forging a vibrant startup ecosystem, enhancing its success, and building strong partnerships between corporates and startups, amongst achieving other growth-oriented objectives. Startup Corporate Connect is one of CII's main areas of attention, and in 2021, CII conceptualised ICONN to facilitate it. ICONN is a first-of-its-kind, industry-led 360-degree platform in order to build a cohesive, inclusive, and thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in the nation. Its goal is to catalyse strategic interactions between corporates and startups as well as other important stakeholders. To give further impetus to Startup Corporate Connect, in 2022 CII launched ICONN Alpha as an outcome of the deliberations at ICONN 2021.