Indian startups lobby group Indiatech.org finds a new CEO

After the launch of online lobby group Indiatech.org, former IAS officer and economist Gyanendra Badgaiyan has joined as the CEO of the organization, according to ET.

The think-tank and lobby group is expected to start staffing up after Badgaiyan formally joins in the next few weeks.

Badgaiyan is also the former head of National Centre for Good Governance (NCCG), a government body which guides and helps implement good governance reforms through research, policy analysis, training and advocacy .

Last month, Flipkart, Ola, MakeMyTrip, Hike, Quikr and other Indian internet companies announced the of launch – Indiatech.org.

Led by Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal, Indiatechorg is a non-profit entity. The move will help the Indian online companies to lobby for policy support with the government and other stakeholders.

The group wants to become the Nasscom for the startup space. The group believes that if home-grown internet firms do not succeed, India will likely lose $10 billion of FDI per year, $1 billion of tax revenues per year and 1 million jobs that could have been created based on numbers extrapolated from China.

Setting up of Indiatech.org is expected to give home-grown internet companies a cohesive voice and structured platform to push their policy initiative, which has been missing till now.

Earlier, Founders of Flipkart and Ola have voiced their concerns over safeguarding their interest against deep-pocketed global behemoths. They even urged the Central government to intervene.

Last year, Bansal and Aggarwal iterated on multiple occasions about measures required to be taken to safeguard the interest of home-grown startups against foreign players. Both are locked in intense battles for market share with the Indian subsidiary of US-based heavy-weights – Amazon and Uber, respectively.