Founder of Sattvik Council talks to techies about students’ contribution in innovation

Abhishek Biswas, founder of Sattvik Council of India, recently interacted with the techies at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar and Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Pune to help the young minds understand their role in innovation, technology, and how they could embrace it for reshaping the future.

Biswas spoke about the incorporation of innovation in entrepreneurship while focusing on the importance of positioning, acceptance from the consumers, product and consumer relevance, and passing capacity.

Furthermore, he spoke about his foray into international business, and how differing food standards encouraged him to come up with his business idea. He said that when he was in Thailand, he realised that he was just one of the millions of people who weren’t able to get access to readily available vegetarian food.

The need for vegetarian food is not solely an Indian issue because he saw people from all walks of life have the same dilemma. This is what led him to embark on a journey of taking notes relentlessly to understand the plight of food standards all across the globe.

He believes that everyone has the right to eat, no matter where they come from, and that this right is not just about what is consumed, but how it is consumed without any fears and doubts in mind. This is how The Sattvik Council of India was born. It’s been six years since they started as a humble NGO, and now they’ve risen to be the world’s first vegetarian food and lifestyle certification body.

Biswas said, “Sattvik Council is now taking bigger leaps. We are launching our courses on lead online auditor (60-hour duration) where 2^nd and 3^rd -year students can enroll themselves and earn dispensable income. We are with the Bureau Veritas (Audit Partner) and many big companies today. We also offer VFRS and internship programme in partnership with IRCTC. Anyone can view this on the IRCTC portal and register themselves after April 4.”

Biswas strongly believes that new-age start-ups should come up with realistic ideas and nurture their own creation instead of replicating old ideas. Doubt and fear render an idea to be tired and unoriginal, he said. He added that he also thinks that after the pandemic, whatever today’s generation is developing, needs to focus on how to save what’s already there in the environment.

“Before the pandemic, approximately 60% of the business shut down, with only 10% being able to bounce back, which the current generation of entrepreneurs need to face head-on. Sustainable businesses need to be redefined; more than innovations, we need solutions,” Biswas explained.

Sattvik has collected 40 codes for vegetarian safety. They have vegan, Jain, pure-vegetarian categories, and so on — so that no matter what the diet, people know what they are eating and what’s best for them.

Biswas also mentioned that on March 23, SCI signed an MOU with IHM Bhubaneshwar to run the first Sattvik center of excellence. Sattvik has two centers in the USA and India, and one in Canada and plans to expand to six countries in 2022. He said that the next 10 years are very important for India in terms of entrepreneurship.