IMPHAL, Jun 28: Advisory Board Member, founder and former CEO of New Call Telecom, UK, Nigel Eastwood, is on the lookout for talented entrepreneurs and opportunities, in Manipur and hopes to inspire and empower them with his expertise.
In an interaction with The Sangai Express today at Classic Grande, Imphal, Nigel shared experience of his earlier visits here in Manipur in the last 10 years and commented that the State is changing but it needs to accelerate.
He is of the opinion that entrepreneurialism is the backbone of a society as it creates employment opportunities to the larger community. Young people are the future, they should be well supported, encouraged and mentored. Their enthusiasm and energy to excel in different fields should be channelized for the betterment of a society, he added.
People should focus more on promoting locally available products and services instead of looking somewhere else, he stated. Such steps will help develop Manipur faster.
“After scouting for entrepreneurs in the State for some time now, I have found a handful of them,” Nigel added. Already, many talented entrepreneurs have ventured into diverse fields bringing progress and development, it is a good sign that people are ready to change for good.
Manipur is rightly given the name ‘the jewel of India’ as the State has enormous potential for the promotion of tourism. He added that the State has all the required ingredients to excel in different forms of tourism like ecotourism, adventure, cultural and war heritage tourism etc.
The State is the hotbed of many opportunities and young entrepreneurs should grab such chances provided by the changing commercial landscape in the region. By virtue of the State’s proximity to other South-East Asian countries, Manipur can become a hub of tourists from different neighbouring countries.
Nigel added that it is unfortunate that the North Eastern States of India including Manipur are constantly highlighted as too dangerous to visit by some countries which is far from the ground reality. He said that each year 800,000 British visit India and developing tourism can attract many of these tourists. People need to change these erroneous concepts and highlight the positive aspects of Manipur, he added.
Further, he shared that he will be conducting a seven half-marathons, for seven consecutive days across the Seven Sister States (Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura) to raise funds for charity. The marathon is scheduled to be conducted in September and it will help in highlighting the opportunities in North Eastern States, he added.
He also expressed his keen desire to conduct an event here in Imphal in August where entrepreneurs can showcase their ideas and concepts to develop and excel in various business venues.
