VILLAGE WILL SET UP IN KOCHI

VILLAGE WILL SET UP IN KOCHI

Envisaging an investment of Rs.100 crore, the country's first public-private partnership incubator, called Start-up Village, will be set up in Kochi to nurture over 1,000 student start-ups in 10 years.“This is the first technology business incubator in the telecom sector. We are looking to emulate the famed Silicon Valley incubators and transform Kerala into a ‘Silicon Coast,'” Chief Minister Oommen Chandy told presspersons here on Tuesday.Start-up Village is being set up by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board under the Department of Science and Technology and Technopark, in collaboration with MobME Wireless, a private firm which began as a student start-up.S. Gopalakrishnan, executive co-chairman of Infosys, will be the Chief Mentor of the start-ups.

Technopark took its first steps into incubation when MobME Wireless, a young company promoted by engineering students, was launched. Now, there are 125 companies in Technopark Incubator employing 3,000 people and generating Rs.100 crore in revenues annually, Mr. Chandy said.“With this strong foundation, we are now prepared to take the next leap forward for accelerated growth in the technology start-up ecosystem. Our aim is to incubate 1,000 start-ups over the next 10 years from college campuses and start the search for a billion dollar start-up from Kerala,” he said.The Chief Minister said support would be given by extending attendance and grace marks to entrepreneurs as was being given to sportspersons and NCC cadets.

Kiran Karnik, former chief of NASSCOM; Sharad Sharma, former chief executive officer of Yahoo India R Ganesh Lakshminarayan, managing director, Dell India; and Arun Kumar, global board member of KPMG; are among those joining the project as mentors and investors.“The next big wave in the telecom sector is in the growth of smartphones and 4G, and Startup Village will help young start-ups harness these global opportunities,” Rajan S. Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators' Association of India, said.The project will create a complete ecosystem, starting from policy changes to allow students to pursue entrepreneurship.“This will be followed by an incubator (idea nursery), accelerator (specific support to scale promising ideas), and angel fund (investment in breakthrough innovations), all under one umbrella for the first time in the country,” Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman (Board of Governors), Startup Village, said.The Startup Village campus will have full 4G network and advanced telecom labs. The hub will extend a host of perks such as a three-year service tax exemption up to Rs.50 lakh revenues. — PTI

\                                                               Prof. John Kurakar