CM Hails Startup Village’s 1K milestone

TechnoparkToday.com>>  August 17, 2013: Startup Village’s milestone achievement of securing 1,000 applications in 15 months took on added shine on Independence Day this year as the state government announced the rollout of its flagship Student Entrepreneurship Policy to schools in the second phase.

Hon’ble Chief Minister of Kerala Shri Oommen Chandy in his Independence Day speech cited the example of Startup Village, India’s first telecom technology business incubator, as a testament to the success of the policy which was announced by the state government at the Emerging Kerala Global Connect in September last year and offered a number of incentives for college students wanting to set up business startups.

In its second phase, the Student Entrepreneurship Policy, which is designed to encourage innovations by youngsters, will be extended to school-going students. Around 10,000 bright school students from classes VIII to XII will be chosen through an online examination and provided computers and other learning material to improve their technology skills as part of the new project.

“Young people are going to provide the strength for Kerala’s forward march, and our duty is to provide them the opportunities here at home,” the Chief Minister said, adding, “It is very clear that employment and growth opportunities around the world in the next fifty years are going to be based on technology.”

He declared that September 12, the anniversary of the Emerging Kerala meet, will be celebrated in the state as Entrepreneurship Day.

The state government is also launching a new project that offers one hundred teams of five college students each a Startup Tool Box, which will have high-end computers, smartphones and other technology items required to create a startup company.

“Startup Village in Kalamassery has got more than 1,000 project proposals with novel ideas and concepts in just 15 months. This and the fact that Kerala today has 125 functional startups shows how widely the government’s policies have been embraced within the student community,” Shri. Chandy said.

Startup Village’s milestone was reached in exactly 479 days since the setting up of the incubator on April 11, 2012, as a public-private partnership between the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India; Technopark, Trivandrum; and technology firm MobME Wireless.

Nearly 80% of the incubating companies there are product startups which require nurturing and support in the initial stages because it will take them at least three years to mature and demonstrate explosive growth.

“Young people in India today have access to education on a par with global standards. This is the resource pool that is going to create knowledge, employment and wealth for the society and the nation in the future. We see this raw, creative energy at work in places like Startup Village. A charged, vibrant ecosystem like Startup Village will be a catalyst for change and it will put Kerala on the global stage,” Shri Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-founder and Executive Vice Chairman of Infosys and the Chief Mentor of Startup Village.

“Few people would doubt that technology is going to be the driver of economic growth in the next 40 years. IT services and products are going to be at the centre of it,” said Shri P H Kurian, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Kerala. “The most important raw material for a knowledge-based economy is human capital and we have plenty of that resource in our educated, skilled and talented young people. Our efforts are now to leverage this strength.”

“By extending the Student Entrepreneurship Policy to school level, Kerala will seamlessly have a programme where young minds from 8th standard have opportunity to explore original thinking and learn computer programming languages in depth which will give them a great foundation to begin a startup from first year in college and have a successful company by their fourth year in college,” said Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman, Board of Governors, Startup Village.

Sijo Kuruvilla George, CEO, Startup Village said: “Kerala is fast achieving the critical mass for startups and crossing 1,000 applications has been a tremendous milestone in 479 days. This state is at the cusp of a startup revolution and the excitement among the youth and in college campuses has not been seen in a long time.”