 |
 |
 |
| |
|
|
Startup Village Gets New Building, Incubator Firms To Total 350
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Saturday, November 17, 2012:
Startup Village, India’s first telecom incubator that has already grown big with swelling number of student entrepreneurs, is all set to spread its wings by the space too. Inching further close to its ambitious target of having a one-lakh-sq-ft campus by 2014 in its search for billion-dollar ventures from campuses, Startup Village on Friday got an additional space of 10,000 sq ft.
|
|
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy ,who formally opened the new building for the Startup Village at the KINFRA Hi-Tech Park near here, said the Government was giving greater importance to the demands and requirements of the Startup village in view of the fact that this technology hub would be a major centre providing larger employment opportunities. He also offered 25 cents of land for the Startup village at the Kinfra park to meet its future needs. After listening to the needs and requirements from the student entrepreneurs, he assured them that the government would send a five member student team from Startup Village to Silicon Valley as part of gaining global exposure to them.
Later, he switched on the high speed internet connectivity of one GBPS at the new 10,000 sq.ft. building allotted to Startup Village. This the first time that one GBPS internet connectivity is being made available anywhere in India, it was announced at the function. To speedup activities at the startup village, Mr Chandy asked its management to submit a detailed report on its immediate needs and requirements within10 days based on which a high level governmental team would visit the startup village to sort out its problems, adding that the needs of Startup village is actually of the state itself and therefore it would given highest priority, he added.
The Chief Minister was accompanied by Mr Hibi Eden, MLA, who also spoke of the high priority the government was extending to the technology hub. Senior executives, including Technopark CEO Mr Girish Babu, Inforpark CEO Baju George and KINFRA MD, Mr Ramnath, among others were also present on the occasion.
Startup village which began functioning in April this year as a joint initiative between the Department of Science and Technology under the Government of India, Technopark Trivandrum and MobME Wireless.
Its status as the country’s first public-private partnership model technology business incubator had got further boost a month ago when the state government launched a much-awaited Student Entrepreneurship Scheme.
The scheme, which guarantees 20 per cent attendance and four per cent grace mark for student entrepreneurs in universities, colleges and polytechnics in the state, has lent momentum to the filing of applications with the Startup Village, according to Mr. Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman of the Startup Village which has Infosys Co-Founder Kris Gopalakrishnan as the Chief Mentor.
“As of now, we have a total of 359 applicants, a chunk of whom will soon become incubated companies at the Village,” revealed Mr. Vijayakumar, who is also CEO of MobME, a mobile internet company, also based in Kochi.
The new building will house six different innovation zones by as many companies, including giants like Blackberry, IBM, Oracle and KPMG who have already partnered with Startup Village, he said. “Another six firms will be able to set up innovation zones with this additional space. It will give further boost to entrepreneurs who build start-ups on top of these technologies,” he added.
Mr Sijo George Kuruvila, Chief Executive Officer of Startup Village, informed that the campus already housed 68 incubated firms in an area of 5,000 sq ft, and that the new four-floor building, leased out by KINFRA (Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation), can accommodate the operation of “250 to 300” companies.
“The interiors have been fully furnished. We did it in a month’s time,” he said. “The new companies can move in at the earliest. The premises will be fully functional within a week.”
Going by the pending applications, the space “is still insufficient”, Mr. Kuruvila said. “However, we believe that the basic foundation has now been laid.”
Its performance in the next five years will be crucial for the Startup Village, which aims to incubate 1,000 product start-ups by the turn of 2020. “We have to sustain the present positive trend; we are doing it. We are sure we can keep the word,” added the CEO, when pointed out that the state government’s schedule was to raise the working space in Startup Village to 25,000 sq ft by May 12 next year, and finish work on the remaining 75,000 sq ft by January 12, 2014.
The Student Entrepreneurship Scheme, about which the Chief Minister first revealed at the September 12-14 Emerging Kerala global investors’ meet in Kochi, has led to an encouraging spurt in the inflow of applications at the Startup Village, he added.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SUBSCRIBE TO EFYTIMES
Receive the latest reviews, how-tos, news & more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
Create QR-Codes For Free |
| TEC-IT releases the freeware QR-Code Studio to provide a quick and convenient way of QR code creation for every application scenario.... |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hands On: Videocon A30 Smartphone |
| Videocon, the consumer electronics company which is known for its refrigerators, washing machine and air-conditioner has unveiled its Android-based sm... |
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Face To Face With Richard Stallman |
| The father of the free software movement, Richard M. Stallman talks on topics including why ‘Free Software’ matters so much, the entire confusion crea... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Daily App Review: Klik For iPhone |
| Among all the gadgetry on display in Mission Impossible IV, perhaps the most striking was an iPhone app that could identify people who appeared on the... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
