Malabar Coast spruces to become Silicon Coast

Entrepreneur News:

Kerala unleashes its dream to aspire as the second Silicon Valley with its new start-up village gearing up to be operational by April 2012, in Kochi. With a targeted investment of INR 1 billion (US $19.6 million), the project aims to nurture over 1,000 student technology start-ups in the telecom space during the next 10 years.

The Chief Minister of Kerala, Ommen Chandy on Tuesday spoke to media at Kochi about the state’s aspiration to be a landmark in the Telecom sector through this project. He said, “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,’”

The Start-up Village is being set up by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board under the Department of Science and Technology, Technopark, an incubator run by the Kerala government and in collaboration with MobME Wireless, a private firm, which also began as a student start-up. S Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of the country’s second largest software exporter Infosys, would be the chief mentor for start-ups.

The government of Kerala has provided 15,000 sq ft of space in Kochi at a subsidized price of INR 2 per sq ft for the incubator, of which 5,000 sq ft is being launched in April this year. “The selected students (or can we say future entrepreneurs) under the incubator will be further supported by the Government of Kerala by extending attendance and grace marks in colleges with what is currently being given to sports and NCC,” says the CM.

Former NASSCOM Chief Kiran Karnik, Yahoo India R&D ex-CEO Sharad Sharma, Dell India MD Ganesh Lakshminarayan and Arun Kumar (global board member of KPMG) are among those joining the project as mentors and investors.

Telecom is the next trending in technology segment and there exists a great demand in this area. As the demanding sector is ever increasing, globally. New Ideas with positive thinking initiatives will go a long way in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship development. Way2World advises young students to make use of this opportunity and establish their dreams.