Chief Minister Oommen Chandy addressing entrepreneurs during an interactive session with entrepreneurs as Industries and IT Minister P K Kunhalikutty, Industries and IT principal secretary P H Kurian, KSIDC managing director Aruna Sundararajan and Federal Bank Limited MD and CEO Shyam Srinivasan look on.
By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram
With an eye on the federal government’s Rs100bn fund set apart for attracting private capital for startups, Kerala has launched a mission to take successful industries onboard to create a conducive ecosystem.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and his senior aides held a discussion late on Friday with the industry leaders in this regard at a conclave in association with Technopark-Technology Business Incubator (TBI) and Startup Village in Kochi.
Some 80 successful entrepreneurs in Kerala participated in the session which turned out to be a launching pad for the mission that would chalk out a detailed strategy to make the state the best destination for nurturing young entrepreneurs.
“Time has arrived for us to act and we are in a transformation mode,” Chandy told them. “The student entrepreneurship policy of the government has started showing results and there has been great vigour and enthusiasm among youngsters to become entrepreneurs”.
Calling for the support of industries in Kerala to encourage these youngsters, the chief minister said the government was committed to extend all help to startups and the expertise of the established entrepreneurs was a prerequisite for it.
State Industries Minister Kunhalikutty said the state should be able to tap the potential of the youngsters only with the help of business leaders. The industry should join hands with the government to shape the future entrepreneurs.
“We would like to see innovations taking place in traditional industries also. We need your expertise, direction and guidance to support the youngsters,” the minister said.
The state wants itself to transform into a place of job creators and not job-seekers and it will soon launch 50 more incubators across the state to support business and technology startups.
Leaders of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a non-profit trade group launched by senior professionals, mostly working at multinational companies, dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship, offered to extend mentorship to young innovators.
Officials said the Kerala State Industrial Development Corp would soon launch a venture capital fund of Rs200mn in the coming Young Entrepreneurs Summit for supporting startups.
A Rs1.5bn Technology Innovation Zone in Kochi is under construction, which they hope would transform the place into “India’s Silicon Valley”, and it would be ready in two to three years. The new building will be able to accommodate 1,000 startups.
“An entrepreneurship culture is gaining momentum among youngsters in the state which is doing all necessary measures to promote a startup revolution,” said P H Kurian, the state’s principal secretary for information technology.
Shyam Srinivasan, the chairman and managing director of the Federal Bank, representing CII Kerala and AVG group chairman AV George, representing TiE Kerala, also spoke on the occasion.