There is a need for industry leaders to come forward and encourage the student entrepreneurs to innovate and set up new industries, founder of MobME and chairman of the Startup Village Sanjay Vijayakumar has said.
The industrialists, who are not necessarily from IT sector, can invest in the industry by interacting regularly with the entrepreneurs and investing in Angel Funds. For instance the biggest employer of Malayalis in the Middle East Ravi Pillai is the major patron of the startup village in Kochi. Of course the startup village has the advantage of being one of the most successful IT entrepreneurs – co-founder of Infosys – Kris Gopalakrishnan as the chief patron, Mr. Sanjay told The Hindu here on Sunday.
The startup village has been chosen by the Andhra Pradesh government to run the Technology Research and Innovation Park (TRIP) at the Rushikonda IT Park which is being inaugurated on Monday by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. The startup village, which is arguably the biggest IT incubator in the country with over 800 incubated companies and over 5000 applicants, has been chosen on a nomination basis and non-exclusive basis to set up a pilot incubator in Public-Private Partnership model.
The State government chose the startup village in view of the fact that the Indian start-up ecosystem is at a nascent stage, and to jump-start the start-up ecosystem in the state. The startup village has been approved by National Science and Technology Entrepreneur Development Board of the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India.
The innovation centre would also be establishing a laboratory scale Fab facility to help promote electronic manufacturing industry, Mr Sanjay said.
