The State government’s bid to bring Kozhikode on to the information technology map of the country bore fruit on Wednesday with the inauguration of the Mobile 10X Incubation Centre in the Cyberpark.
Kerala IT Parks chief executive officer Hrishikesh Nair and Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) CEO Jitender Singh Minhas signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the facility set up at 12,500 sq ft Park Centre building in the Cyberpark.
Mobile 10X is an Indian Internet Industry-backed programme spearheaded by IAMAI to support app developers and app entrepreneurs to improve the quality of their apps.
The Centre will offer co-working, training, mentoring, design, testing labs, monetisation zone, industry and investor’s connect to the digital start-ups of the State. At present, Mobile 10X has start-up hubs in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Gurugram.
Rajan Anandan, Google India Managing Director and vice-president(South-east Asia), while inaugurating the Mobile 10X Incubation Centre, said the alliance of the IAMAI with Kerala Startup Mission would enable the creation of a new IT ecosystem in the Cyberpark. The objective was to support entrepreneurs building mobile first products and services.
Affordable access
Addressing a news conference later, he said the launch of Mobile 10X in Kerala would enable affordable access, affordable devices, local language friendly and locally relevant products and services.
Mr. Anandan said entrepreneurs in Kerala were focussed on real and relevant problems than looking at the models successfully launched in the U.S. and China. Kerala would have 100% smart phone users that secured the services in different spheres of activity in another 4-5 years.
In his web message from Thiruvananthapuram, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the government had extended support for the facility and hoped that the mobile app developer community would develop citizen-friendly apps to initiate them into access e-governance services.
The Kerala App Store was already supporting e-governance initiatives. Soon, the government would come out with a comprehensive ecosystem policy right from college campuses.
With 3.3 crore mobile phone users, Kerala was the only State in the country where every adult had a mobile connection, Mr. Vijayan said.
IT Secretary M. Sivasankar said the setting up of Mobile 10X in Kerala would attract domestic and multi-national companies and create jobs.
IAMAI president Subho Roy and Kerala Start-up Mission CEO Saji Gopinath were present.
