The Kerala Technology Start-up Policy approved by the State Cabinet on Wednesday focusses on creating better infrastructure, incubators, and accelerators and promoting human capital development, and State support and funding as the building blocks for a world-class start-up ecosystem.
The policy proposes a startup-bootup-scaleup model to speed up the movement from ideas to stock market launch. It seeks to establish a network of incubators at government-owned information technology parks, industrial parks, small and medium enterprises clusters, institutions of higher education, research institutes, and other centres of excellence on the public-private-partnership (PPP) model. At least one world-class accelerator would also be set up.
Concerted effort
According to the policy document, the government would work with universities, educational institutions, and industry to provide manpower in emerging technologies and foster a culture of entrepreneurship and encourage banks and financial institutions to finance start-up firms.
Challenge grants have been proposed to encourage innovation among entrepreneurs and students and start-up companies would be compensated for filing of patents. The policy recommends a grant of five per cent on turnover for start-ups registering an annual growth rate of 15 per cent.
Technology incubators would be encouraged to expand to more niche themes including Internet of Things, 3D Printing, and IT for X in the areas of pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, urban management, social media, mobility, analytics and cloud computing, fables semiconductors and electronics, and animation and gaming, among other things.
The policy, to be implemented under the guidance of the Kerala State Innovation Council and T-TBI, also suggests an annual programme to identify the top 50 start-ups and give them a platform for mentoring, funding support, product development, and marketing.
