Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Monday said the government would earmark a Rs.100-crore Innovation Fund for start-ups.
Mr. Naidu announced this during a meeting with Kochi Start-up Village Chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar, who briefed the Chief Minister on his plans to make Vizag a Start-up hub and bring a Sunrise Civilisation to Andhra Pradesh in line with the Chief Minister’s Vision 2050.
Mr. Vijayakumar, is also the man behind Vizag Start-up Village, which currently houses 107 start-ups. Under the first phase of Entrepreneurship & Innovation plan, the government will expand the 17,500-sq.ft area of the Incubator Park to 50,000 sq.ft by December next year.
He said Vizag would be put on global start-up map along with Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv within 18 months. For this, the Vizag Start-up Village was benchmarking itself against as many as eight key indicators of the Silicon Valley. Briefing the action plan to Chief Minister, Mr. Vijayakumar said an overhaul of curriculum in schools, colleges and universities would be implemented from next month. The revamping of curriculum will include creating a culture of entrepreneurship among students. For colleges and universities- holding boot camps, hackathons and encouraging students to convert their projects into start-ups will be taken up, he added.
“This not only infuses entrepreneurial spirit among students but also leads to direct skill development, eventually creating more jobs and entrepreneurs,” Mr. Vijayakumar said.
The Chief Minister also suggested creating a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to mobilise resources to create the required infrastructure. “Create a non-exclusive model and work out an action plan to be implemented from July 1,” he said.
The government is also working on a plan to check the feasibility of Signature Campuses for start-ups (on which Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. are working) rather than limit itself to Signature Buildings.
IT Advisor J. Satyanarayana and IT Secretary Sreedhar were present at the meeting.
