Kerala CM launches S.asia’s biggest innovation hub
KOCHI: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan launched South Asia’s biggest innovation hub, Maker Village and Integrated Startup Complex, at a colourful function at Kerala Technology Innovation Zone, Kalamassery, near here on Sunday.
“The idea is to transform Kerala into the biggest IT centre in the world. The 180,000 sq.ft facility is part of this ambitious initiative. Government has decided to give more importance to emerging IT based industries. Software export must be enhanced. Hardware and infrastructure facilities must conform to achieve this objective. We will give all encouragement to startups,” Pinarayi said while inaugurating the complex.
The biggest startup hub in South Asia as of now is Techno Hub in Jaipur Rajasthan, having a 100,000 sq.ft built-up space.
Minister for Health KK Shylaja opened the Biomedical Research and Innovation Centre, a 7500-sq.ft facility set up with cooperation of Cochin Cancer Centre.
The integrated startup complex, billed as the country’s largest innovation hub is set up by the Kerala Startup Mission. The complex set up over an area of 180,000 sq ft within the Technology Innovation Zone (TIZ) at Kalamassery would provide top quality infrastructure for incubation and acceleration.
Once fully developed into a fullledged campus having over half-amillion sq ft built up area, TIZ would become the largest Work-live-play space exclusively dedicated to startups in the country.
The complex has a Maker Village, BRINC, the country’s irst international accelerator for hardware startups, BRIC, an incubator dedicated for developing solutions for cancer diagnosis care, and a Centre of Excellence set up by industry majors like UNITY and CERA, under its roof.
Maker Village, the Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) facility and Hardware Incubator, is an innovative joint initiative of Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Kerala Government and IIITMK, Trivandrum.
Over a 100 startup companies in various stages of growth are already operating in the three incubators functioning within the facility. A total of 25 (both national and international) patents have been iled by 14 companies and another eight companies are in the process of iling patents in the next two months.