Kerala Government to Back Student Startups- Latest News
Kerala has been single-mindedly focused on building a thriving startup ecosystem for a while now, and the Kerala Start-Up Mission (KSUM), the nodal agency for implementing the state’s startup policy is an organization pioneering this change.
The agency is now reaching out to students of biological sciences with a campaign to promote innovation and entrepreneurship and encourage them to establish start-up ventures in biotechnology.
“This represents a new dimension in our evangelization drive that has so far focussed on engineering institutes,” says Saji Gopinath, CEO, KSUM.
The Pinarayi Vijayan-led government has also decided to revise norms in the state IT policy to align with the national Startup India campaign, providing greater incentives to startups in Kerala.
State IT Secretary M Sivasankar issued orders in this regard this week following a proposal from the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) on schemes to develop an additional 500,000 sq ft of incubation space outside of the existing incubators in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, and Kozhikode. KSUM recommended the participation of private sector to help realize the goal of the 2014 Kerala Technology Startup Policy of creating one million sq ft of IT incubation space, a statement said.
The KSUM also has plans to establish
a network of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centres (IEDCs) in bioscience colleges. “Students from these centers can progress to bioincubators. We are also talking to the MIT Fab Lab Foundation, US, on setting up a Biofab Academy dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship in molecular and synthetic biology,” Dr. Gopinath said.“A spin-off benefit for students dabbling in start-ups is that they can dramatically improve their employability, thanks to the exposure to real-life situations,” says Dr. Gopinath. “Most students of biological sciences move on to research and teaching. The Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) is reaching out to students of biological sciences with a campaign to promote innovation and entrepreneurship and encourage them to establish start-up ventures in biotechnology. Private and government funding for start-ups stood at 263 crores in the year 2015-16. It has also come up with a Kerala-based venture capital funding scheme for start-ups.”
The activities initiated in the IEDCs are expected to equip the students to come up with innovative ideas for professional mentorship and funding.
