It’s time to research & develop
Hyderabad had a record number of hackathons and other events last year
IT minister K.T. Rama Rao’s pet project to make “Hyderabad the startup capital of India” doesn’t seem far-fetched, say experts from the city’s startup ecosystem. A recap of 2014 is fair evidence in this direction:
Work on building the largest incubator (logistics and mentorship support) of the country, called T-Hub, inside the campus of IIIT-Hyderabad, is underway.
“60 hackathons in six months”, which started in October-end, will get over before its deadline. A majority of them were hosted in colleges to encourage students to innovate. The startup community is hoping that by the end of the hackathons, college principals will request for more such events.
Unlike, in the past, when city startups left for greener pastures in Bengaluru or Delhi, this year, a few like MartMobi, FlatPebble, WazzatLabs and AppVirality decided to come back.
Hackathons were more than weekend fun activities. City-specific issues like safety of women, children and elderly, disposal of waste, efficient police patrolling, busting child pornography and online exploitation, were delved into.
‘It’s going to be a great year ahead’
In 2015, Telangana will see the opening of the ‘incubator of incubators’. The T-Hub will have 80,000 sft dedicated to research and development and will be an important aspect of the start-up ecosystem. Also, we’re tying up with ISB (for business insight), Nalsar (for legal advice) and then IIIT Hyderabad for technical assistance to all start-ups. It will indeed be a great year.
K. T. Rama Rao, IT minister