Take start-ups to global levels: CM Pinarayi Vijayan

Thiruvananthapuram: Calling upon young, aspiring entrepreneurs to develop startups that could emerge as global firms, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the state government had adopted a five-step strategy for providing an eco system for achieving this.

Speaking at the launch of the digital incubator of Startup Village (SV.CO) here on Wednesday, the Chief Minister said that providing world class physical infrastructure matching Silicon Valley, world class technology network, world class learning facilities, funding avenues and world class incubators were the five strategies, for the promotion of which  projects were announced in the budget. He also said that the government would rope in the service of experts like Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and Startup Village chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar. The government had announced a host of projects for promoting startups in the budget and allocated Rs 300 crore.

Mr. Vijayan said that the startup culture would bridge the digital divide between the privileged classes, who were so far carrying out businesses, and the underprivileged as the only capital required for a startup is intellectual capital. Hence startups are bringing in revolutionary change.

SV.CO is the second phase of the Startup Village project. It would be the first incubator in virtual space. The project, supported by the Department of Science and Technology, aims at creating an entrepreneurial culture among five mission engineering students by providing a digital incubation framework. Students in the team can apply at www.sv.co for admission to the digital incubator and the selected one will be guided.