Four high-end projects to boost IT ecosystem begin

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday kicked off four high-end IT projects, including the state’s second World Trade Centre at Technocity here, which would act as pivots for the state’s robust IT ecosystem, trigger jobs and ensure sustainable economic development.

Mr Vijayan launched “Swatantra”, the world’s largest integrated free and open source facility in a government sector.

“Swatantra”, an initiative of International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), will house the FOSS Incubation Centre & Training Space. It is aimed at enhancing the government’s agenda of promoting democratic access of information.

The other two projects are Skill Delivery Platform of Kerala (SDPK) and Space Tech Application Devel-opment Ecosystem (STA-DE).  The inauguration was held at Greenfield Stadium Complex.

The second World Trade Centre in the state after Kochi is being executed by the Brigade Group. Located on 2.5 million sq. ft, it has the potential to create 15,000 jobs. An MoU on this was exchanged between Mr Hrishikesh Nair, CEO, Technopark and Mr M.R. Jaishankar, CMD, Brigade Enterprises, in the presence of the Chief Minister.

The SDPK by Kerala State IT Infrastructure Ltd (KSITI) intends to bridge the gap between the industry and colleges and is equipped to provide live tele-presence network with 150 colleges of the state. The official website of SDPK has also been launched.

IT secretary M. Sivasankar in the presence of Kerala Startup Mission CEO Saji Gopinath handed over letters of occupancies at STADE for three startups working in space tech arena – Satsure, Bellatrix and Agnikul. Airbus Biz Labs partners KSUM on this project.

Mr Sivasankar welcomed the gathering and Dr Jayasankar Prasad, Director, ICFOSS, proposed a vote of thanks. Dr Chithra, IT Mission director, Mr Santhosh Kurup, CEO, ICT Academy and Chief Minister’s IT Fellows Arun Balachandran and Harshan were present.