Kerala government offers to help budding entrepreneurs

Kochi: The state government will focus more strongly on promoting young and budding entrepreneurs with policies and other necessary support, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Saturday. Interacting with students at the IEDC Summit 2017, he urged them to set their sights on innovation and excellence. “The students have exhibited a number of prototypes as part of the event which proves their  ability. The state government has always been a staunch supporter of the startup ecosystem and will give them full-fledged support henceforth,” he said.

Pinarayi also launched a startup venture, Traffitizer – a novel solution to help ambulances stuck in traffic. Traffitizer- Emergency Response System (T-ERS) is a Centralized Internet of Things based system, with artificial intelligence at different levels, enabling automatic switching of traffic lights to green for ambulances to pass through. Addressing a series of panel discussions held as part of the summit , a group of entrepreneurs said success of a startup does not depend on geography, language or the universality of the product or services.

The discussants included Varun Chandran of Corporate 360, a company operating from a small village, John Kuriakose, founder of DentCare Dental Labs, James Joseph of Jackfruit 365 and Shruti Chaturvedi, founder of Chaipaani. “Corporate 360 is set up in a small village in Pathanapuram. It is a big misconception that business happens only in IT parks. Place is not at all a factor for the success of the company”, said Varun.

John Kuriakose said passion is the main ingredient needed for creating a success story. “I came from a humble background, where it was tough to earn a day’s meal. I started learning about the dental care industry when I was working in a dispensary. And the passion to learn about the it drew me to start the business,” he said. The summit held by Kerala Startup mission is rated as one of the largest student entrepreneur events in the  country.