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Efforts are on to expand and evolve the start up village into a multi nodal innovation, incubation and business ecosystem centre with the state government aiming to make Kerala the country's start-up capital, state's IT and Industries Minister, P K Kunhali Kutty today said.
Inaugurating the 'NextGen' Conclave organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, he said the state government has been undertaking many progressive initiatives during the last three years to inculcate the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship in the minds of the youth.
The launch of the first start-up village in March 2012 was a catalyst to create a product start-up eco-system in the state. Presently, there are about 1,400 product start-ups in the village, the highest for any incubator in the country.
"The momentum is clearly shifting to Kerala to become the start-up capital of the country," he said, adding, steps are afoot to expand and evolve the start-up village into a multi- nodal innovation, incubation and business eco-system centre.
"Government has also proposed to set up 10 more incubators dedicated to sectors such as agriculture, animal husbandry, dairy, fisheries, electronics and medical electronics soon," he said.
V P Nandakumar, Managing director and CEO, Manappuram Finance, said the industrial landscape of Kerala has been going through a sea change with the state leaving behind the image of militant labour image, T R Raghulal, Managing Director of Elite Food Group, felt the state was sitting on too many opportunities.
"In the fast evolving business ecosystem, many institutions under the state government's aegis have sprang that connect firms with finance and capital which will go a long way in spurring the industrial growth," he said.
Kerala has been going through a surge of entrepreneurship with the active support of the state government, Navas Meeran, Chairman, CII-Southern Region and Chairman of Eastern group of Companies, said, urging the second generation businessmen and women who had taken over their family business from their predecessors to pass on the experience and domain knowledge to the next generation of entrepreneurs to ensure a faster industrial growth in the state.
