A telecom business incubator, purported to be the country’s first and one of the first such in the public-private partnership model, is to come up in Technopark here.
An official spokesman said that the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, Technopark and MobME Wireless would jointly promote the facility.
“We will be launching the Telecom Innovation Hub by January next year,” according to Mr Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chief Executive Officer, MobME Wireless.
“We propose to market it aggressively within the non-resident community and high networth individuals for support,” he added.
Infosys co-founder and Co-Chairman, Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, has agreed to be the Chief Mentor of the innovation hub.
It would focus primarily on student start-ups from campuses and would be modelled on technology incubators in Silicon Valley, the spokesman said.
It aims to incubate at least 1,000 product start-ups over a period of 10 years.
The spokesman quoted officials of MobME Wireless as saying that they were on the look out for space in Kochi to set up the innovation hub.
The chosen campus will a have full 4G network in the park, advanced telecom labs and provide all services including legal, intellectual property, accounting, fully furnished office space, video conference rooms, computers, phone lines, Internet, server space and virtual office services that are required for a student to start a company even while in college.
The innovation hub will create a vibrant ecosystem for start-ups to create breakthrough technologies for the global telecommunications industry.
This would be made possible in association with leading companies working in proposed telecom innovation zones.
These zones would bring home the latest technology platforms and products to start-ups in the incubator before they are released in the commercial markets.
The spokesman quoted the Kerala Minister for Industries and IT, Mr P. K. Kunhalikutty, as saying that aspiring young entrepreneurs in the State would now get an opportunity to work closely with big companies and work towards creating path-breaking technologies.
MobME Wireless and Technopark have created one of India’s finest start-up eco-systems that inspired over 122 startups at the Technopark technology incubator over the last five years, according to Dr H. K. Mittal, Head and Advisor, NSTEDB.
“With this initiative, we aim to create a platform for the next generation of entrepreneurs to set up own enterprises and be job creators than job seekers,” he added.