Startup Village, which completes two successful years this month, is bolstering its incubation support system with an industry-startup connect leadership programme that will provide business mentoring for entrepreneurs.
Some of the world’s leading technology companies are expected to come on board the mentoring programme which will be guided by Infosys Executive Vice Chairman and Startup Village’s Chief Mentor Kris Gopalakrishnan.
The roadmap for the new project will be announced at the technology business incubator’s second anniversary celebrations to be inaugurated by Hon’ble Chief Minister Shri Oommen Chandy at 4 pm on Saturday, April 26.
Hon’ble Minister for Industries and IT Shri P K Kunhalikutty and Shri Kris Gopalakrishnan will also address young entrepreneurs at Startup Village on the occasion.
“It has been a wonderful two years for the incubator. We started with just two companies and are today supporting around 600,” said Sijo Kuruvilla George, the CEO of Startup Village. “Our goal is to make Kerala one of the top five startup destinations in the world and to that end we are constantly looking to improve the ecosystem here.”
“Having identified a gap in business mentoring, we are now trying to get the most successful global technology companies to advice entrepreneurs here on strategy and leadership,” he said.
Startup Village was set up on April 15, 2012 as India’s first business incubator focusing on mobile-internet technology and funded jointly by the public and private sectors. In two years, it has received more than 2,200 applications; and more than 200 of the 600 companies it supports currently are student start-ups.
“Student entrepreneurship, backed by Kerala government’s policies and incentives, has been the biggest driver of social and cultural change in recent times,” said Sanjay Vijayakumar, the Chairman of Startup Village. “The wave of entrepreneurship and the demand for incubation support is so strong, we are planning to expand beyond our core area of mobile and internet technology into allied sectors such as electronics and hardware.”
Some of the major initiatives of Startup Village for entrepreneurs include SV Square – a government-backed programme to give students the chance to go to Silicon Valley and experience it first-hand; the Develooop programme to build a community of 1000+ mobile app developers spread across engineering colleges. Startup Village is also home to the first BlackBerry Innovation Zone set up in the Asia Pacific Region.
At the anniversary celebrations on Saturday, the Startup Village team will provide an overview of the achievements over two years and announce awards for the best startups and the emerging startups list. Some of the most successful startup founders will speak about their entrepreneurial journeys.
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