KOCHI: Hrishikesh Nair, CEO, Technopark, said innovation and entrepreneurship are the need of the hour as technology is changing at a very fast pace. He was speaking after inaugurating the Kerala operations of InQ Innovation, a unique global venture providing co-working spaces, global launch pads, incubation for startups and early stage accelerators.
The government is committed to support startup ecosystems like InQ Innovation. He also said Kerala is catching up with the changing faces of IT as Thirvunathapuram is focusing on fintech services including block-chain and bitcoin while Kochi is catching up with Internet of Things and Kozhikode on mobile applications. In this context, startup ecosystems play a major role by attracting startups and innovations.
We are targeting to be a 100 per cent digital economy and while our workforces are technically educated, they lag behind in employability. The inaugural session held at Hotel Crowne Plaza was also addressed by T P Sreenivasan, former Ambassador of India; A V Anoop, global president, World Malayali Council; N R Panicker, chairman, Accel group; Umesh Menon, senior faculty, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India. The day-long launch event also included sessions on various topics attended by a visiting delegation from Australia and professionals and business leaders from across the country.
The sessions included a Fireside Chat, Star Mentor Dating and an AR VR Session by Scott O’Brien, co-founder of Humense, Australia. Irfan Malik, managing director, inQ Innovation, said it was for the first time a co-working space of global standards is being launched in the state. With offices in Australia and the Middle East, the co-working spaces in Kochi will have real global presence from day one, which will be a big boost to the startup environment in the state, the spokesperson said. “To be successful, startups need international scaling right from the start in the current globalized scenario and we have found many of the startups fail due to lack of it. It’s to fill this disparity, InQ innovation steps in,” Irfan Malik said.