VISAKHAPATNAM: Techies who have a product idea but do not have the tools to execute it, can breathe a sigh of relief for they can now just walk into the Startup Village to be inaugurated Monday at Technology Research and Innovation Park (TRIP) at Madhurawada Hill-3 where they would not only get all the equipment required to execute their idea but also get funding for their business venture.
Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu will formally inaugurate the Startup Village project which is designed in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode on the lines of the one in Kochi. The facility would be spread over 17,000 sft of fully furnished and air-conditioned startup space at Rushikonda in Visakhapatnam. Startup Village CEO Pranav Suresh and chief mentor Kris Gopalakrishnan, who is the co-founder of Infosys, will attend the event.
It will commence operations within two weeks in an area of 17,000 sft. The facility will have all the necessary plug-and-play equipment including computers and internet access allowing people with innovative ideas to start their companies overnight.
“To produce world-class swimmers, you need a world-class swimming pool and a world-class coach. The Startup Village at Madhurawada will provide these world-class equipment which would be otherwise not affordable for any small or startup company. The idea is to encourage youngsters particularly students who are aspiring to become entrepreneurs,” said Sanjay Vijaya Kumar, chairman of Kochi-based Startup Village, which is collaborating with Andhra Pradesh government to operationalise the Startup Village in Vizag. Thirty-year-old Sanjay Vijayakumar who is also CEO of MobME Wireless, will sign a memorandum of understanding with the state government, modelled on the Kochi-based Startup Village.
Startup Village has the stated goal of finding a billion dollar campus startup from India within the next 10 years.
“We believe that if Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook can be founded by young founders below the age of 24, there is talent in India to replicate the same success story,” he said, adding that the Startup Village at Visakhapatnam aims to create an ecosystem to find and nurture such visionary young entrepreneurs.
The Startup Village in Kochi attracted over 5,000 applications within two years and incubated more than 800 startups of which 256 are student startups. Nearly 46 companies are currently working from an office space of just 15,000 sft.
With an initial space of 17,000 sft, fully furnished offices and the plug-and-play system provided by Andhra Pradesh, the TRIP premises in Madhurawada can easily house 50 startup companies. Though the Startup Village will initially act as an incubator for the startup companies offering mobile and internet products, people with ideas in electronic hardware manufacture also now have a scope to realise their innovative ideas after the equipment is established. “We are bringing the Fab Lab including 3D Printers which are otherwise available only in the Western countries,” he said.
Terming Andhra Pradesh government proactive in terms of executing ideas, Sanjay feels that Vizag has the potential to become a major hub for the next phase of IT revolution in India. “Andhra Pradesh is the only state to have the Startup Policy designed to encourage startup companies which would revolutionise the IT and hardware sector in the country,” Sanjay stated.
