HYDERABAD: The Telangana State Innovation Cell, set up under the leadership of IT Minister KT Rama Rao last year, has launched a first-of-its-kind fellowship programme in the country to attract young professionals from diverse backgrounds to work with the government to accelerate innovation in the state. The first cohort of Innovation Fellows were inducted and the programme was formally launched by KTR here on Saturday. The first cohort includes entrepreneurs, engineers, social development professionals, journalism and arts students and a lawyer.
A few projects the Innovation Fellows are leading include working with schools to promote a culture of innovative thinking, kick-starting innovation and entrepreneurship activity at district level, promoting start-up incubators, creating mentor ecosystem and promoting grassroots innovators.
“In today’s world, innovation is of prime significance. Our government is committed to build a strong innovation-driven economy in the State. With this in mind, we launched the State Innovation Cell, which is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country.The State Innovation Cell’s goal is to make Telangana a land of innovators, just like Gujarat is known as a land of businessmen. The Cell will work towards building strong awareness about the importance of innovation, and I hope this will result in creating at least one innovator in every family. I wish the Innovation Fellows the very best,” said IT Minister KT Rama Rao after launching the programme.
Principal secretary IT Jayesh Ranjan said this was a unique initiative launched by the government to promote innovation in the State and it would complement their other initiatives such as T-Hub, RICH, T-Work, WE-Hub etc. Chief Innovation Officer Phanindra Sama said that an ambitious project of this nature needed people with diverse skills to work together.
An entrepreneur Faheem Meraj stated that he wanted to leverage the rich upskilling resources already available to promote Telangana as a destination for technology, education and tourism. In fact, the Telangana State Innovation Cell had earlier invited several partners including Ashoka Innovators to build the culture of change making in the state.