BHUBANESWAR: The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) on Monday soft-launched an Electropreneur Park (EP), the second Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) incubation centre in the country after Delhi, at Gothapatna here to mentor startups and promote innovation in the sector.
Set up with support from the Ministry of Electronics and IT and the Skill Development, Electronics and IT department, the park will incubate around 50 startups in the State over a period of five years with a focus on verticals like energy, process control, industrial automation and education.
Odisha Skill Development Authority (OSDA) Chairman Subroto Bagchi, who soft-launched the EP, said it will help creating a holistic eco-system for innovation and entrepreneurship and lead to employment for skilled people.
The EP is the first such park in the Eastern India. The IIIT-Bhubaneswar has joined hands with STPI-Bhubaneswar as the knowledge and academic partner while India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) will be partner of the park for industry connect, mentoring and outreach.
E&IT Minister Tusharkanti Behera said global semiconductor design and manufacturing company Texas Instruments (TI) will also be partnering with EP-Bhubaneswar for technological mentorship to entrepreneurs and startups.
The Minister launched the web portal of the EP and said the process of inviting online applications from the startups and innovators to be incubated in the EP also started from Monday. DG STPI Omkar Rai said the Centre of Excellence (CoE) has been established in Bhubaneswar to boost innovation, creation of IPR and product development from the country. While the global ESDM market at present remains around 500 billion dollar, India’s share in it just 8 billion dollar. “We are working in the direction of taking this share to 70 to 80 billion dollar by 2025,” he added.
MSME Secretary Hemant Sharma said apart from providing infrastructure and policy support to startups in ESDM sector, the Government is also mulling to provide venture capital to them. E&IT Secretary Manoj Mishra, Director of STPI-Bubaneswar Manas Panda, IESA Chairman Jitendra Chaddah and Chief Mentor of EP-Bhubaneswar Pradeep Gupta also spoke.