BENGALURU: It firms from Beyond Bengaluru clusters — Mysuru, Mangaluru and Hubballi — will be highlighted at the 24th edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS), which will be held in a hybrid form in Bengaluru from November 17 to 19.
Many prominent personalities, from Nobel Laureate Venki (Venkatraman) Ramakrishnan to writer Chetan Bhagat, will be speakers at the summit. The specialities of the summit this year include — India-US conclave, India Innovation Alliance, Bengaluru Next Conclave, leadership conclave and startup conclave, along with a science gallery.
On the sidelines of a curtain-raiser for BTS2021 on Tuesday, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) Chairman BV Naidu told TNIE that the Elevate event will have separate sections for the three IT clusters and women entrepreneurs. Till now, 40 per cent of startups have been funded by Elevate and the percentage is only likely to increase. The government gives a grant of Rs 30-40 lakh to the firms selected, he added.
Clusters beyond Bengaluru are not even contributing 2 per cent of IT exports from Karnataka, while 98 per cent comes from Bengaluru, he said. “We want this to increase. By 2026, we want to ensure exports worth $5 billion from these clusters and employment to five lakh people. The target will be $10 billion and employment 10 lakh people in 10 years,” he added.
In the last two months, KDEM initiated three BTS events at Mysuru, Mangaluru and Hubballi which were successful and brought a lot of focus on these clusters, he said. “When Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) companies came to India to set up centres, they created hubs in Bengaluru and other larger cities. We have now asked them to use the ‘Spoke Shore strategy’ to create spokes in the new emerging tech clusters. This is a win-win and sustainable for both GCC companies and Karnataka to spread the economy across,” he added.
Aimed at GCC companies, a Cyber Security Centre of Excellence (CoE) is being created in Mysuru, FinTech CoE in Mangaluru and Edutech and Agritech CoEs in Hubballi, he said. When the visibility of these clusters increases, companies will realise that great talent is available there too and will be more willing to move, he reasoned.
A Future Digital Jobs programme has been launched for talent acquisition in these clusters. In the last four months, 4,000 people have been identified from these clusters and made available to multinational companies, he said.
After BTS2021, focussed events will be planned for the development of these clusters, including a GCC-IT event where 150 companies from GCC will be identified and the idea of a Spoke Shore will be floated.
“Many companies have started setting up centres in Hubballi, Mysuru and Mangaluru clusters. We have started getting dividends. Karnataka as a whole should be a happening destination,” said IT-BT Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan.
Semiconductors have become a top priority and Karnataka is looking at either manufacturing or assembly units here, he said. Highlighting the shortage of semiconductors across the globe, he said 70 per cent of chip design happens in Bengaluru. “In the electronics sector, we are providing incentives and have come up with a new policy which is encouraging and the best in the country. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has made it clear that the government is willing to extend incentives to ensure that Karnataka is at the forefront of the electronics industry in the country,” he added.