Resounding push for transforming Kerala into knowledge economy

The budget announced by the finance minister on Friday takes this trend forward.
Saji Gopinath, VC of the Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation Technology
Saji Gopinath, VC of the Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation Technology

KOCHI: Over the last few years, the transformation of Kerala into a knowledge economy has been one of the key priority areas of the government.

By leveraging its investments in education, healthcare and general social welfare measures made over several years, the state expects to create a new ecosystem of knowledge industries. Special impetus has been accorded in the last few budgets to higher education, research, innovation and startups to achieve this.

This includes strengthening the Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council (K-DISC), creating of specialised infrastructure through science parks, establishing centres of excellence to support the development of expertise and knowledge in niche areas, and augmentation of infrastructure for facilitating the creation of knowledge industries.

The budget announced by the finance minister on Friday takes this trend forward. It provides follow-on support to many of the projects announced earlier, such as the graphene ecosystem, the digital science park, a centre of excellence in nutraceuticals, a centre for excellence in the microbiome, etc, which have been set in motion.

Kerala has consistently been providing one of the best ecosystems for startups. It is further heartening to note that the government has enhanced the allocation for the Kerala Startup Mission to over Rs 120 crore. Of this, Rs 30 crore is capital for a fund-of-fund scheme that will provide at least four times as much funds for startups.

The proposal to create one lakh work seats in work-near-home and work-from-holiday schemes with the help of private investors and local self-governments seems to be another very proactive measure, given the change in the nature of work in the post-pandemic environment. Thanks to KFON, Kerala will have one of the best digital backbones; and the creation of work-near-home centres connected digitally on top of it will enable it to attract a lot of remote jobs and digital gig works. Some of these centres could also provide the base for the ambitious ‘Make in Kerala’ scheme announced in the budget. 

As Kerala marches towards a knowledge economy, it is important to ensure that our universities are capable of developing knowledge products useful to the industry. Major global knowledge ecosystems were created through joint efforts of academia and industry. However, the research in universities is normally at a lab scale and only around 10% of them can be translated into products with commercial potential.

It is very progressive for the state to come out with a scheme, perhaps the first in the country, to underwrite such risks. Even though the amount allocated is small, if implemented properly, this could really unlock the research output in our academic institutions and pave the way for the creation of a new breed of knowledge-based industries.

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