THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 140 educational institutions in each assembly constituency in the state are in the process of being upgraded as ‘Techies Parks’ that not only provide free training in the latest technologies to the students but also to the local community. The fifth such ‘Techies Park’, to be built at a cost of Rs 1 crore, will come up at Lakshmi Vilasam High School (LVHS), Pothencode, in Nedumangad assembly constituency by the end of October.
The Techies Parks are being set up at a total cost of Rs 60 crore by Talrop, a Kochi-based startup incubation and acceleration firm. The first Techies Park began functioning at Krishna Vilasom UP School (KVUPS) at Pangode in Thiruvananthapuram in 2017. This was followed by similar parks on Jamia Nadwiyya campus at Edavanna in Malappuram, NA Model Campus at Naimarmoola, Kasaragod and Christ College of Engineering at Irinjalakuda in Thrissur.
A few students of KVUPS Pangode, who were trained at Techies Park went on to start their own IT company Grolius (short form for ‘Grow Like Us’) which provides various services including domain support, website designing and development. These students are now pursuing their higher secondary course at Technical Higher Secondary School, Kaloor, and are also working on a major startup idea.
“Besides transforming the lives of students and local community, we believe the Techies Parks would also create a strong foundation for all startups being incubated through us so that they can attract huge venture capital,” said Safeer Najumudeen, co-founder and CEO of Talrop. Each Techies Park is being set up with an investment of Rs 15L to Rs 1 crore.
“The work on creating infrastructure facilities for the Techies Park in our school is progressing at a fast pace. We hope that the free ICT training would help mould startup entrepreneurs of the future,” said Praveen Prabhullachandran, management representative, LVHS, Pothencode.
According to Safeer, the first five Techies Parks are being set up in buildings constructed for the specific purpose in the campuses of educational institutions . The other Techies Parks will be constructed in pre-fab mode and educational institutions will only be required to provide the land needed for it.
"By 2025, we aim to build at least 100 startups from Kerala and ensure their presence in national and international markets and thereby bring about a revolution in the state's economy," Safeer added.