The Emerging Kerala summit came to an end on Friday with a call to facilitate the state’s emergence from within and the youth to take charge of development, while capturing 45 specific project proposals with an investment of over Rs 40,000 crore. “Our government recognises that the youth of Kerala needs to emerge on the global stage,’’ said Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, presiding over the valedictory meet.
The Chief Minister said that the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the state would be given a fillip in the form of a Technology Innovation Zone in about 10 acres of land in Kochi, with an initial investment of Rs 100 crore. The 45 project proposals with an investment of over Rs 40,000 crore, including BPCL’s Cochin Refinery expansion and the Joint Venture project of Rs 18,000 crore, Volkswagen’s engine assembly unit with an estimated cost of Rs 2,000 crore, hospital and pre-cast concrete structure manufacturing unit for an amount of Rs 570 crore and Solar Energy Plant of Rs 500 crore. CII has already announced the setting up of a Centre of Excellence in Entrepreneurship in Kerala.
“Students graduating out of technology institutions have brilliant ideas, which need to be nourished and taken to their fullest potential. The socio-economic factors in Kerala provide enough foundation to the youth to transform. The government is committed to facilitate the environment for this transformation to an entrepreneurial mindset, Chandy stressed. “The Start-up Village mentored and promoted by Kris Gopalakrishnan, Executive Chairman of Infosys, and started by a group of young technology entrepreneurs while in the Trivandrum Engineering College is one good example of this transformation,’’ he said. The Chief Minister said that KINFRA would build one lakh sq.ft. in a period of 16 months for incubators and complete the first 25,000 sq.ft. by May, 2013. “It will make the Startup Village the world’s largest Telecom Incubator,’’ he hoped. The proposed innovation zone will also house more initiatives like the Startup Village on a PPP mode in other technology areas and verticals in Telecom, Data Analytics, Animation and Gaming, VLSI, Nanotechnology and Biotechnology.