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Over 3000 student entrepreneurs to participate in IEDC 2017
Business Standard | Press Trust of India | Thiruvananthapuram | August 8, 2017 |
Over 3000 student-entrepreneurs from across Kerala will be participating in ‘IEDC 2017’ at Kochi on August19. Organised by Kerala Start up Mission (KSUM), the summit is said to be the largest summit of its kind in India and a platform for budding innovators to learn, share knowledge and network with eminent tech personalities and decision-makers, a press release said. Nearly 200 Innovation Entrepreneurship Development Centres (IEDCs) – small incubators set up at engineering, technical, management and arts and science colleges to help students pursue innovative ideas and embrace the entrepreneurial spirit-will be participating. Four precursor events conducted across the state on August 5 offered a preview of things to come with around 800 students from 13 districts participating in the sessions in B’Hub (business hub) – Mar Ivanios Vidya Nagar, Amal Jyothi College of Engineering, Adi Shankara College of Engineering and Government Polytechnic Kozhikode.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will be the chief guest at the event, the release said. IT Secretary M Sivasankar, Google India Vice-President and Managing Director Rajan Anandan, KSUM CEO Saji Gopinath, ICFOSS Director Dr Jayasankar Prasad and a host of tech luminaries, including prominent angel investor Nagaraja Prakasam are among those who will address the event, it said. KSUM supports 193 IEDCs across the state. Each IEDC has hundreds of students with an idea and the drive to change the world, according to the release. “The IEDCs have helped create around 200 startups in Kerala by conducting technical, leadership and business modelling workshops that have enhanced student skills and changed mindsets within the state’s campuses to create emerging entrepreneurial ventures. The summit serves to complement and boost these efforts,” Gopinath said. – Courtesy / Click here to Register Now … http://www.iedcsummit.startupmission.in/
Mangalore to be declared India’s first startup district
Your Story | Anil Budur Lulla | 31 March 2017 | Opinion |
Representational Image
The move will give a push to young minds in the tier-II city which is a known educational hub. It will also help spread the startup culture to more areas and at the same time use technology innovatively to help address issues that have a larger impact.
Mangalore will soon be declared the country’s first startup district to give a push to the vibrant student community and turn them into startup entrepreneurs. As a first step, the Centre has decided to locate incubators at two reputed institutes in the region under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The incubators, under the Startup India programme flagged off last year, will be located at the National Institute of Technology, Surathkal, a premier engineering college in the coastal district and NMAM Institute of Technology, an engineering college under Nitte University. The government wants to encourage startups to provide innovative solutions for challenges unique to India. This means they will be encouraged to do more than just develop apps. The students-turned-startup-entrepreneurs will get an opportunity to come up with innovative solutions in health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure as these sectors will have a pan-India resonance.
Startup district tag soon
Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has indicated that in the next few weeks, Mangalore will be officially declared India’s first startup district enabling students to take a step into entrepreneurship.
The incubator is set to encourage ideas that require technological intervention. Soon, these labs will become a source of inspiration for startups across the country as StartupIndia, a central government fund for startups, is set to fund more eligible companies the next financial year.
NITK was formerly known as Karnataka Regional Engineering College and is a state-run institute that has produced fine talent from its inception in 1960. NMAM is a private sector institution under the Nitte group of institutions, which is an autonomous university. “With this, all startups in Mangalore can converge into one place. They can be incubated here and Startup India funds will also be available to those with out-of-the-box ideas that create maximum impact,” a ministry source told YourStory. “The union minister, who is also a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, is keen to turn Mangalore, a cosmopolitan city with thousands of engineering students in the vicinity, a startup district. She has chosen two of the oldest institutions in the region to start these centres,” the source added.
State-of-the-art
These two institutes were selected as they boast of state-of-the-art facilities and the students and infrastructure required for the startup culture to thrive. NMAMIT is already running a New Age Incubation Centre as part of nine engineering colleges selected by the Karnataka Biotechnology and Information Technology Services, an organisation under the state Department of IT and BT. It runs a programme called Karnataka New Age Incubation Network. The coastal city also boasts of excellent air, road, rail, and sea connectivity. It also has made a name for itself for having several well-known professional colleges which attract students from across the country and abroad.
The ministry has estimated that in three years’ time, it can increase the number of incubation centres along with the support of the state government and NASSCOM which have robustly supported such programmes with both policies and infrastructure in Bengaluru, which is also known for being India’s first startup city.
Moving away
Bengaluru currently has a heavy concentration of incubators and accelerators with the Karnataka government, central government, NASSCOM, venture capital firms, as well as MNCs offering seats. The government has already indicated that it would like to spread out such activity to tier-II cities such as Mangalore and boost entrepreneurship. The Karnataka government has also given entrepreneurial activity a boost with a startup fund, a first in the country again, which envisages support as well as funds up to Rs 50 lakh per startup. “It’s a no- questions-asked fund and these companies also do not have to sit in designated incubation centres to be eligible,” says Karnataka IT and BT minister Priyank Kharge. In a first, eight startups in the tourism sector received anywhere between Rs 5-50 lakh, amounting to a total of Rs 1.9 crore, for coming up with products to help the tourism department showcase itself. “There are some more companies in different sectors that have been chosen and their names will be announced soon,” Priyank said. It is not just in sectors that are hot; there are a few startups in the process of being selected in the agricultural sector too, Karnataka Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told YourStory. “We are looking at technological interventions in agriculture which can ease the stress on farmers. We are actively looking at the ideas and processing through the IT department.” Earlier efforts to start IT centres in Mangalore were not very successful as there were several issues at the local level. Mangalore South MLA JR Lobo said there were issues with the urban development department and the city municipal corporation. “Every time an IT company proposes a shift to the tier-II city or an NRI comes up with an idea of giving back to their home town, these projects are welcomed with great fanfare but are never sanctioned as per their original plans. As a result, they are stuck due to bureaucratic hurdles,” he said. To address these problems specific to the industry, the lawmaker, who is keen to promote the district, has called all stakeholders on to a common platform next month.
Catch them young
Meanwhile, the Centre’s decision is set to provide a boost to the educated youth of the region and provide them with a chance to think big and come out with several ideas. At a recent meeting in Chennai, representatives of both colleges met up with Sitharaman and NITI Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant. This initiative under Make in India and Startup India will go a long way. The thought is that these innovation centres will be on the lines of IIT, Madras, and will be started in May-June by when students are expected to graduate and grab a chance at starting their own businesses, a college representative said. Lobo said designating Mangalore as a startup district was a good step as the region was the cradle for successful entrepreneurs who went on to make a name both in India and abroad in banking, hotel, health and other industry. “With government support, we can turn Mangalore into a vibrant startup district which also help the tier II city grow,” Priyank added. – Courtesy
Nurturing engineering and science startups
Express Computer | By Mohd Ujaley | May 24, 2016 |
NI seeks to nurture engineering innovation and entrepreneurship by providing easy and affordable access to its software and hardware tools.
In technology adoption space, couple of trends are quite visible. First, technology companies are pushing for cloud adoption instead of on-premise deployment of a solution and second, there is huge focus on platform based approach in which a technology firm provides platform as a service. Recently, US-based National Instruments (NI), which operates in the measurement and automation space, and makes automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software launched business incubator programme in India, primarily focused on providing its LabVIEW software to Indian startups and engineers for turning their ideas into practice, and also announced the expansion of the R&D centre. According to company officials, both these initiatives are aimed at catalysing the existing startup ecosystem in India and ensuring the access to the top talent from India for National Instruments. “Both these initiatives aim to support the government’s Make in India program and enable Indian engineers to become global knowledge partners in driving innovation and development across industries and domains,” Scott Rust, senior vice president of Global R&D at National Instrument told EC. Adding that the expansion of the India R&D centre ensures that NI has access to the top talent instrumental in building a platform that meets the needs of all engineers and scientists today.
Basically, NI’s LabVIEW is a system-design platform software for visual programming language. It is used for a wide variety of applications and industries for different type of test, measurement, or control application. And, mostly it is preferred by engineers and scientists because it enables them different tools in a single environment, ensuring that compatibility is as simple as drawing wires between functions. The platform works similar for engineers and scientists to what Android or iOs does for smartphone makers – it gives them a ready-made, low-cost and customisable operating system for creating high-tech devices and tools. So, if you are young start-up, have some idea around your domain expertise but do not know the programming and hardware designing, you can use LabVIEW software to create an application just as faster or higher as a team of mechanical hardware or software engineers, claims the company. “We strongly believe we can help the Indian startup ecosystem overcome technological hurdles and succeed faster,” said Rust. “Our platform provides the fastest way for engineers and scientist to access new technology and accelerate productivity, innovation, and discovery. By providing access to NI’s platform and technologies, we are investing in future innovators and contributing towards sustainable development in all markets that we serve, including India.”
According to company officials, through NI India’s business incubator program, NI will provide increased access to NI technology, technical training and support to shared local communities like domestic Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), academic incubation centers and startups. “For Make in India to succeed and sustain, manufacturing in India should bring more benefits to the table than just cost of labour. Companies can differentiate themselves by adopting smart technologies to reduce defects and improve quality,” says Jayaram Pillai, managing director, NI India. To extend its reach and maximise the impact of the business incubator program, company is partnering with mission-aligned local organisations, as well as experienced technology and business consultants, to provide support and assistance to the applicants. It is also aligning with the flagship initiative of the government – Start-up India, which strives to build an eco-system to support innovation, promote domestic startups and generate viable economic growth by generating large-scale employment opportunities. On the question of startups culture in India which primarily seems to be driven around e-commerce, Pillai says, there are group of startups, mostly app builders, who might be interested in short term goals but there are also lot of hardcore good engineering startups about whom we don’t hear often, but they work on cutting edge technology with lasting impact on the society. He gave an example of creation of a rapid milk chiller (RMC), which is now being deployed in the agricultural areas of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu to eliminate waste of milk due to non-availability of refrigeration units and an uninterrupted power supply. “The rapid milk chiller uses a combination of software and reconfigurable hardware from National Instruments to eliminate much of the waste, drive up nutritional standards and improve the livelihoods of rural dairy farmers,” says Pillai. – Courtesy
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