Kochi: The second phase of the Startup Village at Kalamassery near Kochi is about to take off with the cooperation of the Startup Mission.
The mission will take over the responsibility of building infrastructure for the incubator facility, which has met its targets in the initial stage.MobMe Wireless will continue as the technical support. Startup Mission Chief Executive Officer Dr Jayashankar Prasad held talks with existing companies in the Startup Village on Saturday. The companies will sign infrastructure-related agreements directly with the Startup Mission from January 1.Startup Village chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar said the facility has met its target of developing 50 startup companies by 2015.
The Startup Village had signed an agreement with the Union Ministry for Science and Technology to incubate 50 startups by 2015. A report has been submitted to the ministry detailing the accomplishment, Vijayakumar said.The Startup Mission has a brief to preside over the formation or modernisation of 10 incubators including the Startup Village in Kochi, by 2020.
The government has selected the incubator in Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram as a nodal agency for the Startup Mission.Efforts are on to take over 15 acres of land from Kinfra at Kalamassery to set up a Technological Innovation Zone. Incubators focusing on biotechnology, electronics and knowledge are also on the anvil.The Startup Mission will also be in charge of the children’s programmes run by the Startup Village, including the Raspberry Pi programme.
The Silicon Valley programme, Fab Lab for hardware companies and boot camps for college students will also be the responsibility of the mission from now.The authorities have rebutted reports that startups cannot use the Startup Village’s address as their own once they stop using the physical infrastructure of the incubator.