Technopark Incubator setting up ‘OpeniSpace’ for start-ups

Thiruvananthapuram: The Technopark-Technology Business Incubator is setting up an ‘OpeniSpace’, an open innovation space on its campus, for innovators and young student entrepreneurs.

P K Kunhalikkutty, Minister for IT and Industries, will inaugurate the space in the presence of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy at a function here this afternoon.

Plug-and-play

The ‘OpeniSpace’ start-up space will provide plug-and-play facilities with four to 12 seats along with Wi-Fi Internet connectivity to young entrepreneurs.

This is a joint initiative of the Technopark Incubator and Rajdhani Technologies-Istrian Technologies-Waybeo Ventures.

The incubator had mooted the project due to insufficient space for start-ups, according to K C Chandrasekharan Nair, Managing Director.

Out of the 190-odd start-ups, around 40 firms shared virtual space here.

“We now have over a thousand applications pending for allotment of space. We hope to provide them space at OpeniSpace,” Nair added.

Free IDs, licences

The ‘OpeniSpace’ huts will also offer 50 free email IDs, software licences, virtual work spaces, servers, cloud infrastructure and other hardware for start-ups at minimum cost.

Concepts like Bring-Your-Own-Device, Platform-As-A-Service and Software-As-A-Service will also be promoted here.

The park will also provide a data farm to provide cost-efficient data storage facility to companies operating in the campus with support from HP Cloud services and IBM BlueMix.

The incubator has already signed MoUs for these purposes.

Those attending the inaugural function include Aruna Sundararajan, Managing Director, Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation; P H Kurian, Principal Secretary (IT), Kerala; K G Girish Babu, CEO, Technopark; Hrishikesh Nair, CEO, Technopark Incubator; and Biju Ramesh.

‘YES’ summit

This is being done on the sidelines of a function to mark the formal announcement and logo launch of Young Entrepreneurs Summit (YES) by the Chief Minister.

YES is a key initiative included in the State Government’s ‘Mission 676’ programme. The State Industrial Development Corporation will organise the summit in Kochi in September.

Partners to the event are Kerala IT, Technopark, the Technopark-TBI, Infopark, Kerala state Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, the Startup Village, TiE, and the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.