Friday 15 July 2016

India: Kochi Startup Village Launches World’s First Digital Incubator for Students

A recent statement by the Kochi Startup Village stated that, the country needs more than one million new jobs a month for the next 20 years to employ all its youth and these jobs would mostly come from new start-ups if the right environment is created.

Indian Government has also recognized the importance of Start-ups for the development of the country. Government has taken many steps like, Start-up action plan, Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for incubators, etc., to create a proper environment for Start-ups. Recently, one such step is taken by India’s First Digital State, Kerala.

World’s first digital incubator for student Start-ups will be launched in Kerala on July 13, 2016. This incubator will provide mentorship and guidance to young entrepreneurs from all over the country.
SV.CO. the digital avatar of Startup Village, will be launched by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Infosys co-founder and Startup Village chief mentor Kris Gopalakrishnan and National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board head H K Mittal.

Students can apply individually or they can form a team and then pitch their product or idea to the mentors. Once selected, students would be guided and mentored to help create a prototype within 6 months, and launch in the market quickly.

Application would be approved based on several pointers, mainly being its market feasibility and the innovation in solving a particular problem.

Based on the feedback from customers and mentors, these students can gradually climb up the ladder, and get access to incubators, accelerators, and even raise angel funding. Besides, the teams can be hired collectively by large firms, and they can be even sponsored for higher studies.

Gopalakrishnan said that students, especially from tier 2 and tier 3 cities, are deprived of access to the best faculty and mentors from startup nerve centers like Bengaluru or Silicon Valley and this venture "would address the problem to a large extent".[1]

The Digital Incubator, which was built over the last 12 months, has already received more than 1,000 applications from students from across Kerala as well as towns like Vadodara and Vishakhapatnam.

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