By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram : Kochi-based Startup Village Wednesday tied up with the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) to set up “Energy Innovation Zone” – a platform that will foster new ideas and innovations to solve problems afflicting the power sector.
KSEB chairman M. Sivasankar and chairman of Startup Village Sanjay Vijaykumar signed a memorandum of undersanding here in the presence of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
The innovation zone at the Startup Village will give practical exposure to entrepreneurs to work together with KSEB to find out industry problems faced by power sector, develop indigenous technology solutions and utilize the domain expertise of KSEB to build home grown solutions which can then be deployed in other states and countries.
“Kerala has the superior talent in the technology sector and our young brigade are in the Silicon Valley to Technoparks. Startup Village came up as a revolutionary idea to tap these young talents in the state and groom them into global leaders. The government on its part is giving full support by way of student entrepreneurship policy and pro-active logistics,” said Chandy after the signing.
“This landmark collaboration between KSEB and Startup Village marks an auspicious beginning. We will explore possibilities of setting up more innovation zones like this for other sectors too,” added Chandy.
Startup Village at Kochi is the first public-private partnership incubator in the telecom sector of the country.
“Apart from the real research for energy solutions, the partnership will also give a platform to showcase the ideas of young people and pitch them for funding for further development or scaling up. It will also bring in development from around the world in the sector so that the KSEB can learn from the real-time experiences,” said Sivasankar.