Startup boxes and bootcamps to boost student entrepreneurs

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The industries department is planning to offer 5,000 startup boxes this year to aspiring entrepreneurs. This will be made possible through a tie up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as a preparation for the Kerala Entrepreneurship Day on Sept 12
"The plan envisioned by the state in the last Emerging Kerala summit aims at an influx of innovative start-up ventures in the next two years, but it should be implemented in the right spirit," said an official of the Industries department.
"The plan is to distribute 10,000 Startup Boxes to selected student entrepreneurs in two years including 5,000 this year. Of this, 2500 startup boxes will be procured soon for distribution by Sept 12. A Start-up Box is worth Rs 2 crore and it will include utilities like high-end computers, tablets and vouchers with bank accounts" Infopark chief executive officer and Technopark-Technology Business Incubator (TBI) CEO Hrishikesh Nair said.
With support from MIT two fabrication labs will be set up, one at Start-up Village in Kochi and another one at Technopark-TBI in Thiruvananthapuram, he said. Start-up Bootcamps will be set up in engineering colleges and other institutions in the state for entrepreneurship development and the training programme will be led by mentor Kris Gopalakrishnan.
Ten student entrepreneur teams from the State will be sent to Silicon Valley every year as part of the ?SV Square programme. There are also plans to distribute 5000 Raspberry Pi' to selected school students of class eight to ten.
"The aspiring entrepreneurs will be guided by mentors to prepare the project proposal for registering a start-up company and then during marketing and advertising and at every other stage" Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) managing director Aruna Sunderrajan said.