Visakhapatnam will be put on global startup map by December, 2016 with efforts underway to make it a startup hub.
Briefing Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in Hyderabad, Kochi Startup Village chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar said on Monday that the Sunrise Startup Village here presently houses 107 startups.
Under phase-I of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan, the State government will expand the 17,500-sq.ft area of the Incubator Park to 50,000 sft by December next year.
MobMe Telecom Ltd promoted by Mr. Vijayakumar and his associates signed MoU with the A.P. Government to manage Sunrise Startup Village here in September last year.
Giving details on the efforts to replicate success story of Kochi Startup Village in AP, Mr. Vijayakumar said they were trying to infuse the culture of creative thinking and bringing ‘sunrise civilisation’ to A.P. in line with the State’s Vision-2050.
The aim of the government is to put Vizag on global start-up map along with Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv within 18 months. For this, the Vizag Start-up Village is benchmarking itself against eight key indicators of the Silicon Valley.
As part of an action plan, the government is planning overhauling curriculum in schools, colleges and universities from next month. For colleges and universities holding of boot camps, hackathons and encouraging students to convert their projects into startups will be taken up.
CM’s suggestion
The Chief Minister suggested a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to mobilise resources to create required infrastructure. “Create a non-exclusive model and work out an action plan to be implemented from July 1,” the Chief Minister told Mr. Vijayakumar.
The Chief Minister mentioned about Fiber Grid project which would give a huge fillip to this plan. On the other hand, the government is also readying Rs.100-crore Innovation Fund for startups.
Responding to a suggestion, the Chief Minister stated that the government was working on a plan to check the feasibility of Signature Campuses for start-ups (on which Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. are working on) rather than limiting it to Signature Buildings.
IT advisor J. Satyanarayana and IT secretary B. Sreedhar were present at the meeting.
Chief Minister has been briefed about the steps being taken to replicate Kochi Startup Village in A.P.
