: In a big development to encourage young entrepreneurs, global software solutions company SAP has signed MoU with the Andhra Pradesh government to set up a start-up accelerator here.
The MoU was signed between SAP Director-Startup Focus Program Mayank Mathur and IT Advisor to AP Government J.A. Chowdary here on Thursday.
AP Innovation Society CEO Nikhil Agarwal and AP Electronics and IT Agency CEO Srinivasa Murthy described the partnering of SAP with the AP government as a major milestone to boost IT in enterprise big data, predictive or real time analytics solutions.
“We will launch the operations initially under the mentorship of our experts placed at Bengaluru in a month,” Mr. Mathur told The Hindu exuding confidence that the required ecosystem would be developed in Visakhapatnam to make the city a startup hub.
Under the 10K start-up programme, NASSCOM has been allotted space to start a warehouse for start-ups for their grooming at Technology, Research and Innovation Park (TRIP) at sea-facing Rushikonda in the city.
SAP, which is the first global software solution multinational to sign MoU with any government in India for establishing an accelerator, will be given space at TRIP specially designed to encourage start-ups.
Mr. Mathur said SAP had been incubating start-ups since past four years and as of now 3,200 startups had been incubated. At present, 230 plus market-ready solutions were ready for launching. SAP will invite ideas from prospective entrepreneurs from all over Andhra Pradesh through their website in the first week of August. Selection will be made through vetting process.
“Our Bengaluru team will monitor the progress for undertaking a six-week-long incubation for about 25 to 30 seating capacity initially in the city. An official from Bengaluru will visit regularly to facilitate creation of proper ecosystem. Later depending on the need, we may have a regular set-up in the city,” Mr. Mathur said.
Mr. Mathur said they had tremendous confidence in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s promise of encouraging IT in a big way.
