THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today kicked off four high-end IT projects, including the state’s second World Trade Centre at Technocity here, which would act as pivots for the state’s robust IT ecosystem, trigger jobs and ensure sustainable economic development.
In what is considered as a major milestone, Vijayan also launched “SWATANTRA”, the world’s largest integrated free and open source facility in a government sector. The other two projects are the Skill Delivery Platform of Kerala (SDPK) and Space Tech Application Development Ecosystem (STADE).
Vijayan inaugurated the four projects at a major event held at Greenfield Stadium Complex, Karyavattom. The second World Trade Centre in Kerala after Kochi is being executed by the Brigade Group. Located in 2.5 million sq. ft, it can generate employment for 15,000 persons. An MoU to this effect was exchanged between Hrishikesh Nair, CEO, Technopark and M R Jaishankar, CMD, Brigade Enterprises, in the presence of the Chief Minister.
“SWATANTRA”, an initiative of International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), will house the FOSS Incubation Centre & Training Space. It is aimed at enhancing the government’s agenda of promoting democratic access of information with the objective of sustainable economic development.
The SDPK by Kerala State IT Infrastructure Ltd (KSITI) intends to bridge the gap between the industry and colleges and is equipped to provide a live tele-presence network with 150 colleges of the state. The official website of SDPK was also launched on the occasion.
Letters of occupancies at STADE by Kerala Startup Mission were handed over to three startups working in space tech arena – Satsure, Bellatrix and Agnikul – by Kerala IT Secretary M Sivasankar in the presence of Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) CEO Saji Gopinath. Airbus Biz Labs is also partnering with KSUM on this project.
In his presidential address, Minister for Cooperation, Tourism and Devaswom Kadakampally Surendran said, “The government has great hopes from the youth of our state and is working to create opportunities that provide people jobs of their liking with decent incomes.”
Sivasankar welcomed the gathering while Dr Jayasankar Prasad, Director, ICFOSS, proposed a vote of thanks. Dr Chithra, IT Mission Director, Santhosh Kurup, CEO, ICT Academy and Chief Minister’s IT Fellows Arun Balachandran and Harshan were present at the event.
