KOCHI:
Students from across the country, including Jammu and Kashmir, have applied for SV.CO’s six-month Silicon Valley programme as the world’s first digital incubator for college goers received an overwhelming response for its inaugural entrepreneurship course that commences from January 2, 2017.
Overall, applications of 1,946 teams from 1,443 engineering colleges across 228 Universities in 26 states 
“We have waived the application fee for the Kashmir team of students to enable them to participate as they were unable to pay online. OTPs (one time passwords) through SMS cannot be received in Kashmir due to intermittent ban on mobile services,” said Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman of Startup Village which has now transitioned to its digital iteration as SV.CO.
Students will now go through the coding and video task selection process where the best teams will be selected for the Silicon Valley Programme.
Kerala accounts for the largest number of applications for the programme with a figure of 511, followed by Tamil Nadu (216), Andhra Pradesh (179), Telangana (131), Maharashtra (122), Karnataka (103) and Gujarat (86). The applications from student teams from other states include Uttar Pradesh (81), Delhi (50) and Rajasthan (49).
“As we have received a large number of applications and many students have requested extension, a new batch has been started so that more students have the opportunity to create a startup while still in college,” he informed.
Students who couldnot join the current phase of admission for which applications closed on August 31 can now apply online at www.sv.co for the phase 2 admissions till September 30.
Facebook, a partner of the programme, will provide access to the students to its developer teams in Menlo Park, California. The US-based social networking site is offering guidance and mentorship to students aspiring to become entrepreneurs through SV.CO, which has been ranked as India’s top startup incubator.
As a part of the SV.CO Startup Programme, 50 students will make a six-day trip to California where they will get an opportunity to present their ideas to the Facebook team and get feedbacks on them.
Leading e-commerce platform Paytm has also announced its support to SV.CO by offering 30 full scholarships to students of Startup Village.
“We have aligned Startup Village to the Prime Minister’s Startup India programme. Our aim is to take Startup India to all pin codes in the country. More than 7,000 Students from nearly 1,400 colleges applying for the pioneering programme shows the eagerness of the youth to build their future with SV.CO.We are excited by the overwhelming response from students across the country.” Vijayakumar said.
“The future of engineering education lies in smart young students building real products while learning engineering. SV.CO intends to bring its best practices to students not only in metropolises but also in Tier II and III towns and cities in India,” he added.
SV.CO, which was launched on July 13 as the second phase of Startup Village for a national scale up, aims to provide a fully digital incubation framework to five million students in 3,500 engineering colleges across the country. As part of the Silicon Valley programme, up to 50 engineering student startups will be selected and each startup would comprise around 2-5 students.
Startup Village-incubated Profoundis Labs was recently acquired by FullContact, in a rare overseas acquisition of an Indian startup by a US company.
