THRISSUR:
Ongoing efforts by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) to encourage production of socially beneficial products have got a fresh fillip and recognition as the Government of India has joined hands with Google to mobilise engineering students for innovative solutions, informed an official from Google.
The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Google India have tied up under a six-month programme that features learning and mentorship activities.
The programme, christened ‘Build for Digital India’, will see Google providing mentorship by its officials as well as other experts, said Siddhant Agarwal, Programme Coordinator, Google Developer Relations, at the KSUM-organised fourth edition of IEDC (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centre) Summit, billed as Asia’s largest student entrepreneurship summit, held at Kodakara, Thrissur.
The deadline for ‘Build for Digital India’ is October 31, he told the 4,000 delegates and 100 startups at the conclave in Sahrdaya College of Engineering and Technology in Thrissur district. The details are available at http://bit.ly/buildfordigitalindia.
Agarwal noted that India has a good number of nascent firms that provide solutions for problems related to society at a large. He particularly lauded startups such Genrobotics that make the popular Spandan robotic scavenger (which can detect cardiac problems in advance) and the breast cancer-screening device called NIRAMAI besides AIR-INK that makes ink from gaseous effluents generated by air pollution due to incomplete combustion of fossil fuels.
Earlier in the day, the summit was inaugurated with a call for aspiring student entrepreneurs to experiment and proceed with their research. The speakers noted that any business is riddled with problems, the solutions for which lay in innovative skills.
Among the key speakers at the opening session were KSUM Chief Executive Officer Dr Saji Gopinath and Dr Rajasree M S, Vice-Chancellor, APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University, Thiruvananthapuram.
The event, under KSUM as the Kerala government’s nodal agency to develop the state’s technology startup ecosystem, gave student delegates from across Kerala an opportunity to express their entrepreneurial ideas and get in touch with the experts attending it from different parts of the world.
Subsequently, industry leaders and top officials with government, research and educational organizations will play a critical role in formulating and developing the implementation of Industry 4.0 strategy through IEDC Summit 2019. An annual event, the summit was typically packed with activities such as startup expo, extended reality, blockchain track, activity hubs and panel discussions.
Organisers noted that a key determinant of a country’s competitiveness is its students’ talent pool: their skills, knowledge and experience, overall known as the ‘soft capital’.
