‘To achieve success you need to start first and to become a big name you need to set up a Startup first.’ A pure and perfect example for the same is the Startup village in Kalamasserry, the potential of this startup can be measured by the extent that the biggest names in tech like Microsoft, Facebook and Google have visited the Startup village in Kalamasserry recently.

1. A.ROBERT MARIA VINCENT
Founder, Director
ARISE TRAINING & RESEARCH CENTER

2. The success story of Kerala's
Startup Village
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3. ARISE TRAINING & RESEARCH CENTER

4. KINFRA
• As you enter the 240-acre Kerala Industrial Infrastructure
Development Corporation (KINFRA) Hi-Tech Park at
Kalamassery near Kochi, the Kerala government's focus on
the sector is apparent.
• At a small facility, some distance into the park, a group of
youngsters is working on a revolution.
• The Startup Village, a facility in the KINFRA Park, is a
public-private partnership model technology incubator. It is
promoted by the department of science and technology
(DST) under the central government, Technopark
(Thiruvananthapuram) and the private sector.
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5. • Though Kerala had the country's first technology park
(Technopark) in 1990, it saw few success stories after
that.
Smart City, a project the state believes would change
the information technology landscape, hasn't taken off
yet.
• Incubators in India usually foster student
entrepreneurship in educational institutions such as the
Indian Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of
Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, through
industry-academia partnerships.
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6. Birth of the village
The idea of Startup Village was conceived in 2008 by Sanjay Vijayakumar and his
team (the group also founded MobMe, a start-up in Kerala), students in the College
of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram.
"When we started, we had informed the DST we would incubate 48 companies in five
years. But the response from the student community was immense. The initial project
was charted for five years. Within 12 months, we have fulfilled all our commitments
and would submit the project completion report to the government," said Sijo George
Kuruvilla, chief executive of Startup Village and co-founder of MobMe.
Startup Village, registered as a not-for-profit organization, started operations in 2012
and received grants worth Rs 5 crore. Of this, Rs 2.5 crore came from the
government, while the private sector accounted for Rs 2.5 crore.
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7. Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys and chief
mentor of Startup Village, says, "During one of
my visits to Technopark in Kerala, I met a team
of youngsters who wanted to create a company
out of Kerala. They formed MobMe. Today, the
same team wants to create an ecosystem for
students in Kerala."
The 5,000-sq ft incubation centre in the park has
four halls that house 13 companies. On a wall of
the innovation room (one of the halls) is a
portrait of Gopalakrishnan, along with an
inspirational message for the innovators of
tomorrow: "We started Infosys in a room of
about this size; it is your turn now."
Startup Village is the first centre in the country
and the second in the world to have 1 gigabit-per-
second connectivity.
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8. • Merely a year into operations, it has
around 600 applications and about
200 companies are on incubation
mode here. Of these, students account
for 66.
• In the next 10 years, the incubator
aims to create 1,000 start-ups out of
Kerala. Though the centre is open to
all across the country, those running it
hope a company created here would
also have operations in Kerala.
• The centre has helped many start-ups
such as MindHelix, WowMakers,
Yummybay, Finahub and Asimov
Robotics make a mark in the market.
MindHelix, founded by Kallidil
Kalidasan, 24, has already become
part of the US-based Alchemist
Accelerator Programme for enterprise
product start-ups.
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9. • As part of the programme, the company has received
$30,000 in seed funding, as well as an opportunity to
showcase its products to Fortune 100 companies in the
US.The centre aims to create a group of start-ups under
one roof. This would help the companies collaborate, co-create
and innovate.
Any student with an idea can use the facility's innovation
zone. Once an idea is finalised, the project is shifted to
the discussion room. If accepted by the board, the
project is eligible for space in the incubation centre.For
students such as John Mathew, Joseph Babu and Binoy
Joseph, it would have been impossible to turn their
summer project into a company and business idea, had it
not been for Startup Village.
Their company, Riafy, works on social media analytics.
The company's product can predict the success rate of a
movie, its collections, as well as theatres in which a
particular film is likely to be successful -- with 90 per
cent accuracy.
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10. • John Mathew, chief executive of Riafy, says, "We did
this as part of our summer project in college. We
decided to approach Startup Village and it helped us
set up the company."Of the top 20 promising start-ups
from the Village, HedCET, STAD, Bluebag, QEdge
Code Studios and DION are student innovations.
Policy changes
• The efforts of the incubation centre to push reforms
have started showing results - understanding the need
to nurture an entrepreneurship culture, the state
government has brought out a policy on this front.
It said universities would provide student-entrepreneurs
enrolled in incubation programmes in
technology business incubators grace marks of up to
four per cent, as well as attendance relaxation of up to
20 per cent. In its recently-announced budget, the
state government also set aside Rs 75 crore for
various start-up schemes
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