Kerala Startup Mission launched the largest startup hub in the country, an eight-floor facility, spread across 1.82 lakh sq ft in Kalamassery. This is a part of the Technology Innovation Zone that has an integrated startup complex, maker village and BioNest.
Spread over 13.2 acres the Technology Innovation Zone (TIZ) has incubators, accelerators, Centers of Excellence in emerging technologies and provides high quality infrastructure for the development and growth of startups.
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The integrated startup complex is spread over 1,80,000 sq ft, can accommodate more than 500 firms and will provide direct jobs to 2.5 lakh people in the IT sector. It was inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday.
The Maker Village will promote hardware startups; Bionest, will focus on medical technologies; BRINC, will be the country’s first international accelerator for hardware startups; BRIC, will aid the development of solutions for cancer diagnosis and care; and a Centre of Excellence set up by industry majors such as UNITY.
Over 100 startups in various stages of growth are already operating in the three incubators in TIZ. Officials pointed out that TIZ was set to become the country’s largest Work-Live-Play space exclusively dedicated to startups.
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The Maker Village, set up by the IIITM-K in association with KSUM and supported by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, houses 65 startups working in electronics hardware technologies.
Bionest, a biotech startup centre set up by KSUM in association with Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) with financial assistance from BIRAC, has 20 companies involved in deep research in biotechnology and allied fields.
During the last 12 months of operation, the startups operating in TIZ are said to have filed over 30 patent applications, making it one of the largest IP-based incubation spaces in the country.