Social commitment must back innovative ideas: Speaker Shamseer
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct. 26: Innovators in Kerala must come up with ways to locate hubs of narcotics and curb the menace that has been spreading fast among schoolchildren, State Assembly Speaker Shri A.N. Shamseer said today.
Such ideas which can prevent the younger generation from becoming drug addicts must also provide viable means to the teachers and parents of boys and girls, he noted while launching an ambitious initiative of Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) to bring out talents from the youth.
“Today, Kerala stands as a model for the entire country when it comes to ensuring a solid startup ecosystem. We have been particularly focused on promoting companies that work towards social betterment,” Shri Shamseer said at the Technopark here inaugurating the Innovators’ Premier League (IPL 2.0) that aims to bring awareness and sensitization of IEDCs (Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Centres) as a flagship mission of KSUM.
The novel project seeks to bring awareness and sensitization of IEDCsand their activities among students so as to build a competitive entrepreneurial attitude among innovators, thereby create a pipeline of startups. IPL 2.0, which strives for the promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship in academia and the creation of a stronger and vibrant startup ecosystem, had its first edition which saw a large number of IEDCs come forward to actively participate in collaboration with other communities as well.
The second mission comes amid Kerala winning the central government’s 2021 Top Performer Award for the third consecutive year in recognition of the state’s exemplary startup ecosystem.
Currently, Kerala has four venture capital funds with government participation. A corpus of Rs 1,000 crore from these business-expanding projects is available for the benefit of the startups in the state. “Already startups have made use of Rs 75 crore of the corpus,” Shri Shamseer pointed out, recalling that the project had pooled in Rs 2,500 crore during the 2021-22 financial year.
KSUM Chief Executive Officer Shri Anoop Ambika said Kerala continues with the trend of youngsters keen to go abroad for better professional prospects. “That is also why we are trying our best to provide the best among them with an environment that promotes excellent employment opportunities within the state,” he added at the function held in Kazhakkoottam.
As the nodal agency of the Kerala government, KSUM works for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.