'Startup Village to help entrepreneurs grow'

The 'Startup Village' in Kochi can provide cash-strapped entrepreneurs an ecosystem to flourish if they have the intelligence and courage to pursue their goals, said its chairman Tuesday.

The Startup Village the first public-private partnership incubator in the telecom sector of the country - is on course to achieve its five-year goal at the end of its very first year, having already received more than 900 applications, Sanjay Vijayakumar, chairman of the enterprise that is looking to create a 'Silicon Coast' in Kerala, told reporters Thiruvananthapuram.

Startup Village has already an innovation zone set up by Blackberry (RIM).

Many other global leaders are also in talks with Startup Village to set up similar zones that will provide better eco-system for innovations.

Vijayakumar noted that Kerala and India are at least 40 years behind Silicon Valley in creating an environment for promoting entrepreneurship.

"When it comes to intelligence, our engineers are on par with their American counterparts. What Kerala lacks is in capital and infrastructure. Also prospective entrepreneurs seldom used to get encouragement," said the IT entrepreneur.

Vijayakumar, the co-founder and CEO of MobME, recalled the company's association with megastar Mammootty in 2005. The tech-savvy actor entrusted MobME with the publicity of 'Rajamanikyam', the film he was involved at that point in time.

"Our work was success, and Mammootty subsequently handed ten similar projects over to us. The confidence that we thus gained was great," he added.