Startup Mission Bags Chief Minister’s Award for Implementing the Technology Startup Policy

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Kerala Chief Minister’s award for the best Government agency for innovation in development interventions in the State has been bagged by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) for its Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programmes in the Technology Startup policy.
KSUM, the nodal agency of the Kerala Government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the State, runs multiple programmes to promote and support startups. Besides, it also conducts the programmes for building the entrepreneurship culture starting from schools, colleges and for the startup community. Minister for Social Justice and Health K.K. Shailaja presented the award to Dr. Saji Gopinath, CEO, KSUM, at a ceremony held at Durbar Hall, Government Secretariat, here recently.
The Minister for Labour and Excise, T.P. Ramakrishnan, presided over the function. Biju Prabhakar, Special Secretary, Social Justice Department, Paul Antony, Chief Secretary Shri. Tom Jose, Additional Chief Secretary, Labour Department were present on the occasion.
The KSUM has a whole set of aspiring entrepreneurs starting from schools through the Future Spark programme. The Learn to Code programmes and Electronics at School programme helped around 50,000 school students to do hands-on with the raspberry pi kit and Electronic Kits. The KSUM has associated with around 2,500 schools in the state through IT @ School to implement the same.
It has associated with around 200 technical colleges with innovation Entrepreneurship Development centers. These centers are small incubators within the colleges to support aspiring entrepreneurs.
Approximately, One lakh students are going through the programme, which empowers and help students enhance their skills in the emerging technologies. The KSUM also has the Fab network, which has wide opportunities and building a maker culture in the state.
The startup support mechanism and the implementation in the startup policy made the KSUM bag the Chief Minister’s award for the best department. The KSUM is all set to extend its service to other states, which would like to get the policy implemented there.