THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Seeking to nurture innovation and promote entrepreneurship among students, the US-based multinational technology conglomerate Cisco launched one of its five ThingQbator Labs at the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management Kerala (IIITM-K) here on Friday.
Cisco is collaborating with Nasscom Foundation for the implementation of the initiative, which aims to enhance digital skills of students and also to provide them easy access to technology to help them build digital solutions to local problems.
Speaking at the launch event, M Sivasankar, Secretary to the Department of Electronics and IT, Government of Kerala, noted that ” ThingQbator will enable to rebuild Kerala by creating a seamless connectivity from the grass root level”.
Dr. Saji Gopinath, Director, IIITM-K, said ThingQBator gives resurgence to the once faded electronic boom of Kerala. He also added that preliminary activities shall be carried out at the institutes while further developments will be carried out at Maker Village, Kochi.
On the occasion, Harish Krishnan, Managing Director, Cisco, said incubator can serve as a one-stop shop for the makers to develop new age IoT applications.
Santhosh Abraham, Vice President Nasscom, said that the initiative aims to ensure learning from other incubators, to have them to come together at one point and do a collaborative innovation, if it is a possibility.
The ThingQbator Lead, Chandrashekhar Raman, who interacted with the students to help them familiarize with the programme, said that these labs would serve as a “playground” to the students, who can choose what they want to learn with.
Along with IIITM-K , Cisco has also roped in IIT-BHU Varanasi, Amrita University Coimbatore, Indira Gandhi Technical University for Women-Delhi and Trident Academy of Technology Bhuvaneshwar for establishing ThingQbator Labs.
This initiative forms part of Cisco’s CSR efforts through which it seeks to impact one billion lives worldwide by2025 through digital solutions.
