KSUM Set to Launch ‘Incubator Yatra’ on June 19

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
In a new initiative to disseminate its schemes and strengthen the startup ecosystem in the state by bringing activities of all the incubators under a single umbrella, Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) will be organizing ‘Incubator Yatra’ covering all districts in the state.

The first phase of the Yatra will cover 10 incubators in Thiruvananthapuram district. It will be launched at B-Hub, Technopark here on June 19.

Being organised in association with Bank of India, KSUM will visit over 40 incubators in the state and interact with the officials and startups on a range of topics for the benefit of young entrepreneurs in the more than 1,000-km journey.

“A major objective of such an initiative is to clearly communicate that KSUM is not an incubator but the State nodal agency to support the startups and give a single point of contact for all communications,” said Saji Gopinath, CEO of KSUM.

“This will help to bring the activities of all the incubators under a single umbrella, and also smoothen the information flow to and fro,” he added.

KSUM will brief them about developing mentor network and also share the template of best practices in running an incubator in the state. It has also plans to identify good startups and establish a channel in the incubator whom they can connect with KSUM.

The objectives of ‘Incubator Yatra’ include bringing the activities of all the incubators under a single umbrella and creating a milieu for smooth sharing of information. It is also meant for understanding the performance of startups and profiling them accordingly.

“This yatra will help to do the technology sector-wise segmentation of startups and communicating them about the plan. A database can be built accordingly,” Gopinath said. Startups that are out of the incubation space and located in the remote locations of the state will be identified in the journey. They will be on-boarded to KSUM’s portal to generate inclusiveness in the startup facilitation by the state government.

KSUM’s activities and scheme awareness sessions will be conducted in each incubator. Registrations with Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) as also KSUM’s unique ID registrations will be tracked and maximised. Handbooks, scheme books and grievance redressal forms will be distributed to all incubators during the journey.

KSUM is the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.