“Marketing Lab at ‘Maker Village”

KOCHI:
Aiming to impart marketing excellence of international standards along with the technical prowess, the country’s largest exclusive electronic incubator Maker Village is all set to conduct a ‘Marketing Lab, at Maker Village space.

The lab will focus on how to market and brand the hardware technical products. As hardware start ups from across the country are getting incubated at Maker Village, the 30,000-sq ft facility incepted two-and-a-half years ago, the Marketing Lab assumes great significance.

As the first step in sensitizing the start ups the strategic need to have a key focus right from the commencement of the product development, Maker Village is organizing this lab on ‘Go to Marketing strategies for startups’ on October 4, from 10 am to 5 pm at Kinfra Hi-tech Park, Kalamassery.

Prasad Balakrishnan Nair, CEO, Maker Village, said the workshop will be the first in a series of such sessions on marketing. “Achieving market excellence is the need of the hour, especially at this juncture when a sizeable chunk of our products are about to reach the market,” he pointed out. The future is for those who can combine marketing strategies along with productisation strategies.

Last month, the country saw the launch of its first underwater robotic drone, developed at Maker Village. The drone, EYEROVTUNA, which can send real-time video of ships and other underwater structures to help with their repair and maintenance, was handed over to the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL) of DRDO.

“Similarly, in the next three months, half-a-dozen startups incubated here too will reach the market with their products. There are more to come. Long and short, a total of 10 startups will soon reach the market and we need expertise in how to strategize and brand the products incubated here,” he said.

Along with startups this workshop will be highly useful for other key stake holders in the larger business eco system.
Thursday’s workshop will be led by three experts who are veterans in international industry, with long academic experience.

The panel of experts includes Prof Ruth P Stevens, Adjunct Visiting Professor of IIM-Bangalore, Columbia University and NYU Stern University. She was formerly with IBM and Time Warner.

Prof Piyush Kumar Sinha, another expert at the workshop, had taught at the IIMs at Ahmedabad and Bangalore, besides Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB). Currently, he is the Director of CRI Advisory and Research.

Sanjeev Gadre, who is an alumnus of IITs in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, had worked with Adobe, Aricent, Uniphore, Veritone, Wipro and Subex. Apart from imparting theoretical perspectives the workshop will have interactive sessions leveraging the immense experience of the experts both at the national and international markets.