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Follow UsBANGALORE, INDIA: Research In Motion (RIM) and Startup Village today announced plans to launch the first BlackBerry Innovation Zone in India.
Located at Rubus Labs in Kerala-based Startup Village, the Innovation Zone will be the first of its kind in the Asia Pacific region, and will showcase the latest in BlackBerry technologies to inspire future entrepreneurs.
“Our partnership with RIM marks a historic moment for Startup Village as RIM, which has revolutionised the mobile industry globally, will create an Innovation Zone in India to share experiences with young technology entrepreneurs in the country,” said Mr. Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman, (Board of Governors), Startup Village. “We thank RIM for selecting Startup Village for its first Innovation Zone in India. The overall objective of the partnership is to motivate young minds by giving access to RIM’s mobile technology, as well as imparting valuable experiences and training from BlackBerry experts.”
“We are excited to partner with Startup Village to set up our first Innovation Zone in India. Rubus Labs is designed to foster the spirit of innovation in the minds of young entrepreneurs and students in India, and we’re pleased to provide them with access to the latest BlackBerry products and technical know-how,” said Alec Saunders, vice president of Developer Relations and Ecosystems Development, Research In Motion.
According to a RIM press release, the Rubus Labs will be host to regular developer activities such as BlackBerry Hackathons and Bar Camps. Training sessions will be conducted across the 126 engineering colleges in Kerala under the BlackBerry BASE (BlackBerry Apps by Student Entrepreneurs) program by leveraging the campus outreach network of Startu p Village.
“Rubus Labs will also serve as an experiential zone for school children to introduce them to the world of smartphones and experience the limitless possibilities of mobile technology,” said Sijo Kuruvilla George, CEO, Startup Village,.
Startup Village
As the first telecom technology incubator, Startup Village was inaugurated in April by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, who is also the chief mentor of the ambitious project that aims to groom 1000 startups over the next 10 years. It was set up jointly by up by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Central Government and the Kerala Government-run Technopark, in collaboration with MobME Wireless.
Startup Village is being projected by both the DST and the state government as the largest national attempt to scale up innovation in the country through incubators in collaboration with the private sector, tap huge potentials unfolding in the telecom sector and transform students as successful job-creators instead of job-seekers.
India’s telecom and IT industry is supporting this bold initiative in different capacities. Former NASSCOM chief Kiran Karnik, Cellular Operator Association Director General Rajan Mathews, UrbanTouch.com CEO Abhishek Goyal, former Yahoo India R&D CEO Sharad Sharma, Dell India MD Ganesh Lakshminarayan, Mindtree CEO K K Natarajan, and KPMG Global Board member Arun Kumar are among those joining the project as mentors and investors.
Dr. Ravi Pillai, the biggest employer of Indians in the Middle East, and major local IT entrepreneurs like Mr. Nandakumar of SunTec are also associated with Startup Village.
Equipped with full 4G network, telecom labs, innovation zones, legal and intellectual property services, fully furnished offices and video conference rooms, Startup Village will give a slew of incentives, such as a three-year service tax holiday and funding opportunities for tech startups, in its search for a billion dollar campus startup from India.