Technopark campaign to find young innovators

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, INDIA: In a unique initiative aimed at finding potential innovators from among college students, the Technology Business Incubator (TBI) at Technopark here has today kicked off a campaign, christened ‘I am an Entrepreneur’. This will travel to all engineering colleges and select colleges across Kerala in its quest to identify talent.

The campaign initiated in association with the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) will be executed by TechnoFIRST.

The first step toward this initiative aimed at identifying and promoting entrepreneurial talent in the state at the student level, was taken in the presence of Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor.

Kicked off with the objective of igniting young minds in the engineering colleges and business schools, the campaign would strive toward changing the entrepreneurship climate of the state and get more innovators and find out more students start ups right from college campuses, said KCC Nair, CFO, and programme co-ordinator - New Initiatives, Technopark.

“With this campaign, Technopark TBI and the Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) Outreach Centre aim to receive innovative technology ideas from students across engineering colleges, technical schools and from rural innovators,” Nair elaborated.

Entrepreneurship awareness camps will be organized at strategic locations and rural areas as part of the road show.

Flagging off the campaign, Shashi Tharoor said more and more Keralites need to stand up and say ‘I am an Entrepreneur’.

He added: “Failure as an entrepreneur is not something unacceptable, but it’s only a learning phase for budding entrepreneurship.” The minister lauded the efforts of Technopark TBI for creating a fertile eco-system for budding entrepreneurship in the state.

The campaign will now travel to colleges through the medium of a motivational video that shares the experiences of some of the very successful entrepreneurs and visionaries in Kerala. The video incorporates inspirational talk from various personalities, including Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO, Infosys, and Shashi Tharoor.