Startup Village rolls out 'FINTECH Studio' scheme

The entrepreneurial ambitions of engineering graduates in Kerala will get a boost with the Startup Village rolling out its 'FINTECH Studio' scheme, which provides new devices and tools for transforming their innovative ideas into reality.

In the first phase of the scheme, in partnership with Federal Bank, 40 teams (each five students) would be selected from colleges across Kerala.

Every team will receive a 'Startup Box', which contains an iPhone 6, iPad mini, Macbook Air, Nexus 5, Kindle, 1 terabyte hard disk and a Arduino Starter Kit, besides a company registration deed, a bank account opening form and an application form for the state's Student Entrepreneurship Policy.

'Kerala Startup Mission', also known as the Technopark-TBI, in Thiruvananthapuram, will be the nodal agency for the programme while Startup Village in Kochi will be the implementing agency. The startups would receive full incubation support from Startup Village and financial expertise from Federal Bank.

"The recently rolled out Kerala Technology Startup Policy envisions creating an entrepreneur-friendly ecosystem. The Startup box is one among the state's entrepreneurship-oriented initiatives for the financial year 2015-16," said PH Kurian, principal secretary for industries and IT. "The initiative wouls also help students get world-class equipment for a digital technology startup," he added.

The first batch of the selected teams would have to work on the theme 'FinTech', which focuses on developing real-time technology solutions for the banking and financial industries. Each team is expected to develop a prototype of their idea/application within six months, starting from July.

The participating teams ideally consist of students with skills in programming, designing, operations and governance.Selected teams are to be integrated with Startup Village's Startup Studio 'FinTech Accelerator Programme', which is run in partnership with the Federal Bank. The incubator has also partnered with Tracxn Labs to identify potential FinTech ideas the student teams could work on.

Startup Village chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar said the need to create next generation jobs was becoming imperative as the state was heading towards a knowledge economy. "Industry-institute partnerships would help drive high-technology into college campuses to spur creative innovations similar to Silicon Valley," he added.

Meanwhile, an exclusive mentoring programme would be conducted by Startup Village to provide deep understanding on starting and operationalising a technology-based startup, and also to give a first-hand knowledge on developing an idea into a prototype.

Students would also be offered an opportunity to take up their ideas as their final year projects as per the Technology Startup Policy and can incubate their firms at Startup Village.

Student teams can apply online at http://startupstudio.co.in to avail it.