Four IT projects coming up in Kerala

: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Wednesday launched four high-end IT projects, including the state's second World Trade Centre at Technocity here.

The projects would act as pivots for the IT ecosystem, trigger jobs and ensure sustainable economic development of the state.

The project on the World Trade Centre, the second in Kerala after Kochi, is being carried out by the Brigade Group.

Located on a 2.5-million-square foot, the trade centre can generate employment for 15,000 people.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) in this regard was exchanged by CEO of Technopark Hrishikesh Nair and CMD of Brigade Enterprises M R Jaishankar in the presence of the chief minister.

Technopark has alloted 12 acres of land to Brigade Group to build the trade centre, which would have various facilities, including hotel-serviced apartments, hostel for working professionals and neighbourhood retail, and entertainment.

Also, the Chief Minister launched 'SWATANTRA,' said to be the world's largest integrated free and open source facility in a government sector, besides the skill delivery platform of Kerala (SDPK) and Space Tech Application Development Ecosystem (STADE).

"SWATANTRA", an initiative of the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), would house the FOSS Incubation Centre & Training Space.

It is aimed at enhancing the governments agenda of promoting democratic access of information with the objective of sustainable economic development.

The SDPK by Kerala State IT Infrastructure Ltd (KSITI) intends to bridge the gap between the industry and colleges and is equipped to provide a live tele-presence network with 150 colleges in the state.

The official website of SDPK was also launched on the occasion.

Letters of occupancies at STADE by Kerala Startup Mission were handed over to three startups working in space tech arena Satsure, Bellatrix and Agnikul by Kerala IT secretary M Sivasankar in the presence of the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) CEO Saji Gopinath.

Airbus Biz Labs is also partnering with KSUM on this project.

Minister for Cooperation, Tourism and Devaswom Kadakampally Surendran presided over the occasion.