Technopark to offer incubation facilities to rural innovators

Proposals in this regard would be evaluated by experts at the Technopark's TePP Outreach Centre (TUC) before inviting the innovators. "The TUC will take care of the project proposals and after the technical evaluation, they will be forwarded to DSIR for final screening and funding.

The innovators would be accommodated at the Technopark- Technology Business Incubator (TBI) for the development of the product and will be given all the mentoring support," said a Technopark source.

According to Technopark CEO Radhakrishnan Nair, the TBI programme, which took off in 2006 with the support of DST, has successfully incubated many companies ever since. "As on March 31 this year, 70 companies have been incubated at the Technopark, of which 35 companies have graduated to bigger ventures," he added.

The need to support genuine entrepreneurs and innovators from rural Kerala in a bid to help transform their ideas into marketable products came up for a bit of brainstorming at Technopreneur 2008, at Kochi, on Saturday.

The TBI, TUC, TiE Kerala, Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (STED), Infopark, National Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship and CUSAT, organised the session that dwelt upon