Digital Hub in Kerala to be South Asia’s Largest

Digital Hub to host a vibrant ecosystem comprising incubators, accelerators and Centres of Excellence in emerging technologies.

Technology is all geared up to take a big leap into the innovation zone with the Kerala Start UP Mission (KSUM), the state’s nodal agency for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities, set to launch a Digital Hub that would host vibrant ecosystem comprising incubators, accelerators and Centres of Excellence in emerging technologies.

To come up at Kalamassery, in Kochi, the Digital Hub will be spread across 2 lakh square feet of built-up space. It will house around 200 startups, besides the 165 startups hosted in the adjoining Integrated Startup Complex.

Digital Hub to be open for global players

The Digital Hub will host a design incubator, healthcare incubator, Center of Excellence (CoE) for Mouser Electronics, co-working spaces, design studios, investors hive and an innovation center. Tipped to be one of South Asia’s largest product development centers for technology startups, the hub will be open for international organisations and institutions to build world-class products.

Project to snip entry barriers for hardware startups to relocate

John M Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, KSUM, said the CoE, being built alongside the Digital Hub, would look towards aims to grooming shelter-related ideas and innovations, and will function as a one-stop centre for all product-design and development activities for software and hardware components. These include all sectors and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented reality/virtual reality, internet of things and natural language processing, he added.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will launch the Digital Hub on Saturday. The idea comes at a time when Kerala is giving extra focus on building the end-to-end process from ideation stage to prototype stage of a product, capitalising on its unique combination of assets.

The Digital Hub is expected to upgrade the skills of the younger generations in design for manufacturing as well as for rapid prototyping. It will also cut down on entry barriers for hardware startups to relocate, thus create more opportunities for designers and woo talents into this sector.