News
India’s youngest state and growing IT hub opens doors to Lankan startups
View(s):By Sandun Jayawardana
Sri Lankan startups considering the Indian market are invited to seize opportunities provided by Telangana, India’s 29th and youngest State, which is making a name for itself as a technological innovation hub, particularly in IT.
As of now, one Sri Lankan startup is working with the Telangana’s T-Hub to enter the Indian market. This “ecosystem enabler” was established as a public-private partnership by the Telangana Government to help facilitate startups growth.
T-Hub officials recently met journalists from Sri Lanka and Seychelles during a visit to its Hyderabad “Innovation Campus”. They are open to approaches from other startups, they said. Those wishing to apply for T-Hub programmes could do so through their website.
Partnerships were recently established with South Korea, Australia, Singapore and Japan. T-Hub has also started tying up with international universities in countries like Britain, USA and Australia to explore how startups there can explore the Indian market through educational institutions.
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- T-Hub’s Innovation Campus provides workspace for startups
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- Startups at T-Hub ranges from one person units to 40 member teams
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- Some IITH buildings have signature Japanese Architecture
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- Prof BS Murty
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- Priyanka Ravala Senior Business Programme Manager
When asked how a Sri Lankan university could similarly tie up, T-Hub officials said interest will be processed based on the requirements of each institution and how it wished to use its research to set up startups in the Indian market.
The visit was part of a media familiarisation tour for journalists organised by the Indian Government.
“We deal with any tech startup,” said Priyanka Ravala, T-Hub’s Senior Business Programme Manager. “If you have any technology product or idea, you can come here, ideate on it, and build a startup out of it.”
“We also support international startups looking to enter the Indian market through T-Hub,” she said. “We hand-hold them right from legalising their company in India till they secure their first paid project here. We also help Indian startups set up operations in other countries by tying up with our international partners. T-Hub has so far partnered with 25 similar accelerators around the globe.”
Incorporated in 2015 and based out of Hyderabad, T-Hub has also backed more than 1,800 national and international startups. It is part of the Telangana Innovation Network, comprising nine organisations. It includes T-Works which is dedicated to prototypes; WE Hub, created to support women entrepreneurs; the Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad; and Innovation in Multimedia, Animation, Gaming & Entertainment (IMAGE).
Telangana was the first Indian state to roll out an “Innovation Policy” to encourage entrepreneurs and startups. Key areas include life sciences and health technology, artificial intelligence, enterprise technology (software and hardware created to make businesses more effective), EV/mobility (electric vehicle mobility) and fin tech (financial technology).
In June this year, T-Hub unveiled what is termed the “world’s largest innovation campus,” spreading over 585,000 sq ft in built-up space. It is a not-for-profit public-private partnership. Its infrastructure, the campus building, was provided by the Telangana State Government. Expenses are met by charging startups for services.
The hub currently has facilities to accommodate around 2000 startups. At present, 238 startups are working at its main campus building. The startups vary from a single person unit to 40 member teams. Aside from providing startups with workspace and service facilities, T-Hub also works with investors and corporates to get funding and market access for the startups, Ms Ravala stated. “Each startup has a dedicated programme. We also have mentors and dedicated partners who support this programme.”
T-Hub also invests in startups on behalf of the Telagana Government for between INR 2.5mn and 10mn. A committee evaluates each project using pre-assigned criteria such as performance, revenue, market value and uniqueness of product.
Telangana still has only three “unicorn companies”—the term used to describe a privately-held startup valued at over US$ 1bm. It would be a major achievement T-Hub could propel at least 10 of their startups to become unicorn companies, Ms Ravala stressed.
Separately, the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) is working to foster research and innovation. Established in 2008, IITH is consistently ranked among the top 10 institutes for engineering in India.
“IITH is unique in that we spend a lot of time on innovation,” said Prof. B.S. Murty, Director. It had more than 100 startups in the past five years, not only generating new technologies but also creating more than 1000 jobs.
“In future, one new measure that people are going to look at to gauge the success of an institute is
how many jobs their students create through their startups,”
he predicted.
A key element of IITH is it has a variety of inter-disciplinary Masters programmes including in medical device innovation, e-waste management, climate change, and medical biotechnology. Inter-disciplinary Bachelor degrees include biotechnology and bioinformatics and computational engineering.
“We are growing fast thanks to a young faculty,” Prof. Murty said. “We have around 300 faculty of an average age of 37-38 years.” Researchers are working in areas such as 6G technology, artificial intelligence, healthcare alternative energy and climate change.
IITH has joint doctoral programmes with Deakin University and Swinburne University in Australia. It also has a long association with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and regular exchanges of faculty and students with Japan. JICA has helped with funding and some buildings around the campus are signature Japanese architecture.
There are scholarships for international students who wish to pursue PhDs at IITH with full financial support. Nineteen foreign students are presently enrolled at IITH for M. Tech and PhD programmes.
(The writer was part of a media familiarisation tour for journalists organised by the Indian Government)
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