TS Innovation Cell launches first initiative

Hyderabad, May 14 (INN): The State Innovation Cell on Sunday launched its first initiative T.CoWork at CIE, IIITH Gachibowli.

Information Technology Secretary Jahesy Ranjan delivered the key note address and the event was attended by a consisting of Pradeep Mittal (President TiE Mentors), SriniChandupatla (Hyderabad Angels), Vikrant Varshney (IIIT Seed Fund) and Shanta Thoutam (Director - Innovation Cluster, T-Hub).

The aim of the initiative is to network all the co working spaces and incubators in the city, and through shared joint support enable them to be more effective in nurturing start-ups. Through these spaces, the early stage start-ups will be provided business/strategy mentoring, market connection and investor access. The idea is to direct all early stage start-ups applying to T-Hub to a participating, qualified co-working space and through the space enable them to grow to initial market traction and be ready for angel stage support offered by incubators such as T-Hub.

With the goal in mind, today's T.CoWork confluence connected the various attending co working spaces as well as the incubators to panel which had players from the investor, mentor and t-hub networks.

It kick started with an introduction between various participating spaces, followed by a panel discussion represented by people experienced in raising investments, start up mentoring and corporate innovation. They discussed and shared opinions about the various gaps in the current start up ecosystem and the role of incubators, co working spaces in addressing the same. Pradeep Mittal spoke in particular about founders, their creativity and how they should be given the atmosphere, space and environment to innovate. He said, 'Vet the founders, their drive but make sure you do not curb or parrot their enthusiasm. Founders, mostly come with excellent ideas and what make the start-up successful.'

Following this, Jayesh Ranjan spoke about the State Innovation Policy, the incentives rolled out to incubators and start-ups and the focus of the state. He spoke about how Hyderabad has the highest number of start-ups registered under DST and that now the focus should be on quality and innovation. He stressed on the importance of incubators, co working spaces along with academic institutions to instil an atmosphere to support start-ups and push for better and better innovation in the state. He said 'the government has already rolled out the innovation policy, and is in hunt for the Chief Innovation Officer. It has set aside huge funds for the same, and is looking to make sure there is ground level impact.' He also extended a request to share inputs about the innovation policy and incentives, and was receptive of the issues raised. He also mentioned that the USP of Hyderabad is 'High quality infrastructure at low cost' and that USP shouldn't be lost even we provide T.CoWork facilities.

The event ended with a networking high tea with various stakeholders interacting and discussing ways to roll out the various shared support and workshops.

The concluding remarks were given Prof. Ramesh Loganathan, the interim Chief Innovation Officer who said 'T.CoWork seeks to continue this collaboration by rolling out the shared support, regular monthly meet ups to build the network with a few talks, and one such meeting every half year, where start-ups in these spaces can connect with investors, mentors and industry partners. We also hope to launch workshops once in two months to help idea stage an early stage start-ups'