IEEE delegation lauds initiatives of Maker Village Kochi

The products of the start-ups at Maker Village Kochi are world-class and at par with Singapore’s famed Electronic Hardware Ecosystem, according to an international delegation on a visit to the city.

A team with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), on taking a round of India’s largest electronic hardware incubator, lauded the innovative devices at the Kochi facility. They exhorted potential entrepreneurs to make good use of the encouragement being given by the Maker Village, which has Kerala Startup Mission as the supporting partner.

With experts from Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand, the delegation was here as part of Tencon 2019, a premier technical conference which held here recently.

India-born Singapore innovator Kush Agarwal, who was part of the nine-member delegation, praised the ESDM facilities provided by the 2012-founded Maker Village under the Union Ministry of Electronics. It is the responsibility of the start-ups to come out with high-quality products and make them a success in global market, said Agarwal, founder-CEO of WaveScan Technologies that specialises in the R&D of disruptive beam forming electro magnetics-based smart sensor systems and advanced AI algorithms.

Takako Hashimoto of Japan’s Chiba University of Commerce said the Maker Village features latest infrastructure and facilities that equip incubators to meet the challenges of a tough competition in the industry at the global level.

Nirmal Nair, who teaches at University of Auckland, said that it was “unconditional support” Maker Village provides to the incubators, thus lightening their performance pressure. The government’s ‘Make In India’ project has a flurry of activities that can benefit start-ups here, he added.

Maker Village CEO Prasad Balakrishnan Nair said the IEEE delegation’s visit has helped broaden the world view of the start-ups. “The countries of South East and East Asia are of particular significance on the world electronic hardware map. We are planning for co-operation with similar teams in a big way,” he added.