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“It is time to look beyond tech hubs and metros to achieve uniform economic growth, and tier II destinations such as Coimbatore look ideal at this juncture, considering its incredible entrepreneurial DNA,” opines Chinnu Senthilkumar, Partner and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Exfinity Venture Capital Fund.
Asserting that Coimbatore has the potential to emerge much stronger but has not been positioned right, he said “a differentiated strategy would be required for the city to leverage its diversified skill set accumulated over the last half century.”
The city should seek the support of the Centre and State Governments for establishing an advanced electrical vehicle research centre, build an ecosystem to promote green energy, retune its workforce for the era of e-commerce and distributed manufacturing, and leverage “Make in India” to improve infrastructure.
‘Entrepreneurial instinct’ He added that the city had demonstrated its entrepreneurial instinct as early as 1930 and unlike Bengaluru, not focused just on IT but a range of sectors like electrical machinery, agro-engineering, textile machinery, precision engineering and so on.
Revolutionary technology trends like “connected cars, driver-less cars, Telsa type electric cars” are pushing for a paradigm shift in the automobile sector. And Coimbatore, known for its strength in the automobile engineering space is witnessing interesting possibilities, he feels.
“If positioned right, the city, with its wide array of skill sets, will be in a position to tap new opportunities,” Senthilkumar reiterated.
The CTO of Exfinity spoke to BusinessLine highlighting strengths of Coimbatore.
“The city has demonstrated that high tech entrepreneurship can be replicated successfully here,” he said, citing individuals like Hemalatha Annamalai of Ampere Electric Vehicles and Vivek Pawar of Sankalp Semiconductor. “But history has shown that for a city to achieve sustained and broad growth, industry bodies would have to play a vital role in identifying key areas, work closely with policy makers, and identify an evangelist to promote it globally,” he continued, adding, “Coimbatore should also consider to position itself as an attractive investor destination.”
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