Kochi: After hosting major events such as the Global Investors’ Meet and Emerging Kerala, Kerala on Friday took a fresh route to promote entrepreneurship among its youth by launching the Youth Entrepreneurship Summit.
On display at the venue were ideas and start-up ventures that ranged from using technological innovation to solve the everyday issues of the vast rural population to tapping the potential of the largest fruit in the state, the jackfruit.
Kerala industry minister P.K. Kunhalikutty said the state was betting on a new generation of entrepreneurs to change the state’s image from being a job-seeking population to a job-creating state. Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation managing director, Aruna Sundararajan, said the results of the push for entrepreneurship may not yet be evident, but “the shape of things in the making is visible”.
Taking the limelight at the event was techie-turned entrepreneur James Joseph who gave up lucrative careers with Microsoft, 3M and Ford, to chase his own dream of promoting the jackfruit.
Encouraging would-be entrepreneurs in the state, Joseph said capacity, more than capital, was the key to success in entrepreneurship. Joseph said it was a “crime to have youth from Kerala working in congested cities around the world when they could do global-class work sitting right in their home state”, which he referred to as “God’s own office”.
Joseph said he had managed to change the image of the lowly jackfruit from a “sticky, smelly fruit” to one that is now served in five-star eateries and valued for its health benefits, considering the quantity of fibre in the fruit. “It has been a repositioning of the fruit from an inferior fruit to one that is accepted in [a] five-star ambience”, Joseph said.
Participants at the meet also suggested that the state government and its agencies simplify the procedural formalities in registering companies. A panellist representing the United Kingdom gave the contrasting picture with regards to company registration formalities, pointing out that in the UK it takes “filling up only one form, 10 minutes and a registration fee of about $150 (Dh551) to register a company”.
Entrepreneurial projects discussed at the meet included ideas as diverse as taking free printouts and photocopies anytime, anywhere; a gadget to help people with disabilities control things using their eyes; and making local panchayats transparent and accountable in their functioning by leveraging the possibilities of information, communication and technology.
