TS seeks to make Hyd as startup capital

IT Minister KTR says city will have country’s biggest incubation centre; Extends support to two-day startup festival, AugustFest, scheduled in the city from Aug 30

Hyderabad: Telangana IT Minister K T Rama Rao on Wednesday said efforts were underway to transform Hyderabad as the country’s startups capital.

“We want to make the city, already the leading IT hub in the country, as the capital of startups. And we are making concerted efforts in that direction. Already, plans are afoot to set up T-Hub, the country’s largest incubation centre, at IIIT-Hyderabad,” the IT Minister told media here at the curtain raiser event of AugustFest, a two-day startups festival being organized by ESD Startups.

According to him, the first phase of T-Hub incubation centre will have 80,000 sft of space which will accommodate 400 startups. Subsequently, the centre will have 3 lakh sft, capable of housing 1,500 startups.

“We want every youth in the city and across Telangana to believe that they can change the world through their innovative ideas. And the incubation centre is just a platform to exercise their creativity,” he said.

Explaining the idea behind the incubation centre, he said: “There is brilliant local talent. So, we don’t want aspiring entrepreneurs to be bogged down with the legal, accounting, office space management, platform, mentoring and funding support, etc. The incubation centre is the platform that provides the basic necessary support for the enterprising, young and dynamic youth to flourish”.

On the AugustFest 2014, he said the two-day event would an apt precursor for the proposed T-Hub. “August Fest in one of its kind startup festival which is happening for the second time. It will definitely encourage entrepreneurship and creativity,” he said. Considered as one of the biggest startup festivals, the second edition of August Fest is expected to attract over 1,500 startups, 100 investors and more than 60 companies that have already received funding. The first edition organized in 2013 attracted over 500 companies.

With active participation from TiE Hyderabad, HYSEA and Nasscom, this year’s event will bring the complete startups ecosystem in the city on to one platform. Besides, Shapers Fellows of World Economic Forum, Kairos Society, Google ISB’s D-Labs team and Agro-business innovation platform from ICRISAT are also taking part in the event.

The event will feature inspiring talks from highly accomplished artists, entrepreneurs and professionals. It will also showcase interesting device, gadgets and apps created by start-ups. In addition, many early-stage startups will be pitching for instant seed-funding and there will be a short film competition on Hyderabad Innovation.

“The AugustFest 2014 will be a great platform for early stage startups as they will get exposure and opportunity to infuse creativity and innovative ideas from various fields. This fest will also open the path for pitching and getting instant seed-funding for the start-ups. The concept of this festival very well gels with the vision and objectives of TiE,” said Murali Bukkapatnam, President, TiE Hyderabad.