Last month we reported that Karnataka Govt. & NASSCOM are willig to setup unique hack-celerator for entrepreneurs, the news is official now. The government of Karnataka (GoK) on Friday officially announced its collaboration with NASSCOM for setting up of the GoK-NASSCOM start-up warehouse NextGen Hackcelerator cum IoT lab, in the city of Bangalore. The lab is expected to be spread around an area of 50,000 sq ft.
The upcoming NextGen Hack-Celerator lab is all set to become the largest multi-disciplinary technology incubation facility in the whole of Asia, and the largest among the top five cities of the country.
This NextGen Hackcelerator initiative is a part of Karnataka's government mission to make Bangalore first as the start-up capital of India, and then of the world.
The Hackcelerator has a capacity of around 500 seats and is a combination of accelerator and hackathon. The start-up warehouse will act as a platform for budding entrepreneurs where they will be able to develop their innovative and unique ideas, funded, supported and mentored by various venture capitalists. A working space for about six months will be made available to the star-ups by the warehouse.
Speaking at the event on Friday, Mr Srivatsa Krishna said, "In this facility, bright minds can experiment their innovative ideas before setting up their own individual start-ups. We call this place a 'Hack-celerator', since it is a place where hackathon and accelerator come together". He further added that this kind of incubation facility will be a first in the country and second all around the globe. Mr Krishna is the secretary, Department of IT, BT, and S&T and DPAR Government of Karnataka.
The government's main emphasis right now is not on any particular sector, it is just looking forward to bring out the best in innovation and technology.
The facility will not restrict any kind of start-ups from availing the benefit of being part of this program. NASSCOM’s 10K program will provide the needed handholding support and mentorship to these start-ups.
By 2020, India has the potential of being the single largest IT cluster of the world. India though is considered as the IT capital of the world but it still needs to evolve as a start-up or innovation capital. This facility is a positive step towards just that. Even start-ups who have already seen the day of light and started functioning can contact the facility for further support.
Speaking at the occasion, Mr R Chandrasekaran, who is the chairman of NASSCOM and executive vice-chairman, Cognizant India, said “Start-ups have been a growth engine for the industry and economy for quite some time now. This collaboration with GoK is a great leap in this regard and will provide the requisite support to start-ups and entrepreneurs at the right time in the right shape and form”.
The young entrepreneurs and their ideas will be funded by venture capitalists. The Hack-celerator has a state of the art Design Centre of Excellence, a mobile device lab, co-working space for daily use on pay–as-you-go basis and an events space.
New Age incubation centres have been sanctioned in a few Tier-II and III cities engineering colleges so as to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.
The facility will come loaded with a design lab, hoteling office space for investors and visitors, Internet of Things lab and mobile lab.
Notably, last month in Hyderabad even Telangana state govt. also announced about biggest incubator hub of India in IIIT campus of Hyderabad city called T-Hub. T-Hub facility will be spread over 80,000 square feet way larger than what Bangalore has announced (50,000 sq ft) and but startups it can accommodate i.e. 400 start-ups is less than what GoK-NASSCOM start-up warehouse NextGen Hackcelerator can which is 500 in number. However, the announcements are contradictory to each other and it will be interesting to see which one will be te largest incubator facility in India - Hyderabad's T-Hub or Bangalore's NextGen Hackcelerator.
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