Thiruvananthapuram: As many as four high-end IT projects, including Kerala’s second World Trade Centre at the Technocity in the state capital, were kicked off by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday. All four IT projects would act as a pivots for the state’s robust IT ecosystem, trigger jobs and ensure sustainable economic development.
The Chief Minister also launched “SWATANTRA”, the world’s largest integrated free and open source facility in a government sector. The other two projects are the Skill Delivery Platform of Kerala (SDPK) and Space Tech Application Development Ecosystem (STADE).
The World Trade Centre would aim to help the Technocity hop on to a position that would help it transform into a leading destination for IT in India. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Brigade Group to set up a World Trade Centre in Technocity in the Kerala capital. The MoU was signed by Technopark CEO Hrishikesh Nair and M R Jaishankar, Chairman and Managing Director of Brigade Group in the presence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and IT Secretary M Sivasankar.
The Thiruvananthapuram Technopark has allotted 12 acres of land to Brigade Group to build the World Trade Centre. The upcoming iconic building is expected to house allied facilities including hotels, serviced apartments, hostel for working professionals and neighborhood retail and entertainment. The total development will be across 2.5 million square feet and is seen as generating employment for 15,000 people.
According to Hrishikesh Nair, “this will be the second World Trade Centre in Kerala after the one set in Kochi Infopark recently. The Centre will be a great boost for the business and IT community of Trivandrum. Technocity is already developing into a great hub of emerging technologies with many of the world’s leading organizations setting up their centers of innovation here. Presence of a World Trade center will be a one stop shop for all their business needs which will also be a great draw for major companies looking to invest in Kerala.”
The Brigade Group holds World trade Centre (WTC) licenses for all the major cities in south India, including Bengaluru, Kochi, Chennai Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad. WTC Bengaluru and WTC Kochi are already operational, while WTC Chennai will be launched by the end of the year.
M R Jaishankar, CMD, Brigade Enterprises, said that “WTC Thiruvananthapuram is poised to change the socio economic scenario of the city. It promises to change the way office spaces are viewed, by providing an international environment to global and Indian IT/ITes companies, giving their business a real boost. The integration of the allied facilities such as hotel, serviced apartments, entertainment avenues would make Technocity a vibrant place to work and live”.
“SWATANTRA”, an initiative of International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), will house the FOSS Incubation Centre & Training Space. It is aimed at enhancing the government’s agenda of promoting democratic access of information with the objective of sustainable economic development.
The SDPK by Kerala State IT Infrastructure Ltd (KSITI) intends to bridge the gap between the industry and colleges and is equipped to provide a live tele-presence network with 150 colleges of the state. The official website of SDPK was also launched on the occasion.
Letters of occupancies at STADE by Kerala Startup Mission were handed over to three startups working in space tech arena – Satsure, Bellatrix and Agnikul – by Kerala IT Secretary M Sivasankar in the presence of Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) CEO Saji Gopinath. Airbus Biz Labs is also partnering with KSUM on this project.
