Goa’s government, through its department of information and technology, recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) to establish a start-up centre in Goa state.
The agreement to collaborate on the project, which aims to boost the IT industry in Goa state, was signed at the Vibrant Goa Global Expo and Summit 2019.
At the event, the Chief Minister said that 14,000 square metres of land will be handed over to the STPI for the centre.
He also said that Goa is trying to position itself as a hub for the start-up industry and the agreement with the STPI will help attract more start-ups to the state.
STPI is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, New Delhi. Its objective is to encourage, promote, and boost software exports from India.
The proposed project will be set up in Dona Paula and is expected to be completed in two-and-half years.
The government intends to make the hub a research and resource centre for start-ups that want to convert their ideas into prototypes.
The state and STPI signed another MoU to set up an IT park at Dona Paula, for which the state government has already given land.
The Director-General of STPI said that the development of this facility, with IN ₹40 crores (about US $5.62 million) worth of funding, would go a long way in the promotion of the IT industry, entrepreneurship, and start-up culture in Goa.
It will develop a mentor-enabled centre of excellence in emerging technologies.
A centre of excellence is a domain-specific incubation facility for start-ups in the area of emerging technologies where the highest-standards and best-practices in terms of infrastructure, tech, training, R&D, funding, and networking for the given focus area are made available.
The Director-General noted that the project will house a state-of-the-art incubation centre, plug and play, and data centre to provide opportunities to Goan youth. STPI will also act as a facilitator for software exports in this region.
Currently, STPI is setting up 28 centres of excellence across the country to drive innovation in services and products.
In 2015, STPI set up an ‘Electropreneur Park’, aimed at supporting 50 start-ups working on electronics product designing and development. A year later, STPI established an incubation facility in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh to cater to the IT industry and boost entrepreneurship and exports from the state.
In August last year, STPI unveiled a new incubation centre as well as a Fab-Lab called STPI ELITE for electronics and IT start-ups in Orissa.
This year, STPI launched a centre of excellence in fintech in Chennai. The objective is to mentor and offer technical support and funding for fintech start-ups.
Also, STPI is working with the Punjab state government to develop the Start-up Punjab Hub. It will serve as a single point of contact for the entire start-up ecosystem and will provide state-of-the-art incubation facilities.