Social change through technology; KSUM launches as IEDC 2.0

Kochi / July 17, 2024

Kochi, July 17: Kerala Startup Mission launched IEDC 2.0 (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Center) with the aim of transforming all the 14 districts of the state into centers of innovation through entrepreneurship and social change based on technology.

The aim is to bring more entrepreneurs from the communities of students and researchers into the startup ecosystem, thereby trigger a significant change in the technological and financial investment in the state. 

KSUM CEO Anoop Ambika, while hailing IEDC 2.0 as an “important step towards fully utilising the state’s entrepreneurial potential”, said the endeavour will empower stakeholders at all levels of the startup ecosystem amid its efforts to deliver collaboration, social change, sustainable development and a brighter social future.

IEDC 2.0 aims to ensure the grassroots participation of students in resolving crises, enabling them to become agencies of social change, while increasing the purchasing power of students, teaching and research community so as to increase industrial cooperation and to create mini industrial parks.

With IEDC clusters coming up in each district, startups will get more opportunity to share ideas, brainstorm and raise investment. Students will get stronger participation in local problem-solving. Leap centers and TBIs will be more powerful. There is also a plan to nurture entrepreneurs who bring about social change.

Opportunities and projects from the grassroots level will increase with the influx of innovation from the local level, while also creating a skilled work environment at the local level. IEDC 2.0 also seeks to give local start-ups and industrial units an opportunity to meet, interact and provide expert advice with national and international experts.

Over 200 startups have come from IEDC, providing job to 3,000-plus people in the state. A classic example is GenRobotics , which came from an IEDC and resolved the socially painful issue of manual scavenging. 

KSUM is the Kerala government’s nodal agency established in 2006 for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.

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