Friday, January 26, 2007

Kozhikode to be Kerala's next IT destination

Six high profile institutions in Kerala have come together to ensure that this north Kerala city becomes the next big IT destination in the state after Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.

The core group working towards a cyber park in Kozhikode consists of the Malabar Chamber of Commerce (MCC), Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIM-K), National Institute of Technology (formerly Regional Engineering College-Kozhikode), Kerala Builders Forum, the IT Forum of Kozhikode and the Calicut Management Association.

The project has the backing of the state government, said P. Zakeer, MCC president and secretary of the Calicut IT initiative (CITI).

'We had a full-fledged discussion with the special IT team of the government led by IT secretary K. Jyothilal. Things are on the right track. The government is fully convinced that Kozhikode has the potential to become Kerala's latest IT destination,' Zakeer told IANS.

Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, who handles the IT portfolio, last week came out with a draft IT policy and also stressed that the district would be promoted in a big way and infrastructure developed too.

Leading IT companies operating from IT hubs Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram and Infopark at Kochi have also expressed their support for the venture.

'IBS, US Technology and NeST have all assured us that they would be the first to set up operations as and when Cyber Park becomes a reality,' said Zakeer.

'We are now looking for a 100 acre plot of land, hopefully near the airport. Since the state industries minister (Elamaram Karim) hails from Kozhikode, we are certain that things will move in the right direction and at a faster pace.'

Also boosting chances of the project seeing light of day are the large number of NRIs from Kozhikode who would be only too willing to chip in with funds to ensure speedy take off.

5 Comments:

At 2:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sir

Calicut has much potential as an IT destination.

IIMK and NITC support
Nasscom finishing school being setup
23+ Engg colleges
Quality of life
Work life balance
Women workforce

 
At 11:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Calicut as IT destination
Pros and cons,
Pros: ,
1 Airport in Malappuram
2 NIT and IIMK(though needs to check how they gonna help and people coming out from these institutions will surely like to work abroad than working in a very small city like calicut)

Cons:
1 Few Engg colleges in or around calicut
a. govt engg college.westhill
b. Nit c
c. Govt Engg college
d. AWH engg college (PVT)
e. Vatakara Engg college.
Apart from this we have similar 5 or 6 enng colleges in nearby cities..
Coimbatore itself has nearly 70 engg colleges.
2. English speaking crowd is very less here.
3. Bad IT track record.
Several IT companies have closed down or moved to kochi, blore due to various reasons like resourse scarcity, connectivity etc.
STPI earlier operated in Calicut, then have closed down due to several reasons.
4. Govt IT park in Calicut, Kinfra was also failure with no reputed company operating there

So for Software companies looking for a branch in clt ..risk factors are more.
But Calicut definetly has good scope when it comes to hardware side.

 
At 7:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

you are correct....Calicut has its own limitations...but hardware side is ok i guess as a lot of polytechnics are there....

 
At 8:58 AM, Anonymous Royjo said...

Calicut definitely has potential for medium & small sized IT companies. Availability of local talent at competitive salaries would be the advantage.

Proximity to Gulf countries will attract offshore IT businesses & BPO from these countries.

Thanks
Roy

 
At 11:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

the cyberpark IT initiative's tendering process is rolled out in sep2010.
hope to see moreactivity in coming days

 

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