Kochi, Aug 27 (UNI) Maker Village has tied up with American MNC Qualcomm in an effort to groom startups of international standards, charting out a four-phase project that will be completed in the next six months.



The collaboration is being initiated following a bilateral agreement the California-headquartered semiconductor and telecommunications equipment giant signed with the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology seven weeks ago, an official release said here on Tuesday.



Kochi’s Maker Village, which is India’s largest electronic hardware incubator and ESDM facility, is the first beneficiary of the pact inked in Delhi early last month with a view to providing startups access to peers working on similar societal challenges across the world.



A six-member Qualcomm delegation visited Maker Village today as part of the initiative.



Under the project, Qualcomm India will give support to 15 chosen electronic hardware startups. The beneficiaries belong to three categories: startups by college students, those incubated by Maker Village and another group functioning as industrial units. Each category will have five startups.



Qualcomm will extend support to the startups in a wide range of subjects including ideation, model, product, intellectual property rights, geographical indication and marketing.

Experts on each of the matters will guide the startups at Maker Village. By when the project gets over in February next year, Kerala will have at least five startups of global standard, according to senior functionaries.



“An exposure and interaction with experts of international repute will be a key advantage of the beneficiaries of the project,” pointed out Qualcomm India Incubator Associate Director Pushkar Apte.

“Besides the scheduled rigour, there will be training on complex matters such as schematic layout,” he added.

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