The Innovation Leaders’ Summit 2022 in Tokyo saw startups from Kerala making their presence felt by showcasing innovations from the state’s robust ecosystem.
Startups from Kerala are making a huge impact on the Tokyo tech terrain. The state’s startups, which were part of a delegation of Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) at the 10th edition of Innovation Leaders’ Summit 2022 (ILS) in Tokyo, made their presence felt at the event by showcasing the innovations from the state’s robust ecosystem. KSUM is the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.
The Kerala delegation also impressed Japanese trade body Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) during interactions at the global expo, one of Asia’s largest open innovation events, paving the way for future collaborations.
Members of the KSUM delegation to ILS 2022, including the representatives of the participating startups, interacted with top officials of JETRO and their startup wing J BRIDGE exploring diverse synergies of collaboration. Startups Febno Technologies, Acemoney, Alibi Global and Pixdynamics were part of the KSUM delegation to ILS 2022.
Exploring the Japanese market for startups
Major Japanese corporations and overseas startups participated for business matching opportunities in the November 29-December 2 summit held in Toranomon Hills in the Japanese capital. KSUM CEO Anoop Ambika said the Kerala delegation had made successful efforts to explore the Japanese market for startups from the state and sought avenues of collaboration.
He said the positive response from JETRO will help startups from Kerala gain an entry into the Japanese market and learn more about the rapid innovation happening in that country.
Also, the Indian Embassy in Tokyo conducted a pitching session for KSUM startups before a gathering of Japanese investors, venture capitalists (VC), industry and corporate leaders. The gathering was briefed on the activities of KSUM as the state’s nodal agency for entrepreneurship development and incubation. The session provided good networking opportunities for the participating startups.
Startup mission bags state laurel
Meanwhile, closer home, the Kerala Startup Mission won the state government’s Best Digital Platform Award for effectively performing information dissemination on par with global standard to strengthen the ecosystem for nascent firms.
The state-of-the-art website of KSUM provides all kinds of services and guidelines to startups from their idea-generation phase to marketing of the product. Any startups with KSUM’s Unique ID can avail the facilities of the website.
Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty gave away the award. KSUM Technical Officer- IT, Arya Krishnan and Software Engineer, KSUM, Sidharth Menon, received the award from the Minister. KSUM’s website also got a special mention during the Startup India Ranking phase. Commenting on the award, the KSUM CEO said the honour “is definitely an encouragement” for the nodal agency in its efforts to offer hassle-free services to startups in the ecosystem.
He said through the user-friendly website, which is also available in Malayalam, startups can provide various information and solutions to move ahead confidently.