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As if news of the launch of two massive IT campuses in Trivandrum - UST Global and Infosys - weren’t enough, here comes an even bigger one!

Work on Technopark Phase III, spread over 92 acres and expected to create over 4 million sq.ft of space and 40,000 jobs is being inaugurated on Sept 4, 2008.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the ceremony and here is a copy for all of you.
Please do try to attend the function!

Read the full story here.

Company to finalise a few deals in the next 90 days.

UST Global, an IT services and solutions provider for the Global 2000 market, has zeroed in on a handful of technology players for acquisitions this year.

According to Sajan Pillai, CEO, UST Global, “We have zeroed in on certain companies, and will finalise a few deals in the next 90 days. The new acquisitions are in a bid to expand UST Global’s portfolio and achieve its billion-dollar revenue target.”

Read the full story here

A global tender will be floated in two to three weeks to find a private partner for the country’s first telecommunication equipment manufacturing cluster, the Rs.8 billion Telecom City, a top official said.

The new venture will come up on a 25-acre plot near Technopark, the information technology campus on the outskirts of the Kerala capital.

Read the rest here

Kerala chief minister VS Achuthanandan has denied state Cabinet nod to 21 special economic zone (SEZ) proposals from China. The state had been counting on picking Rs 25,000 crore ($5.8 billion) investment from the proposals.

Looks like the government wants all of us to be farmers. Read the entire story here.

TechTop 2008, organized by the Thiruvananthapuram Technopark in association with US-based Degree Controls Inc, on August 18 and 19, has picked the project by students of the DKTE Textile and Engineering Institute, Ichalkaranji in Maharashtra, as the best innovative venture.

This innovative project based on “Electrolytic Effluent Treatment Plant” won the first prize, cash award of Rs, 1 lakh sponsored by Degree Controls.

The awards were given away by Dr. K Radhakrishnan, Director, VSSC, who was the chief guest at the awards function. The ceremony was presided over by Dr Ajaykumar, Secretary - IT, Government of Kerala.

The Oxford Engineering College, Bangalore bagged the second prize of Rs.25, 000 for their project “Constant Velocity Joint Assembly,” sponsored by IBS group.

The third prize of Rs.10,000 sponsored by One View Systems, and SunTec Business Solutions was shared by BITS, Pilani - Goa and Sahrdaya College of Engineering, Kodakara, Kerala, for their respective projects on ‘Microbial Fuel Cell Using Sewage’ and ‘Water Plants  and EOG Based Room Utility Control For Bedridden Patients’.

An expert committee, headed by N T Nair, chief editor of Executive Knowledge Lines, assessed the 33 projects that competed for top honours.

According to R K Nair, chief executive officer, Technopark, “The growth of technology bound industry in Kerala will be driven by start up companies fired by innovation. The relevance of Incubation activities is coming in this context. We have to attract young talent in our country to consider entrepreneurship as a serious option.”

He added that competitions like TechTop are a vehicle for Technopark to spot and nurture such talented youngsters and convert them into ‘Technopreneurs’.

“Our endeavour will be to develop TechTop as the most sought after competition in the country in the Technology space. As we go along we want to expand the scope of the competition to include postgraduates and school children in addition to the undergraduate students,” he added.

TechTop TechTop is organized every year to tap the innovative potential of entrepreneurial citizens of India. The objective is to promote individual innovators through support mechanism at various stages to become technology-based entrepreneurs.

The two-day All India exhibition witnessed 23 projects from 10 states.

Courtesy :- CIOL News

A Venezuelan delegation which visited Technopark on Tuesday has expressed interest in IT projects with cooperation between the Venezuelan Government, the State Government and the Technopark. IIITM-K director K.R.Srivathasan, Chief Minister’s IT advisor Joseph Mathew, Amarnath Raja and Sathish Babu from INAPP, Benny Mathew from Ernst & Young and Binu Shankar, CEO, G-Tech were present during the interaction with the Venezuelan delegation.

The Venezuelan Government delegation is headed by Director-General of the Standardisation and Automatisation of Public Administration Carlos Castellano.

Courtesy :- The New Indian Express

It won’t take too long for “Gods own country” to be rechristened “Hartal’s own country”. India’s most educated state, which boosts itself of near-complete literacy seems have taken special liking for hartals. 80 hartals in last 6 months in the state underlines the same fact.

But what was most frustrating to see on the hartal called on 20th Aug was how the media helped propagate “negative” news to make hartal a success. Before I tell how media did it, let me tell a small history about kerala hartals.

Read the rest here

 US Technologies, one of the largest companies in technopark is organizing  a ‘Wellness walk’ on 20th August 2008 in Technopark premises at 4.00 pm. This is an initiative by the HR department of the company aimed to promote good health and well being of its employees thus encouraging a healthy working environment.

 The initiative with its motto, ‘One step furthur… towards caring and sharing‘, is ofcourse an important step to watch and learn for all the techies as well as for the HR people in different IT companies. It is learnt that, among the professionals in the job sector, the rate of deterioration of health is most among the IT professionals, with the bugs and deadlines making a heavy toll on mental and physical health. The hectic time schedules keep them away from exercises too. Only less than twenty percent of technopark employees travel by their foot to reach office everyday. The much appreciated event is a preface to think about the personal health of every IT employee.

 The flag-off of the event will be done by Arun Narayanan and Barry Newton at 4.00 pm. The walk also marks the beginning of the UST foundation day celebrations.

Zyxware technologies joins hands once again with GNU/Linux Users Group Trivandrum to organize the third install fest of the year in Trivandrum. This time the event is planned on a much more massive scale than the first two install fests. The earlier events were 1 day events targeted at the general public. This time it is targeted at the IT community in technopark and it is a full week program. The program is scheduled to be conducted from Sep 1 to Sep 5 at Park Center, Technopark, Trivandrum.

One-day-install-fests have a small disadvantage in that they get over by the time people get to know about it from the media. We have decided to get over this problem by spreading the event from Sep 1, Monday to Sep 5, Friday. The event is going to be conducted in the heart of technopark - Park Center. We are hoping to get the event inaugurated by one of the Ministers of the Government of Kerala.

Free Software Seminar Series, Open Movie Show and 3D Desktop Demo

In addition to the installations we are also organizing daily Free Software seminars covering topics ranging from “Business Opportunities in Free Software” to “Enterprise Application Development in Free Software”. On Wednesday we will be showing some of the popular Open Movies like Big Buck Bunny and Elephants Dream.

During the Fest

IT professionals working in Technopark can bring in their laptops to the Park Center and drop it off to get any of the Free Software Distributions installed. They also will have the opportunity to buy T-Shirts, Stickers, CDs and DVDs at the Fest. There will be informational posters, live presentations, open movie shows around the counters. There will also be a couple of GNU/Linux Gaming PCs available for people to try out the open games.

Zyxware Planning to Launch Freedom Toaster

During this install fest, we are also planning to unveil a freedom toaster. (If you don’t know already, a freedom toaster is a Free Software Vending Kiosk that will burn and give any of your favorite Free Software at the click off a button. It would look and operates like any of the soft drink vending machines) If we are able to pull this off, this will probably become the first time that somebody has done this in India. The Freedom Toaster is expected to turn quite a few heads during the Install fest.

Our Objective

Through this event and through the Freedom Toaster, we are hoping to generate enough buzz inside Technopark to be able to bring in new Free Software users and to rope in those professionals who are already using Free Software. In addition we are also hoping that at least a few companies in Technopark would become interested in trying out the freedom offered by FLOSS.

Partners

The partners for this event in addition to Zyxware and GLUG are Kerala State IT Mission, SPACE-Kerala, Free Software Foundation of India.

BSNL - Telecommunication Sponsor

BSNL has agreed to sponsor the event as the Telecommunications Partner and they will be meeting all the telecom and internet needs. They will be providing us with complete WiFi access in the Park Center and EVDO Wireless access at the Kiosks. A BSNL representative will also be present to demonstrate the configuration of BSNL broadband and EVDO in GNU/Linux.

The Technopark at Thiruvananthapuram will host the TechTop 2008 on its premises on August 18 and 19. The theme for this year’s contest is ‘Rural technology and global warming’ and responses from tomorrow’s technopreneurs.

TechTop is an All India Engineering Students project competition jointly organized by Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram and Degree C and supported by IEEE. The event focuses on spreading the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship.

It is organized as a part of Technopark’s efforts to locate budding ‘Technopreneurs’ with innovative ideas at a very early stage, reward them suitably, and nurture their initiative to achieve commercial results, said a press release.

The organizers have received 90 applications from different states of which 33 projects are selected for the final round, it said. Of these 33 projects, 24 projects will be on display at Technopark on August 18 and 19.

The teams are from ten states - Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the release said.

“The motto behind TechTop is to promote and reward innovative ideas amongst budding engineers and to create an investment and entrepreneurship climate in the country,” said, chief executive officer, R.K.Nair.

He said that this year’s theme has generated ideas for the ailing agriculture sector from Calcutta Institute of Engineering and Management, West Bengal, with their Precision Farming idea, areca nut de-husking machine from Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology Davengere, Karnataka, and Coconut de-husking machine from PSG Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

“These contributions reflect the youngsters’ shared concern about the growing farmers suicides in the country and the remedies mooted by them to save our ailing agriculture sector,” R.K.Nair said.

The project caters not only agriculture but also cover software, health, communication, textile and other areas as well, he added.

The most innovative, socially relevant and commercially exploitable projects will get a cash award of Rs 1 lakh sponsored by Degree Controls, followed by second prize of Rs.25, 000 sponsored by the IBS Software and three third prizes Rs.10, 000 each sponsored by One View Systems, AES Solutions and SunTec Business Solutions.

TechQuiz is scheduled on August 18 for the High School and Higher Secondary Students. The first prize of TechQuiz carrries a cash prize of Rs 4000, second prize Rs 2500 and third prize Rs 1500. A consolation prize of Rs 500 will also be given away.

The Project Exhibition at TechTop will be open to public on August 18 and 19 and the project presentation to the technical committee will take place simultaneously at Technopark.

The award ceremony of TechTop 2008 would be held on August 19.

Courtesy :- http://www.ciol.com