As we moved from the picturesque beauty of Calicut, with the rain playing hide seek and the mystical green hills standing around us like a crown our hearts danced with glee as we looked forward to the journey ahead. The huge expanse of water swirling and twirling with the wind and roaring out loud was a constant companion in our journey. As the rain god unleashed their fury the fragrance of the wet mud filled the air and as the grounds got inundated with water the children continued to play football with a fervour new found. As John Ruskin once said “ Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty” the journey from Calicut to Kochi seemed a short one as we were enamored by the beautiful sites of the beaches and nature at it's best that greeted our eyes.
Our first destination in Kochi was Central Institute of Fisheries Technology ( CIFT ) at Willingdon Island in kochi. CIFT is an autonomous organization which is working in the domain of fish and fish processing technology.Here we met Dr. Ravishankar CN the director of CIFT and many scientist including senior scientist Dr. George Ninan. In the interactive session we learnt that CIFT has been working earnestly to develop fishing technologies that are environmentally friendly. Another domain in which they are working is in the field of value addition. Dr. Ravishankar informed us that today many young fishermen were approaching them to develop technologies that can add value to the entire process and help them in improving their financial condition further. Hence, the researchers and scientist are working earnestly towards this and are trying to connect these technologies to the larger audience of fishermen. Further to cater to other domains like freeze drying and food processing they have started Zonal Technology Management Center and Business Planning and Development Unit. Here they have incubated many companies some of which are success stories like Baigai Marine Food, Accelerated Freeze Drying Company, green allies organic and many others. Post this interactive session we informed them regarding the advantages of international trade and how these incubatee companies could derive benefit by harnessing the huge potential that global markets offer.
Thus, pleased to see the technological innovation at CIFT which has the potential to truly carve a niche for India in the world map we next headed to Startup Village located at Kinfra Hi-Tech Park. With the goal “ If you have an idea, we will help you to realize it” Startup village is providing incubation for many business technology startups. It is funded by public private partnership with Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan the co-founder of Infosys as the chief mentor. Here we had a rendezvous with many incubatee companies. There was an air of passion and zeal in the air as we met young bloods with a passion to achieve something great. For example we meet a young individual Rahul who had established Reditech who had developed a hospital tracking system. The Startup Village also has many success stories like there was a young individual of 24 years who had started a venture by which one can use bluetooth to turn on and off the air conditioning and television channels. This company was recently acquired by a German Company for 2 million US dollars. Inspite of many such stories the chief problem that they highlighted was that though they have developed many technologies they lack the infrastructure to test these technologies so need for pilot project was the need of the hour.
Thus, as the clock moved about round and forth it was time for us to leave the beautiful city of Kochi. Hope, passion, dream, idea and an aspiration for a better tomorrow would be the exact words to describe our emotions during our visit to Kochi . Thus, with our energy pumped up to do more and work vehemently in the task we had set out about for we with renewed vigour proceeded towards the temple city Madurai.
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