Bengaluru, NFAPost: Former telecom watchdog advisor and technocrat Arvind Kumar joined the state-run Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) as Director-General (D-G), said the autonomous body under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Tuesday.
“Under Arvind Kumar’s leadership, STPI will reach new heights, as it promotes the culture of entrepreneurship and innovation across the country by launching 25 Centres of Entrepreneurship (CoE) in emerging technology domains,” said the facilitator in a statement here.
As an advisor to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) where he worked since 2004, Arvind Kumar was responsible for broadband, data security and privacy issues, manufacturing, DTH, IPTV, TV broadcasting and OTT.
Prior to his long stint with TRAI, Arvind Kumar worked at the state-run C-DoT (Centre for Development of Telematics) since 1997. He is an M.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology-Varanasi (IIT-V) in Uttar Pradesh. Arvind Kumar replaced Omkar Rai.
“STPI should serve as a one-stop-shop for technology start-ups. I believe start-ups can contribute to the accomplishment of the governments and the ministry’s vision of $1-trillion-digital economy,” said Arvind Kumar on the occasion.
STPI has been activating multiple initiatives for promoting entrepreneurship and creating a robust start-up ecosystem in the country.
As one of the largest tech incubators, with 13-lakh square feet area in tier 1-3 cities across the country, STPI is assisting in formulating the country’s BPO (business-process outsourcing) scheme 2.0. STPI is assisting the ministry in the formulation of India BPO Promotion Scheme 2.0.
To strengthen the electronics sector, STPI is set to roll out the electronics manufacturing clusters (EMC 2.0) scheme soon.
To build the next wave of budding entrepreneurs, STPI is setting up 21 CoEs in emerging technologies across the country. It will act as a single-window facilitation to extend lab support, funding and mentoring.
STPI is also implementing the ministry’s flagship programme — Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS) to democratise software product development in tier-2/3 cities by providing an ecosystem for IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) creation and create jobs for the skilled talent pool.
Registered units in STPI have registered nearly Rs 5-lakh crore exports in the areas of IT (software), IT-enabled Software (ITeS) and ESDM (Electronics System Design & Manufacturing in fiscal 2019-20.
