Bengaluru: Minister for Electronics, IT, BT and S&T, Higher Education, Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood Dr. C.N. Ashwathnarayan has announced the setting up of a ‘Start-Up Silicon Valley Bridge’ to help skilled employees of the State to work for start-ups located in the US’ Silicon Valley.

In his valedictory address at the 24th edition of ‘Bengaluru Tech Summit-2021’ (BTS) in Bengaluru on Friday last, the Minister said the bridge will also serve as a connection between start-ups of both the countries enabling sharing of knowledge and other resources as part of the new initiative.

‘Beyond Bengaluru StartUp Grid’ will be set up to facilitate growth of emerging industries in other cities of the State outside Bengaluru including Mysuru.

Taking a cue from the success story of India’s leading stock broking company Zerodha, a homegrown fintech venture, Dr. Ashwathnarayan announced constitution of a fin-tech task force to attract investments in the financial sector.  He said the Government plans to set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) and a back office in Mangaluru for the purpose. Similarly, an entrepreneur has evinced interest in setting up an electric battery manufacturing unit at Hubballi, he said.

The Minister said BTS-2021 has attracted investments to the tune of more than Rs. 5,000 crore in the aftermath of the announcement of the Government’s new ESDM policy with industries evincing interest in setting up semiconductor plants, motors for air conditioners, solar cell units, and electric vehicle among others.

He said for the first time, the Government of Karnataka conducted pre-events in the cities of Mangaluru, Hubballi, and Mysuru in the run-up to the BTS-2021 to promote the concept of industries going beyond Bengaluru. BTS-2021 has reached more than four crore viewers, including 2.93 crore impressions, through various social media channels, including digital channels and 98,10,500 viewers through mainstream media. The meet saw the conduct of 8 plenary sessions, 75 sessions in four tracks, 18 sessions on-demand and 343 speakers. For the first time, 48 countries participated in the annual tech event apart from 27 EU nations and 54 Commonwealth countries.