Worldwide IT leader Cisco unveiled LaunchPad in order to mentor and empower the innovation eco-system in the country. The LaunchPad is designed to bring together Cisco, their channel partners, developers and their start-up enterprises and jointly look at solving issues to addressing new markets, and build on digital businesses. Mentorship will come from Cisco’s finest own talent who will be connecting the start-up talent with potential investors and guide them on creation of solutions and scaling of businesses.
The LaunchPad will also bring other enablers like certified service providers and ultimately customers with the final aim of connecting the next 3 billion people through the 50 billion devices, all through digitization. To ensure that the support is adequate, Cisco will be allocating space, free grants, and access to Cisco technology suite at the Bengaluru campus.
President and India site leader, Amit Phadnis mentioned, “Imagine the innovation you will create when you provide global scale to the best ideas of the world’s youngest startup nation and second biggest developer community. We have an unprecedented opportunity to digitize the next three billion people in one-third the time it took to connect the first three billion. Through Cisco LaunchPad we want to unleash the next generation of disruptive ideas and help turn the entrepreneurs of today into the business leaders of tomorrow.”
Bengaluru has now become the true start-up hub of the country. It is now a location where start-up talent, academia, research, and business combine perfectly to ensure an environment for growth and innovation, which remains Cisco’s ultimate aim. Some of the figures from Cisco reveal, that India is the youngest startup and developer nation in the world with 72 per cent of startup founders less than 35 years old and the average developer less than 29 years old. India is projected to have the world’s largest number of developers by 2018.
The selection process is bound to be rigorous, with the selection including only those start-up enterprises who would align with Cisco’s vision of digitization. The validation and identification will come from the go-to teams that Cisco has, hence the stress on the visionary alignment. The areas where the 3 billion audience will be gathering, will include manufacturing, retail, transportation, education and healthcare. With the finalists within their fold, the LaunchPad will get direct access to the Cisco supplier network, and also some of the select customers as well, so that scaling becomes for these new ideators and innovators is possible.