Technopark, Trivandrum
Technopark is a technology park in Thiruvananthapuram in the state of Kerala, India. Established on 28 July 1990 by the Government of Kerala, under chief minister E K Nayanar. The largest information technology park in Asia in terms of area. Technopark is the first greenest IT Park of India.
Technopark has of built-up area, and is home to over 490 companies, employing more than 75,000 professionals, and still growing. It is surrounded by beautiful Kerala foliage.
The policy of economic liberalisation initiated by the government of India in 1991, and the rapid growth of the global software industry during the 1990s, substantially contributed to this growth. As a result of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, the park saw a period of reduced growth in 2009–10, when exports were only 2.8% more than the previous year. During the 2016-17 financial year, the park recorded IT exports of Rs. 5,000 crores.
Technopark is owned and administered by the Government of Kerala and is headed by a chief executive officer. In addition to this, it has a governing council and a Project Implementation Board, both of which include top officials of the government. Administrative offices, including that of the CEO, are housed in the Park Centre building. Technopark also hosts a Technology Business Incubation Cell under Kerala Startup Mission.
Technopark houses domestic firms, joint ventures, and subsidiaries of foreign companies engaged in a wide variety of activities, which include embedded software development, smart card technology, enterprise resource planning, process control software design, engineering and computer-aided design software development, IT Enabled Services, process re-engineering, animation, and e-business.
History and mission
Then Chief Minister of Kerala, E. K. Nayanar visited the Apple facility in the United States in 1989. This led to forming of Technopark, India's first IT park and still remains the largest in India. Nayanar laid the foundation stone on 1990 after it was registered under the Travancore Cochin Scientific and Charitable Societies Act. As of 2020, the IT park employs 70,000 people and provides indirect employment to lakhs. In March 1990, the Government of Kerala conceptualised Technopark as a facility to foster the development of high-technology industries in the state. Technopark was set up under the auspices of Electronics Technology Park, Kerala—an autonomous body under the Department of Information Technology of the government of Kerala.Technopark's aim was to create infrastructure to support the development of high-technology companies.
On 31 March 1991, the foundation stone for Technopark was laid by E K Nayanar, Chief Minister of Kerala, at a ceremony presided over by K R Gowri Amma, Minister for Industries. Technopark was formally dedicated to the nation by the then prime minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, in November, 1995.
Since then, Technopark has been growing steadily both in size and employee strength. Park Centre, Pamba, and Periyar were the only buildings constructed in the beginning, by 1995. Since then, Technopark has periodically added new buildings, such as Nila, Gayathri, and Bhavani. With the inauguration of the "Thejaswini", on 22 February 2007, Technopark became the largest IT Park in India. After that, Leela Group has built a facility, "Leela Infopark", that hosts MNCs like Allianz, Oracle Corporation, D+H, RM Education, and Zafin.
Socio-economic impact
Technopark has become the single largest source of employment in Kerala, with over seventy thousand people directly working in the facility.Workforce
Technopark hosts about 470 companies, and a workforce that numbers more than 70,000 personnel, in the IT and ITES sectors: companies such as Allianz, Ernst & Young, Speridian Technologies, Infosys, Guidehouse India, Oracle Corporation, Quest Global, SunTec Business Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Elxsi, Toonz Media Group, and UST Global, as well as Finastra, H&R Block, IBS Software Services, Nissan Digital, RM Education, Envestnet, Tech Mahindra and RR Donnelly.Institutions
Technopark hosts two educational and research institutes. The Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala, is an institution of higher education and research and development in applied Information Technology and Management. Portals for computational chemistry and agricultural information dissemination are among its areas of focus. IIITM–K is located at present in Park Centre.The Asian School of Business used to have its flagship post-graduate management programme in Technopark, before moving it to its own 16 Acre LEED-certified campus in 2011. The Asian School of Business is managed by a board of governors, which includes Tata Consultancy Services CEO S. Ramadorai and Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan.
Infrastructure
Technopark aims to provide the infrastructure and support facilities needed for IT/ITES and electronics companies to function. In addition to office space, it provides utilities and connectivity, which is done either directly or through private partners. Besides, Technopark provides business incubation facilities for start-up firms as well as some social infrastructure for the personnel working in the park.Buildings
There are currently about a dozen buildings on the Technopark campus intended for software development. Seven of the buildings are named after rivers in Kerala—the Pamba, the Periyar, the Nila, the Chandragiri, the Gayathri, Bhavani, and the Thejaswini, the seventh building, which was commissioned in February 2007, with over and of carpet area. There are also independent buildings of private enterprises inside the Phase I campus: Amstor House, Padmanabham, and M-squared. These buildings have an aggregate floor area of about.Other facilities in the campus include:
- Technopark Club – Includes a gym, swimming pool, restaurant, and sporting facilities.
- Technomall – a shopping complex
- Technopark guesthouse
- Private IT parks of individual companies
- Special Economic Zones
- Technology Business Incubator
- WiFi Solutions IT Rentals Infrastructure Service Provider
Utilities and support facilities
Technopark has other support facilities such as a satellite earth station, a 200-seater convention centre, a club, a guest house, a shopping complex, banks, ATMs, restaurants and conference rooms on campus. Furthermore, setting up of new units is accelerated by exemption from state-level clearances as well as through ready-to-use incubation facilities.
Transport facility
Technopark Express service is a public transport system for Technopark employees. It was inaugurated on 17 April 2017 by Hrishikesh R Nair, the then CEO of Technopark, Infopark, and Cyberpark.Connectivity
Technopark offers multiple Internet service providers, including Reliance Infocomm, STPI, BSNL, Bhari, and VSNL. Leased-line fiber connectivity is available to all buildings on the campus, guaranteeing that connection breaks are a thing of the past.Global Cloud Xchange—a subsidiary of 3i Infrastructure—has its FLAG global cable system at Thiruvananthapuram, providing direct connectivity to the Maldives and Sri Lanka. Technopark is connected through fibre link, with a self-healing redundant ring architecture, to Global Cloud Xchange's data center and gateway at Mumbai, directly connecting to FLAG, the undersea cable system backbone that connects 134 countries including the U.S., U.K., and other countries, in North America, Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia, and Asia Pacific.
Technopark Business Incubation Centre (T-BIC)
The Kerala Startup Mission, formerly known as the Technopark Business Incubation Centre, aims to provide economical plug-and-play facilities to start-ups in the IT/ITES fields. This facility has given rise to over 47 successful ventures, many of whom have expanded by taking up space elsewhere in Technopark. T-BIC currently has. at Park Centre, and this is being expanded with another. in the newest Technopark building, Thejaswini.One of the latest companies started at T-BIC is Entiresoft Technologies Private Limited.
Expansion and new projects
Phase II
Technopark has acquired of land, for its Phase II expansion.- Out of this, has been earmarked for Infosys and for UST Global.
- * Infosys is planning to create up to of space to eventually accommodate up to 15,000 professionals. It plans to set up in the first phase.
- * UST Global was to set up a campus to be completed by 2015. of space was to be completed by January 2012. Work on the campus was started on 24 October 2007.
- Tata Consultancy Services has been allotted within the campus for their software development centre. This is in addition to the of land allotted to them for setting up their new training centre—Peepul Park.
- IBS Software Services is constructing a office on of land. The first phase of the campus was inaugurated on 23 October 2007.
- Tata Elxsi Limited, which is the product design arm of the US$68 billion Tata Group, has taken on which to build its design and development centre. The first phase of the campus was commissioned on 7 September 2007.
- The NeST group has also been allocated land to build a development centre, on which work has almost been completed.
- OXOMO Systems International is one of the fastest-growing IT company in the area, concentrating on software development, Digital Marketing, and IT outsourcing sectors.