Thiruvananthapuram: Top IT and telecom executives have pledged institutional and technological support to foster next generation telecom and internet start-ups at the Kochi-based Startup Village.

Based at the Kinfra High Tech Park, Kochi, it is the first business incubator in the country on the private-public-partnership (PPP) basis, said a Startup Village press release here Monday.The Village aims to promote 1,000 telecom-internet product start-ups in the 18-25 age group in ten years.The pledge for support to budding entrepreneurs was made at a high-profile meet at the IT major Infosys campus in Bangalore.

The meet held Friday at the initiative of Infosys co-chairman and Startup Village chief mentor Kris Gopalakrishnan, was attended by top functionaries of the Indian units of around 30 companies, including Intel, Alcatel-Lucent, KPMG, Capegemini, Blackberry, Nokia, Siemens Networks, IBM and Gemalto.

NASSCOM, CII, enterpreneurship developer The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and the Cellular Operators Association of India are leading industry associations backing the initiative.

H.K. Mittal, head and advisor, National Science and Technology Entrepreneur Development Board (NSTEDB), said the Startup Village, India's first PPP Incubator, is a keystone in creating the blueprint for the next 1000 incubators in the country."The Government of India has been promoting incubation for the last 28 years and this is for the first time that so many leaders have come together," Mittal told the gathering.

Gopalakrishnan said it was time to think beyond the obvious and take a giant leap forward for building the ecosystem needs of the next generation IT product start-ups from the country.The meeting assumes significance as India is trying to scale up the incubation ecosystem for generating growth and employment.Currently, there are around 5,000 incubators in the world, of which 2,000 are in the US and 1,000 in China. India has been able to produce only 65 incubators in the last 28 years and is now looking to leapfrog to having at least 1,000 of these in the country.

The Startup Village, being in the PPP model, is seen by the central government as one of the key pilots for scaling up innovation and entrepreneurship in the country, especially in engineering colleges.

V Balasubramanian, head of R&D, Nokia Siemens Network, said his company would be rolling out some of its most advanced technology platforms for start-ups to build, break and innovate within a period of two months.