Diginext Summit 2025 held at Technopark
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct. 11: Highlighting that demand for tech space in Kerala is exceptionally high, Shri Seeram Sambasiva Rao, Special Secretary, Department of Electronics & IT, said the IT Department have lined up initiatives to address the problem by bringing in major co-developers to the state.
“IT Parks in Kerala stand as symbols of excellence, and we want to create IT space and infrastructure that outpaces demand, not merely keeps up with it,” Shri Rao noted in his keynote address at the Diginext Summit 2025, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with Technopark, here. The theme of the day-long summit was ‘Bridging Industries: Powering the Future.”
Shri Rao said Kerala’s technology ecosystem is at an inflection point, and the IT Department is focusing on a proper vision, mission and enough systems to drive this movement forward. According to him, developers in real estate and commercial sectors have identified IT and technology as domains of tremendous opportunities, and there are many co-developer proposals in the pipeline. He said the land acquisition process will start soon in the capital city to set up two new IT Parks along the National Highway through the IT corridor project. He also cited vital projects such as Taurus Downtown Trivandrum and the World Trade Centre on the Technopark Phase-3 campus as examples of the state's sustainable ecosystem.
The Special Secretary said that a 100-crore investment proposal for setting up an IT PlayStation technology and creative technology destination in Kochi has been received.
“In Kochi, we are soon going to have two new spaces added to Infopark by acquiring 50 acres of land parcel from TRACO Cable Company of the Industries Department and initiating a project of setting up an AI-enabled hi-tech city through a land pooling measure,” he said, adding that proposals have been received from major co-developers like HiLITE for developing IT space in Kozhikode.
He also added that the new IT Policy suggests enabling private-sector investment, since the government alone can’t create the IT space that is sought to be promoted in every nook and corner of Kerala. On the occasion, Special Secretary appreciated CII for consistently engaging with the state government, either through policy dialogues on ease-of-doing-business reforms or by conducting such summits to bring together leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs on one platform. Noting that IT and emerging technologies are critical strategic sectors for Kerala, he said we really need to focus on them, as, across the world, boundaries among industries are disappearing —energy meets electronics, transport meets data, and manufacturing meets software.
Shri Sreekumar V, Centre Head, Tata Elxsi, and Secretary, GTECH; Shri Jison John, CEO & MD, Allianz Services India; Shri Hrishikesh Nair, President, World Trade Centre; Shri Nikhil Pradeep, Chairman, CII Thiruvananthapuram Zone; and Shri Rakesh Ramachandran, Convenor, CII DigiTech Panel, were present at the inaugural ceremony. While speaking at a session on ‘Defence & Space-Kerala’s Next Frontier,’ Col Sanjeev Nair (Retd), CEO of Technopark, said unlike earlier, the quantum of equipment imports for Defence has drastically come down now due to the impetus on innovation and indigenization in the country.
“Defence schemes like Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) and Technology Development Fund (TDF) promote innovation by taking challenges from armed forces to the ecosystem and look for solutions. The scenario offers immense opportunities for SMEs, startups and individual innovators,” he noted.
Col. Nair (Retd) added that the quantum of Defence production has gone to Rs 1.5 lakh crore and the bulk of the Defence export is happening from private domain which is an encouraging trend. Shri G Levin, CEO, Kerala Spacepark and Shri Naveen Nair, Head of AI, Armada, were the other panelists at the session, moderated by Shri Ranjith Vijayan, COO, TERRIFIC Minds.
In the session on ‘Automotive Future-Robotaxis, EVs & AI: A New Economy of On-Demand Experiences,’ Shri Rajesh Kumar G, Principal Engineering Manager, Nissan Digital; Shri Binoy Melatt, Director, & TVM Centre Head, Visteon; Shri Shyam Unnithan, GM-Enterprise Data Management, Nissan Digital; and Shri Nibil PM, AVP & Head-Advanced Technology Group, ACIS Technologies, shared their insights.
Other speakers at the summit included Vice Admiral Sreekumar Nair (Rtd), MD, Keltron; Ms Bincy Baby, Vice Chairperson, CII Thiruvananthapuram Zone; Shri Praveen Viswanath, Chief Architect/AI & Data Strategy; Shri Varghese Cherian, Head-Technology Services, UST; Shri Brijesh Madhavan, Founder Director, Data Science Academy; Shri Sijo Joseph Louis, Founder & CEO, Innoneur IT Ventures; Shri James Coelho, GM, Consolidated Techware; Shri Advin Netto, UX Designer, Google; and Shri Sreekumar Pillai, Co-Founder & CTO, Experion Technologies.