By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, July 3, 2018: Google is exploring ways to collaborate with the Odisha government for promoting startups in the state to the next level.

Odisha aims to emerge as one of the country’s top three startup hubs by 2020, and to facilitate at least 1,000 start-ups over the next five years.

Google Startup programme has tied up with Karnataka, Goa and Telangana. Google, under its Cloud Startup Program provides free credits to new companies so that the start-ups can focus on building a business and let Google take the responsibility of scaling and securing their infrastructure. The start-ups have to meet certain criteria.

“We are in discussion with Google for collaborations under the different programmes of the internet giant. We are exploring similar partnership with Google”, said a government official.

About 250 startups in Odisha could partner with Google for mentoring, officials said adding that on an average, the state is recognizing 20 new start-ups under the Start-Up Odisha initiative. Out of the total startups recognized by the state government, 50 are in the tech domain, he added.

The state is also planning to start the second leg of the startup Odisha Yatra in October. In the first phase about 50 institutions were covered in the 15 out of the 30 districts in the state. Plans are afoot to cover the balance in October to promote grass root level innovations.

For facilitating ease of doing business to the stressed companies, Odisha has relaxed criterion for startups from five years to seven years in general and 10 years in case of biotechnology startups.