By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar August 2, 2018: The capital city here will have a next generation incubation centre for electronics and IT startups in the state with Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan and Union minister for Electronics & IT and Law & Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad scheduled to inaugurate the new centre here on Saturday.

The new centre is located at the Software Technology Parks of India’s (STPI’s) new facility on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

The new STPI campus to be inaugurated will also house STPI’s Fabrication Lab (Fab Lab) and ESDM Incubation, data centre to cater the need of the IT, ITES and ESDM industries.

“The state-of-the-art incubation centre can accommodate more than 100 entrepreneurs and offers many facilities beyond plug and play models, which are new in the state. The incubation centre will also have a fabrication laboratory facility where entrepreneurs in electronics sector can develop prototypes of their products,” said Manas Ranjan Panda, Jurisdictional Director (Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand), STPI.

“The fabrication laboratory is one-of-its-kind facility in the country for entrepreneurs in electronics sector. STPI has tied up with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, which will provide technical support, mentoring and equipment to the startups,” Panda added.

The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, also has built a secondary data centre for the National Data Repository (NDR).

“It is the replica of NDR, which is established at Noida. The new data centre is the backup of the data stored at the NDR to avoid any exigencies. It will not only help the students but also geologists for exploration and production of oil,” said Shiladitya Bhattacharjee, general manager (human resources), DGH.

Earlier on June 28, 2017, the Union government had started the functioning of the Integrated Centralized Data Repository to promote and preserve data regarding the exploration and production of petroleum products in India. The Secondary Data Centre (SDC), which is going to be operational at STPI Gothapatna, Bhubaneswar, will be operated under the Primary Data Centres’ Disaster Recovery Centre at Noida.

“The centre at Bhubaneswar will help students of geology, researchers, academicians as well as various companies. They will be able to conduct data analytics and research based on data available on exploration and production of petroleum products in India,” stated an official release.

STPI Incubation Program will offer other modern facilities like network operation centre, high speed data communication, cloud services, semi furnished and co-working IT space, convention hall, conference, language lab, cafeteria, business lounge, amphitheatre and modern building management and other common service and facilities.

Besides, the STPI-Bhubaneswar will also have a data centre for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) department, industries and local IT entrepreneurs.

The STPI campus spread across in an area of three acres has been constructed with an estimated investment of Rs 40 crore and there are plans to spend Rs 100 crore on the facilities.

STPI has three fully operational centres in Odisha at Bhubaneswar, Rourkela and Berhampur.

The Software Technology Park of India (STPI) is coming up with five new centres at Balasore, Angul, Jajpur, Koraput and Sambalpur. “The software export from the state has crossed Rs 3800 crore last year and it is increasing every year,” Panda pointed out.